Social Marketing Quarterly

Many theories and models attempt to explain the mechanisms underlying human behavior. In order to maintain an overview of the many aspects involved in communication campaigns, social marketing, and behavior change, the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health has created a metamodel of the impact of its campaigns. This metamodel does not claim to contribute any new findings to behavioral research. Its purpose is primarily to summarize the current state of research in the field in a comprehensive and comprehensible way, with reference to a range of relevant communications, social marketing, and behavior change theories. Dimensions addressed include strategy, processes, and impact, with the final dimension demonstrating the possible ranges of impact from individual to societal and from information to behavior. Social marketers and campaign planners may find this model useful as a planning and evaluation tool for campaigns, programs, or interventions that seek to increase awareness or change behavior. Its focus lies on communication campaigns, while also indicating the limits of campaign efficacy. It makes it clear that campaigns are most effective at the early stages of the behavioral change process, such as capturing attention, while other interventions are more effective at later stages.

This article explores the role of social marketing in achieving health equality and social change in the context of obesity, one of the most serious global public health issues we face today. Social marketing has traditionally taken a downstream focus, targeting individuals to change their behavior. This article takes a critical perspective, supporting moves toward upstream social marketing and applying a socioecological model to social marketing theory. At the macrolevel, the marketing activities of some companies and social–economic environment mean it is difficult for some consumers to make healthy choices—for example, food and drink. At the microlevel, there is robust evidence parenting style and quality of preschool education during the critical early years’ period of child development profoundly influences long-term health and life outcomes. Ecological models enable social marketers and policy makers to understand which interventions are likely to reduce inequality through sustainable, holistic positive behavior change compared with short-term, issue-based programs.

This article describes the development of a social marketing intervention, called “the vegetable box,” aimed at increasing the number of days per week that toddlers in the city of Rotterdam (the Netherlands) eat vegetables. The vegetable box tempts parents to offer vegetables as snacks and provides parents valuable insights on how to tempt their toddlers to give vegetables a try. This article presents the development of the vegetable box through a process of scoping, developing, implementing, evaluating, and follow-up. The vegetable box was evaluated by studying the effect, program, and process. The effect was evaluated by an experimental study with a pre- and posttest design and control group. Main results showed an increase in the number of days per week on which parents served vegetables and children ate them; surprisingly, though, the same result was found in the control condition. This was the first time that the present project team embarked on a social marketing journey. The article concludes with a description of the lessons learned.