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The Importance of Formative Research in Social Marketing

The main focus of social marketing is on the application of well-known marketing tools and techniques to foster positive social change (Wymer 2011). Frameworks have been suggested to guide social marketing practice and all acknowledge the importance of formative research (for examples see Lefebvre and Flora 1988; Walsh et al. 1993; Andreasen 2002; French and Blair-Stevens 2005; Robinson-Maynard 2013). For example, Andreasen (2002) explains that formative research helps to ensure an understanding of the consumer and orientation of the intervention toward them. This is expanded further in the French and Blair-Stevens (2005) framework which defines two benchmarks (customer orientation and insight) to extend understanding and application of formative research. According to the French and Blair-Stevens (2005) framework customer orientation refers to a focus on the audience to fully understand their lives and behaviour with the use of a mix of data sources and research methods recommended. Considering that the insight criterion states that “customer research identifies ‘actionable insights’—pieces of understanding that will lead intervention development” (French and Blair-Stevens 2005), the addition of a second criterion, i.e. customer orientation, orients practice to the target audience.

While social marketing has been used to combat problem behaviours for over 40 years (Lefebvre 2011) and effectiveness of the approach is widely documented (Stead et al. 2007), recent systematic literature reviews (Carins and Rundle-Thiele 2014; Kubacki et al. 2015a, b, c; Fujihira et al. 2015) indicate room for improvement in the application of social marketing remains; social marketing interventions rarely report use of all six of Andreasen’s (2002) benchmark criteria. Given that behaviour change and positive outcomes are more likely when more of the social marketing benchmarks are used (Carins and Rundle-Thiele 2014), full use of all six social marketing benchmarks is recommended. Closer examination of those systematic literature reviews indicates incomplete use of formative research in social marketing programs. According to the Kubacki et al. (2015b) review, for example, seven out of the twenty-three programs targeting children under the age of 12 years did not incorporate formative research into their study design.

As noted in Rundle-Thiele et al. (2013), critical reflection on the last 40 years of social marketing provides a platform for consolidation of valuable principles and practices, and issues a challenge to further enhance practice. The last 40 years shows widespread use of surveys and focus groups as means to understand what consumers think. Consider the Kubacki et al. (2015b) review that assessed social marketing interventions targeting children under the age of 12 years—focus groups (n = 9), interviews (n = 8) and surveys (n = 8) were the most popular methods of formative research reported in the 23 interventions assessed. A critical assessment of formative research methods indicates continued dominant use of surveys and focus groups despite calls to extend methods used being made more than 10 years ago (Grier and Bryant 2005). The reliance on self-report methods such as interviews and focus groups limits findings owing to social desirability, memory and other biases (see Baumgartner and Steenkamp 2006). Further, the methods employed continue to limit insights to a downstream or individual view (Wymer 2011).

Social marketing has more recently begun to take a more ecological view of behaviour, and this requires examining multiple levels of influence—personal, social and environmental (Brennan et al. 2016). In order to understand how the individual is influenced by their surrounding social and built environments, alternate research methods are needed. Social marketing researchers and practitioners must heed long-standing calls to ensure that formative research is embedded into practice, that methods used are reported in all cases and perhaps most importantly, the methods used extend beyond surveys and focus groups. As stated by Andreasen (2002), application of formative research helps to instil an understanding of the consumer and surrounding influences (social and environmental) and subsequent orientation of the intervention toward them.

Customer Orientation: A Philosophical Approach

Since Theodore Levitt (1960) proposed a link between a market orientation and business survival in a paper called ‘Marketing Myopia,’ marketing has, indeed, become the driving force in many successful organisations. According to Narver and Slater (1990) firms with a market or external orientation (also termed a bottom-up approach) perform better than firms without a market orientation (typically characterised by a top-down approach or internal focus).

When practised to its full extent social marketing is a philosophical approach that puts the target audience at the heart of all decisions and is framed by competition (which can be direct and indirect). Rather than asking which idea should we communicate, marketers who adopt best practice social marketing thinking ask ‘what would our target audience value or like us to offer?’ Marketing is a learning process, an art form and, importantly, a science. Marketers need to learn what the target audience wants and needs and solutions should be delivered accordingly. This is an ongoing process, as target audience preferences are continually evolving, and satisfaction with the offering needs to be monitored to ensure that audience expectations are met and adjustments continue over time in response to market changes. Target audience needs and wants change with each product purchased, service consumed, magazine read, competitor action and reaction, conversation had or television program watched. Social marketers therefore use information to understand and later monitor consumer preferences, desires and actions. Social marketers must be creative, responsive, adaptive, fast, and able to develop new ideas ensuring that the offering is superior to competing alternatives. Markets are cluttered and there are many options available to the target audience. The best social marketers are able to attract attention and deliver something over time that is more highly valued than competing alternatives for the target audience.

