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Promoting mental health through social marketing

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JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

PROMOTING MENTAL HEALTH THROUGH SOCIAL MARKETING

*
Anwar Khan,**RosmanMd Yusoff and **Dr. Fayaz Ali Shah
*
Assistant Professor,Department of Management Sciences,Khushal Khan Khattak University,
Karak,Email: akpashtoon1981@gmail.com .
**
Professor,Pusat Pengajian Umum dan Kokurikulum,Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia,
Malaysia.
***
Assistant Professor,Islamia College Peshawar.

ABSTRACT

Nowadays mental health problems are of increasing social concern as it hampers normal
working lives of the people living in technologically complex world. Due to lack of awareness
among people about their mental health status, the problem gets worse, especially in a society
where mental sickness is considered as stigma. Different practices have been developed to create
awareness among public regarding their mental health, among which social marketing has been
recommended as most innovative dynamic approach to encourage socially beneficial behaviors
in society. The current study is a non-systematic narrative review of related literature. It aims at
reviewing key terms related to social marketing, public health and mental illness for
understanding the mechanism through which social marketing can educate people to improve
their individual mental health. The findings from this article will be beneficial to common man
and professionals in public health to successfully tackle issues related to mental health.

Key Words: Social Marketing; Public Health, Mental Health Promotion, Mental Illness

INTRODUCTION

The mental health problems are alarmingly increasing among the general population.
According to the World Health Organization around the globe about 350 million people are
affected by depression. Similarly, approximately 60 million are affected by Bipolar Affective
Disorder, 47.5 by Dementia and 21 million by Schizophrenia disorder (WHO, 2016a). It is
expected that the pace of mental health problems will continue to increase in the forthcoming
years as we are gradually moving towards a more complex and modern life (Weiten, Dunn, &
Hammer, 2014). The mental health problems affect human beings ruthlessly and indiscriminately
across race, religion, nationality or gender. Moreover they have a considerably life altering
impact by causing tolls of loss and disability of different kinds ranging from social to economic
(Pike, Susser, Galea, & Pincus, 2013). Different techniques have been developed by the
researcher for creating awareness among the public regarding their mental health, among which
social marketing has been recommended as the most innovative and dynamic approach to
encourage socially beneficial behaviors in society. The social marketing uses commercial
marketing techniques for influencing the health behavior of an individual. Social Marketing uses
a broad range of health communication strategies like use of mass media, using interpersonal
mode of communication and promotional techniques at community level to promote public
JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

health. For this reason the social marketing is very effective on a population level (Evans, 2006).
The current article is non-systematic narrative review of literature. This methodology was
adopted because it is less structured and it provides more freedom in collecting relevant information on
the topic of study (Arora, 2011). This article has briefly reviewed the basic concepts related to
social marketing, public health and mental illness for understanding the mechanism through
which social marketing can educate people about their mental health problems. This article has
also given benefits of improved mental health. The findings from this article will be beneficial to
common man and professional in the public health to successfully tackle the issues related to
mental health in society.

Global Rise in Mental Health Problems

There is an overall increase in the mental health problems across the globe. According to
World Health Organization, around 676 million people are currently suffering from different
mental disorders (it was 450 million in year 2001), thus placing mental health problems as one
of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Such figures are expected to further increase in
future because 40% of the countries don't have the basic facilities for the treatment of mental
health illnesses (WHO, 2001, 2016b). The global rates of Disability Adjusted Life Years
(DALYs) per 100000 person for mental health problems in the year 2010 show that depressive
disorder has a high proportion of the total burden across all countries of the world. The eating
disorder had higher regional variations, where it was 40 times higher in Australasia than in
western sub Saharan African region. The alcohol use problem varied ten times between different
regions. The overall rate of mental health problem was high in Eastern Europen, Central Asian
and North Amerian regions as clear from Figure 1.
JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

Figure 1. Global rates of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) per 100000. Source:
(Whiteford et al., 2013)

The rapid increase in mental health problems is due to global technological changes that
have made the life of common person a complex one. The human beings are trying hard to adjust
to the needs of modern life. It is promoting the idea that human beings should be successful both
financially and socially. Moreover, people should be good looking, popular, well liked and
respected and should have status within their communities. Such standards of modern society are
further complicated by other individual factors like learning helplessness, thinking passively,
boredom and fear of isolation. In most of the cases, people cannot meet such standards of
modern life and they feel dehumanized, thus the chances of developing any type of mental health
problem are increased.

