Poverty represents something of a meta-issue for the social marketing community. So many of the issues that we tackle through our work can be reduce to consequences of poverty. Indeed, the all-pervasive nature of the problem and its nexus of consequences, renders most of our projects provisional, symptomatic treatments of a problem in lieu of a serious answer to the meta-problem of poverty. (See this for Mohammed Yunus on poverty and peace for a demonstration of the malign ‘reach’ of the poverty problem).

In a keynote address at the World Social Marketing Conference, Philip Kotler outlined some initial parameters in which this answer could be formulated and delivered.

By way of context, he gave the historical background to our current fight against poverty. Early approaches included alms, workhouses and deficit financing. As social, economic and political theory developed the “major” approaches of the last century began to emerge:

1. Market driven economic development
2. Interventionist redistribution
3. Foreign aid (interesting and succinct defense of the efficacy of foreign aid from Jeffrey Sachs here)
4. Population control - from condom promotion to restrictions on child birth

If these are to be considered ideological positions driving policy at the level of state and government, more direct approaches have emerged from attempts to promote “poverty-escaping behaviour” at the micro level – eg micro financing, education (see Greg Mortenson and ‘Three Cups of Tea’) and health (the inspirational work of Paul Farmer recounted in Mountains Beyond Mountains.

Answering the question “why should we care?” – why is poverty reduction such a priority? – Phillip Kotler made it clear that, aside from the self-evident motivation of compassion for fellow human beings, poverty was at the root of most of the challenges currently facing the global community, from anti-social behaviour to failed states.

[‘Partnership’ was one of the salient flavours of the entire conference (I’ll discuss this in more detail in a dedicated post) and I think it’s clear that the role of the market and private sector corporations is a woefully untapped resource at present. We need to radically broaden our understanding of the sorts of mutual benefit that can result from commercial sector involvement in social issues. The old models of philanthropy and PR-driven CSR are an anachronism. I think the concepts and models behind the Total Market Approach are starting to point in some exciting new directions, but Philip Kotlers next point on poverty captured the make-up of this new paradigm perfectly:]

If for no other reason, we should care about getting people out of poverty because they represent a massive, untapped market.

If 4 billion people are currently living in poverty (a combination of “extreme”, “moderate” and “relative”), then there are 4 billion potential consumers of products and services. And the only thing preventing them entering the market, is the fact that they have no money – they cannot buy stuff.

[At a very basic level – not even touching on the more humanitarian considerations regarding the untapped talent and ambition that could be converted into economic activity – this frank acceptance of a non-altruistic, profit-driven motive for bringing about positive social change represents the way forward in terms of private sector involvement in this area and a significant step forward to more solutions that answer key questions of sustainability and scalability.]

In Philip Kotler’s view, we need a cohesive, sustainable framework for tackling poverty, and social marketing is well placed to offer it. Based on number of case studies outlining projects that had successfully tackled the spread of AIDS in Uganda; homelessness in the US; family planning in Romania, low yield crops in Malawi and contraception use in Thailand he proposed the following structural foundation for programmes that can make a difference:

1. Scope and segment
2. Target those who we can help the most
3. Determine specific desired behaviours
4. Develop deep insight – understand wants, needs, beliefs, barriers and understand barriers as competing behaviours, not just commercial brands.
5. Develop strategies that include all 4 Ps
6. Monitor and evaluate

In conclusion, he warned against focusing on the need for a customer-centred approach to the neglect of upstream factors – influencing micro and macro environments are equally important. He also, introduce the concept of ‘midstream’ factors and reminded us not to overlook the power of an individual’s sphere of influence – peers, family, community etc. (I’ll post elsewhere and in more detail on this is tripartite division of down, up and midstream factors and its usefulness as an ‘acetate’ ie a framework to be superimposed over ones we are already using.)

It was encouraging to hear a recommendation the we incorporate the ‘co-creation’ into the social marketers conceptual tool box. Of course, most of us are doing this anyway as a natural extension of a customer-centred approach, but to demarcate the concept as ‘co-creation’ is useful and points to a significant and practical extension of customer-centrism. The co-creation concept is being used to devastating effect by consumer brands and we can all take direction from the ways in which are commercial counterparts are employing it. See here for more on this.