Taking the Other Side

Mill (1989, p. 38) was once quoted as saying, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little.” Mill’s words succinctly capture the importance of an external or customer orientation as a philosophical approach that places the customer at the centre of design, planning and evaluation. In order to know the other side social marketers must employ marketing formative research—to be immersed in the other side of the social issues we are attempting to solve—the side that is perceived, lived and experienced by the target audiences, sponsors, partners and other stakeholders that we work with and, most crucially, the society at large. Formative research is the process used by social marketers to gain insights and understanding about the very issue(s) they are seeking to influence and change, and as most social issues are complex problems, a single-perspective and one-method approach will rarely provide us with a sufficient understanding. For an example of a case study that demonstrates how mixed methods were used in a formative research study to generate a broader understanding of the consumer and the context in which they behave, and to inform the development of a social marketing program designed to change eating behaviour, please see Carins et al. (forthcoming).

Top-down, expert-driven programs designed and implemented with no or limited formative research are the antithesis of social marketing. As Lefebvre and Flora argued in 1988, “Social marketing principles are especially well-suited for the task of translating necessarily complex educational messages and behaviour change techniques into concepts and products that will be received and acted upon by a large segment of the population” (pp. 300–301). Therefore consumer-focused formative research that goes beyond relying only on traditional epidemiological data should drive the process of identifying, translating and adapting social marketing solutions to the challenges of everyday life.

As proposed by Andreasen (2002) in his six social marketing benchmark criteria, audience research that attempts to unpack multiple dimensions and complexities of social problems should be an important part of any social marketing program. Extending further, we consider all research carried out before, during and after a social marketing program to have some formative dimensions. Formative research can be used in social marketing to understand audiences before the program is designed and executed, during the program to monitor and inform the ongoing delivery of the program, and following the completion of the program (referred to by Walsh et al. (1993) as the formative evaluation process) to inform future program planning and design.

Some of the methods discussed in this book may be more commonly used in research aiming to inform future social marketing programs (e.g. interviews, focus groups and projective techniques), while others are more suited to research aiming to monitor ongoing programs and to evaluate completed programs (e.g. surveys, observations and diaries). Yet, all formative research methods outlined in this book help us develop and implement programs that are designed with and for the other side. By focusing on the other side social marketers are able to reduce the number of costly mistakes due to their comprehensive understanding of people’s everyday lives and the needs, values, motivations and the surrounding environments that drive them.

Structure of the Book

For us, there is no doubt that formative research is an integral element of social marketing, and we contend that formative research should be an important part of every social marketing program. Employment of a wide variety of formative research methods arms us with an understanding of current best practice in social marketing and challenges conventional thinking to generate unique and new consumer insights that are capable of delivering sustained behaviour change. Formative Research in Social Marketing aims to provide a resource for social marketing academics, research students and practitioners by serving as a handbook detailing the current state of knowledge of the many innovative formative research methods that are currently underreported in the social marketing literature.

In the next chapter, Heather Skinner starts with an informative exploration of action research, a method that goes beyond generating knowledge, employing knowledge during the research process. With its emphasis on empowerment of participants, collaboration through participation, acquisition of knowledge and social change, action research appears to have much in common with social marketing. To conclude this chapter, Heather provides a real-world action research project which attempted to test whether allowing residents to drink on the premises of a hostel would lead to more stability of accommodation for chronic homeless.

“Approaching Big Data: Harnessing App Information in Social Marketing” looks into one of the most passionately debated approaches to research, which nevertheless has not attracted sufficient attention among social marketing researchers—the use of big data to inform and develop social marketing interventions. Felix Acker and Sarah Saunders, using the example of VicHealth’s TeamUp app, show us how something as complex as big data can be used without expensive specialist expertise. Reflecting on their work with a database containing more than three million entries, the authors discuss their analytical approach and some of the key insights they managed to achieve.

In Chapter “The Consumer Diaries Research Method”, Dariusz Siemieniako focuses on a research method that can be used independently or in combination with other research methods—the diary method. Exploring different types and formats of diaries the author highlights the key advantages as well as drawbacks of consumer diaries. The chapter concludes with a case study reflecting on a multi-method project involving consumer diaries and focus groups interviews. The case study provides a detailed description of the data collection process, and reflects on some of the key benefits of using the diary method in the research project.

In Chapter “Depth Interviews and Focus Groups”, Micael-Lee Johnstone presents an overview of the most commonly used qualitative research methods in social marketing—depth interviews and focus groups interviews. The author provides us with a clear set of steps that need to be followed in conducting formative research using both methods, from problem identification to data analysis. Interwoven in this chapter are two case studies detailing important stages of a research project: (1) exploring pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours and (2) the role of social environment in shaping consumers’ green practices. The chapter includes a moderator’s guide that can be used by social marketing researchers as an example when planning their own data collection.

Jane McKay-Nesbitt and Namita Bhatnagar discuss in Chapter “Experimental Methods” the use of experimental research in social marketing to uncover cause-effect relationships. This chapter presents a wealth of examples illustrating the use of experiments in social marketing. Starting with an explanation of the concept of causality, the authors explain how to structure both lab and field experiments. The discussion then focuses on three commonly used experimental designs: pre-experimental, true experimental and quasi-experimental designs. The chapter concludes with an overview of key challenges in using experimental methods in formative research and identifies several opportunities for experimental research in social marketing.