Social marketing: an emerging concept

Social marketing is a systematic process that utilizes marketing techniques for
communicating messages through value creation for influencing the behavior of target audiences
to benefit the society as a whole (Kotler, Lee, & Rothschild, 2006). This definition implies that
social marketing is a distinct discipline within the field of marketing, moreover, it relies on the
tools and techniques of marketing for communicating messages to public for creating social
awareness regarding the different aspect of society. All of these efforts aim at the welfare of
society as a whole. To achieve this aim, the needs and interests of the target market are initially
analyzed and then satisfied accordingly for ensuring the well being of society. Thus, the primary
aim of social marketing is "social good". This conceptualization of social marketing denotes
“two dimensions”, i.e. Social dimension and marketing dimension. The social dimension consists
of all aspects of society, like culture, religion, politics and legal. Whereas the marketing aspect
consists of the use of the approaches and principals of marketing. The both dimensions are
combined together to study the society from a broader perspective for changing the social
behavior of public towards betterment of society (Jeff French & Blair-Stevens, 2010a).

Social marketing is a dynamic and evolving approach, that originated during late 1960s
and early 1970s. In early times, it was viewed as commercial marketing in the public sector.
However, later on it was differentiated from commercial marketing in terms of its objectives, i.e.
Commercial marketing focuses at creating finances whereas the social marketing aims “social
good”. Thus, the social marketing works for the betterment of society through the use of tools of
marketing, social sciences and social policy. This means that instead of competing with the
practices of such fields, the social marketing integrates with them and gains a holistic status
(Aiden Truss, 2010). For this reason, the social marketing has immense potential to influence the
social behavior of public such as smoking, drug use and personal hygene (Evans, 2006).

The social marketing is used both at operational and strategic levels. At operational level,
the social marketing is applied as a planned process or campaign for achieving specific
behavioral goals, i.e. tangible and measurable impacts on behavior. Most often, the operational
level is for short term. Whereas at strategic level, the social marketing is used in assisting policy
JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

and strategy formulation, development and implementation process. The strategic process is for
the long term, even extended up to ten to fifteen years (Jeff French & Blair-Stevens, 2010b).
Promoting mental health through social marketing
Nowadays, the social marketing has been applied to a broad array of public health
activities that ranges from small level campaigns like promoting personal hygiene or safe water
drinking to big level programs like polio eradication (Grier & Bryant, 2005). It is because social
marketing offers an effective approach to disseminate information to target audience for
influencing their behavior in a positive direction (Coreil, 2010). Moreover, social marketing fills
the communication gaps between public health personnels and customers by tackling the
competition between the prevention and curative services (Birkinshaw, 2016). In this regard, the
voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange process as shown in figure 2 can better explain how
social marketing can help in promoting public health. Actually, exchange and mutual benefits for
satisfaction of needs is the central theme of marketing, therefore, in a public health system this
exchange occurs between the health promoter (supplier) and the customer (public). The figure 2
shows that health promoter communicates the health services related information (procedure for
disease prevention and cure) to the targeted customers. In return, the customers give their
feedback to the health promoter regarding their status of their health and well being. Moreover,
the healthy customers (public) are in a better position to contribute towards the betterment of
society by generating better means of prosperous life.

Communication

Health related products

& services

Health Promoter Customer

(Supplier) (Public)

Better public health and

welfare

Feedback

Figure 2. Mutually beneficial exchange process, Source: Adapted from Marketing

Exchange system by Kotler, P (1988)

It should be kept in mind that the communication channels have greatly changed, moreover,
the public health personnel are facing other challenges like customer diversity, health products
& services diversity, geographic inaccessibility and intensive use of electronic modes of
information processing. Therefore, a multidimensional approach should be used for attaining
better results. In this regard behavioral, exposure and persuasion theories can either be used
JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

separately or in a combined way to target change in the health risk behavior of public (Evans,
2006).

Mental health is one of the integral part of public health system, therefore, promotion of
mental health and prevention of mental illnesses are some of main objectives of public health
and social marketing (Sturgeon, 2006). The social marketing efforts (combined with public
health) try to foster the individual and community resources, competencies and strengths to
identify, prevent and cure the mental disorders for promoting well being in communities. The
typical mental health promotion strategies include health enhancement strategies (Wang, Yi,
Tao, & Carovano, 2008), strategies for creation of supportive environment through parenting
interventions (Duncan & Magnuson, 2004), community strengthening strategies through public
participation (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2005) and strategies for development of personal skills
(developing interpersonal communication) (Routledge, Carmichael, Personnel, & Development,
2007).

