Product Platform in Social Marketing (C7)

Product, not promotion, is the most important component of the marketing mix.
Offer benefits, not just fear.
Offer tangible goods or services to help them perform a behavior, not just a brochure.

Understand the First “P” (Product) in social marketing.
Learn about developing the Social Marketing Product Platform.
- Core Product
- Actual Product
- Augmented Product
Explore Design Thinking.
Understand Branding in social marketing.
Consider Ethical Considerations for Product Platform.

A product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need.
It can be a physical good, a service, an experience, an event, a person, a place, a property, an organization, information, or an idea.
In social marketing, major product elements include:
- The benefit the priority audience wants in exchange for performing the behavior.
- Any goods and services you will be promoting to your audience.
- Any additional product elements you will include to assist your audience in performing the behavior.
Goods are usually consumed or utilized, while services are intangible and do not result in ownership.

Traditional marketing theory identifies three product levels:
- Core product.
- Actual product.
- Augmented product.
Core product: the benefit the priority audience wants and expects in exchange for performing the behavior.
Actual product: any goods or services you will be influencing your priority audience to “buy.”
Augmented product: any additional product elements that you may develop, distribute, sell, or just promote.

The core product is the center of the product platform.
Addresses the following questions:
- What's in it for the customer to adopt the behavior?
- What benefits will customers receive?
- What needs will the desired behavior satisfy?
- What problems will it solve?
It is not the behavior itself, but the benefits the audience wants and expects to experience when performing the behavior.
The service-dominant logic model asserts that a product has value only when a customer “uses” it.
Value (core product) is determined by the customer, not the marketer.
Example: People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!
Example: No smoking campaign.

The specific tangible goods or services you want your audience to acquire, consume, participate in, and/or utilize—those related to the desired behavior.
May be existing goods or services offered by:
- A for-profit company (e.g., fruits and vegetables).
- A nonprofit organization (e.g., rapid HIV/AIDS test).
- A governmental agency (e.g., community swimming pool).
- Services to the community (e.g., Road Crew)
Example: Experience by Sri Lanka in diabetes campaign. They called it a F’Poon, as in fact it was a serrated spoon that looked and functioned more like a fork than a spoon, designed to decrease sugar consumption.

Additional components at the actual-product level may include:
- Brand names developed for the behavior (e.g., 5 a Day).
- The campaign's sponsoring organization (e.g., Produce for Better Health Foundation).
- Any endorsements and sponsors (e.g., National Cancer Institute or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Example: Text4baby, a free mobile information service providing pregnant women and moms with information to influence them to perform behaviors.

This level includes any additional product elements you will be providing and/or promoting along with the actual product.
Although optional, these elements can:
- Provide encouragement (e.g., a walking buddy).
- Remove barriers (e.g., a detailed resource guide and map of local walking trails and organized walking programs).
- Sustain behavior (e.g., a journal for tracking exercise levels).
They may also provide opportunities to brand and to “tangibilize” the campaign.
Example: Walk Boston – safe walking environment campaign.

Decisions regarding tangible goods:
- Is there a need for new tangible goods that would greatly support the behavior change? (e.g., diabetes finger-prick blood tests).
- Do current tangible goods need to be improved or enhanced? (e.g., compost bins).

Services are often distinguished as offerings that are intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything.
Examples:
- Education-related services (e.g., parenting workshops on how to talk to your kids about sex).
- Personal services (e.g., escorts for students back to their dorms at night).
- Counseling services (e.g., a crisis line for people considering suicide).
- Clinical services (e.g., community clinics for free immunizations).

Should a new service be developed and offered?
- Example: toll-free tobacco quitlines to support smoking cessation.
Does an existing service need to be improved or enhanced?
- Example: 800 number for questions about recycling.

Core Product (Benefits)	Actual Product (Desired behavior)	Augmented Product (Tangible object/service)
Savings someone’s life	Become an organ donor	National Organ Donor Card
Protection from physical abuse	Call for help if you are being abused	Help line for domestic abuse
Natural immunities for infants and mother child bonding	Breastfeed exclusively for the first 6 months	In-home nurse consultation
Reduced levels of carbon dioxide in the air	Conserve electricity	Lightbulbs with the ENERGY STAR label

Design focuses on making a product attractive, easy to use, and more marketable.
Design thinking focuses less on an object and more on an approach to designing products that fulfill human desires, solve problems, and create world-changing innovation.
Design thinking is consistent with the product platform, where we begin with determining the core product.
What benefits do they say they want the behavior to provide?
Then, we move on to determining the features of tangible goods and services (actual and augmented products).
Here is when and where we apply the elements of design—shape, size, color, sound, texture, process—to arrive at the actual features of the physical object or service.

Brand: a name, term, sign, symbol, and/or design that identifies the maker or seller of a product (e.g. ENERGY STAR).
Branding in social marketing is not as common.
Focusing on branding in social marketing helps create visibility and ensure memorability.