“Visual Observation Techniques” and “Mechanical Observation Research in Social Marketing and Beyond” explore the world of observational techniques. While most of the frequently used methods in social marketing formative research methods rely on self-reports of behaviour, an important advantage of observational research is the focus on the actual behaviours as they happen in their natural contexts. First, Julia Carins introduces us to the process of carrying out visual observations of behaviour. In Chapter “Visual Observation Techniques”, she explores the six dimensions of behaviour that can be measured by direct visual observation—presence, frequency, time, pattern, process and interaction—providing practical examples of how each of them can be used in social marketing. The chapter ends with a description of an observational study focusing on the food selections made by military personnel within a buffet-style dining room.

In Chapter “Social Marketing Research and Cognitive Neuroscience”, Svetlana Bogomolova continues with the discussion on observational techniques, turning her attention to mechanical observation research, i.e. observations that use some form of technology for data collection and recording. Some of the mechanical observation techniques discussed in this chapter include loyalty card schemes, scanner research panels, observations using CCTV, mechanical people counters, Bluetooth and Wifi trackers, TV and internet usage trackers, eye-tracking and field-of-vision cameras, physical activity trackers and last but not least, virtual reality tools. Although the cost of many of these technologies is still prohibitive to social marketers, the chapter concludes with a recommendation for more collaborative work between social marketing researchers and industry partners who own the equipment or collect the data on an ongoing basis.

In Chapter “Social Marketing Research and Cognitive Neuroscience” readers can find a fascinating overview of another approach that is rarely used in social marketing research—cognitive neuroscience. Ross Gordon and Joseph Ciorciari provide a brief overview of four techniques: Electroencephalography (EEG), Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Magnetoencephalography (MEG), and eye tracking methods. Later a review of some of the most important marketing studies employing cognitive neuroscience is provided along with implications for social marketing. The chapter concludes with a case study using EEG to pre-test videos about energy efficiency before concluding with key considerations for the use of cognitive neuroscience in social marketing.

Projective techniques are discussed in the following chapter. Chapter “Projective Techniques” provides an overview of the pros and cons of projective techniques and includes a brief description of the five main categories of projective techniques: association, completion, construction, expressive and choice ordering. After reviewing five formative studies using different projective techniques, the authors offer a case study of a multi-method project using one of the most popular projective techniques—collages—to investigate a sensitive topic of university students’ associations between alcohol consumption and sexual behaviours.

The importance of learning from past studies conducted by other social marketing brings us to our next chapter—Dao Truong and Nam Dang’s example of a systematic literature review in social marketing. The authors show us how a systematic literature review can be used to identify and review large quantities of data and information from sources in a public domain, such as journal articles and research reports, to answer a research question. In their case study, they introduce us to the process of a systematic literature review and describe the results of their analysis of 166 social marketing health interventions. The chapter concludes with an informative review of the objectives of formative research as well as theories and methods used in formative research reported in the 166 interventions.

Chapter “Survey for Formative Research” takes us on a journey through one of the most commonly used formative research methods in social marketing—surveys. The popularity of surveys is not a coincidence, and as Michael Basil argues, they permit information to be gathered on a large number of people for a relatively low cost, making them the most obvious choice for many social marketers. Taking as an example the Porter Novelli HealthStyles survey, the chapter shows how, by focusing on a growing range of health behaviours, the survey has been used to study different health styles, food choices, and alcohol consumption, attitudes toward breastfeeding and multiple other health-related attitudes and behaviours.

The following chapter explores another two research methods that remain underutilised in social marketing: Videography and Netnography. Originating from the practice of participant observation, videography uses audio-visual images while Netnography relies on online data. Two leading researchers in these respective fields, Russell Belk and Robert Kozinets, use several examples of past research to introduce us to various aspects of conducting videographic and Netnographic research to gain insights. The chapter includes general advice and more technical tips for social marketing researchers who are considering using these methods.

Chapter “Case Studies in Formative Research” completes our book, with Rowena Merritt and Michelle Vogel introducing us to six case studies describing the use of focus groups, individual interviews, text messaging, observations, video booth and photo diaries in formative research to gain insights into behaviours as diverse as reducing drink driving, decreasing the prevalence of STIs and HIV through changing gender norms, breastfeeding, reducing new-born mortality, preventing graffiti vandalism and youth alcohol consumption. The authors provide us with fascinating examples of how much social marketers can learn from reviewing past case studies of formative research. Formative research does not always need to involve costly primary data collection—as this chapter shows, desk research can start with learning from other social marketers.

Conclusion

In 2005 Grier and Bryant asserted that social marketing would benefit from rigorous formative research, improved research methodologies and a greater reliance on mixed methods to pursue evidence-based social marketing programs. We hope that by bringing together a wide range of different formative research methods—those commonly used by social marketing researchers as well as methods that remain on the outskirts of social marketing—in this book, we can encourage social marketing practitioners, academics and students to consider what each of the methods presented here can add to their projects. We believe that for social marketing to be truly faithful to its focus on the audiences and understanding their lives, methodological plurality is the only way to move forward.