A social marketing program for promoting mental health can be developed by adapting the
ten step social marketing campaign as devised by Lee & Kotler (2011). Following are the detail
steps of social marketing program:
Step 01: Define the background, purpose, and focus of the social marketing program by
explaining questions like what mental health issues are going to be addressed? Among which
population? How much time will be needed for completion? And what will be the expected
benefits of the program?
Step 02: Conduct situation analysis for knowing the overall environment in which the mental
health program will be launched. The situation analysis includes the detail review of individual
(demographic factors) and societal factors (cultural, religious, political and legal).
Step 03: The detailed description of the target audience should be given, including
demographics, geographics, relevant behaviors, lifestyle, norms, values and social networks.
Step 04: Give details about the mental health behaviors of target audience that will be
influenced. Moreover, the desired behavioral outcomes should be outlined.
Step 05: Give details about the target audience barrier and benefits after adopting the desired
behavior.
Step 06: Give the positioning statement for explaining that how a particular metal health
behavior should be seen by mentioning its unique benefits and value proposition.
Step 07: The marketing mix should be elaborated by giving details of the mental health related
products and services, the associated costs for delivery of these products, the place where these
products should be delivered and the promotional strategies should be given to explain the
decisions about messages, messengers, media channels, etc.
Step 08: The budgetary details should be given by explaining the overall expenses and other
costs associated with the program.
Step 09: Implement the program by explaining who will do what? Also explain the roles and
responsibilities of each participant in the program.
Step 10: After implementation, then consistently monitor it by recording the outcomes and also
feedback from the customers. This monitoring should be done for collecting enough information
for evaluation of the overall program.
The benefits of mental health promotion are multifold. These benefits can be achieved through
the initial prevention of mental illnesses and later on with the promotion of positive mental
JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

health (Min, Lee, & Lee, 2013). The prevalence rate of mental illnesses is higher as compared to
other diseases, moreover, mental illnesses prevail for long duration, resultantly their affects are
also lifelong. Therefore, the prevention of mental illnesses can help in reducing the prevalence
rate and other associated effects of mental illnesses (Lynne Friedli & Parsonage, 2009). On the
other side the benefits of promoting positive mental health are achieved by creating a healthly
prosperous society. Other positive outcomes of good mental health include increased life
expectancy, e.g. One study found that there was 7.5 years increase in longevity (Danner,
Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001); better physical health, as improved mental health can help in
preventing diseases like diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke and respiratory disease (Barr,
van de Hoer, Colls, Scheurer, & McGrath, 2001); work related benefits like increased
productivity as good mental health increases performance and reduces absenteeism (Lynne
Friedli & Parsonage, 2009); societal benefits include pro-social behavior (Pressman & Cohen,
2005), better education (Keyes, 2002) and reduced crimes (Whitley & Prince, 2005).

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROMOTING MENTAL HEALTH

In general, the current study recommends the following guild lines for promoting mental
health among the public:
1. The public should get awareness about their mental health through different media or other
sources, as getting awareness is 1st step towards learning about mental health. It will help in
developing personal skills regarding preventing oneself from mental illnesses by taking early
interventions.
2. At individual level, adoption of a healthy life style is key to positive mental health. The
individual should take care about their daily routine, adjust their circadian rhythm and set a
balance diet. The individual should engage in regular sport and exercise activities.
3. At institutional level, the organizations should provide a healthy working place to their
employees, so that individuals as employees can be saved from the physical stressors existing
within an organization that negatively affect the mental health of the employees.
4. At governmental level, the policy makers should actively engage in building healthly public
policy for promoting positive mental health of the public.
5. The government should strengthen the community actions regarding promotion of mental
health.
6. The research based organizations should promote a community based participatory research
for building capacities within the communities for coping with mental health problems.
7. The organizations engaged in information technology should promote the electronic
mechanism for facilitating the virtual community health promotion.

CONCLUSION
The mental health is one of the important aspects of human life. Improved mental health
condition is basic prerequisite of a prosperous society. Currently researchers are using different
techniques for developing awareness about mental health. Among these techniques social
marketing has been recommended as the most innovative and dynamic approach to encourage
socially beneficial behaviors in society. It is because social marketing is considered as most
effective technique, because it uses a broad range of health communication strategies and
promotional techniques to promote public health. It is therefore concluded that mental health can
be successfully promoted by the use of social marketing approaches. In this regard using the
JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE & BUSINESS STUDIES(Peshawar) Volume 1,Issue 2, July-Dec 2016

exchange and mutual benefits mechanism can be help in promoting positive mental health. The
individuals in society can get information about the mental health from public health promoter.
In return, the customers give their feedback to the health promoter regarding their status of their
health and well being. Moreover, the healthy public is in a better position to contribute towards
the betterment of society by generating better means of prosperous life.

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