Experiencing Social Marketing: An Attitudinal Study on Family Planning in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Abstract
Issue of family planning has gained attention due to its importance in decision-making about population growth and areas related to the overall socio-economic development of a nation. Social marketing, on the other hand, has gained popularity in addressing issues related to change in social behaviors such as family planning, and particular to developing nations like Ethiopia. This study makes an attempt to relate the idea of social marketing, as an approach of bringing attitudinal changes in the behaviors of individuals toward the concept of family planning and usage of contraceptives. Specifically, the objectives include an examination of the role of social marketing-mix in family planning experiences and to compare the attitudes of men and women toward family planning.
In order to gather the primary data, structured (draft) questionnaire was prepared and tested through a pilot-study (with 35 respondents). The final survey comprises 150 respondents, selected accidently by having a quota of 50% for each gender. Factor and reliability analysis were used to test the validity and reliability of the scale items. The result revealed that attitude towards family planning and contraceptives usage found being highly affected by the awareness and responsibility towards society/service usage. Therefore, as the marketing activities like promotion increases, awareness is expected to increase, which finally determines favorable attitude towards family planning products/techniques (e.g., contraceptives).
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Introduction
In the recent years, the rubric of marketing has broadened and researchers started addressing the issues related to social aspects in marketing. Moreover, ‘idea marketing’ has been labeled ‘social marketing’, as it involves the promotion of social causes such as anti-smoking campaigns, creating awareness about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the concept of family planning. 1
Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society. 2 Additionally, social marketing is reported not just as a tool to accomplish social change, but it represents a new ideology or mindset, the assimilation of which can prepare the ground for widespread and more effective social change. 3 Therefore, while social marketing is most frequently used for reducing smoking and drinking habits, promoting healthy lifestyles or fight against drugs in the western world, 4 developing countries have been using the concept to promote attitudinal changes toward family planning, equal status for women, adult literacy, and HIV/AIDS prevention/control. 5
Despite of the introduction of family planning services as means of curbing fertility rate; the population still raises due to the attitudes of the people involved, especially men.6
Conclusion
Attitude towards family planning and contraceptives usage is found to be highly correlated with awareness, and responsibility towards society and service usage. Therefore, as awareness increases, the attitude towards family planning will increase. Also, there exists a positive relationship between respondents’ awareness and social marketing-mix elements i.e. higher the social marketing activities, better will be the awareness about the issues like family planning. As marketing activities like promotion increases, awareness will increase and finally attitude towards family planning will increase. Thus, there exists a link between social marketing activities/elements and attitudinal profiles of the individuals. Moreover, responsibility towards the society and the usage of family planning services were found to be positively affected by the socio-religious factors together with social marketing elements. On the other hand, negative attitude towards health workers was reported among respondents, as they were not consulted well by the health workers on the issue of family planning.
Keeping this in mind, the implications of the study can be seen as:
- Special social-marketing campaigns and programs should be designed and launched in order to first develop and then sale the positive attitude towards family planning in the country to balance population growth with socio-economic development. To do this, different stakeholders participating in the campaign of family planning and social marketing such as NGOs and related government organizations may be used effectively to work on an integrated programme (as marketing-mix is a collection of elements to be applied in an integrated manner).
- As attitude towards the concept was reported being positively associated with the individual’s awareness, an increase in which leads to a favorable increase in the attitude towards family planning, NGOs and government units would better work on increasing the awareness to help develop favorable attitude towards family planning.
Also, an uninterrupted supply of the family planning products/contraceptives should be ensured through additional distribution outlets (targeting specific solutions delivery).
Lastly, respondents were reported with unfavorable attitude towards health workers, as not being treated well in the past by them. Health workers should be trained inline with the behavior of caring and understanding to the individuals approaching to them for family planning services. Hence, changing and improving the quality and the responsiveness, caring behavior, and emphatic attitude of service workers should be seen with great seriousness to make the family planning experience practical and successful.