Social Marketing and Public Health: Theory and Practice

This is a largely easy to read and access text that covers all the introductory ground of social marketing for someone in public health who needs to know what the subject is about and what it has to offer. The authors comprise the team who founded and worked for the National Social Marketing Centre, set up by the DH in 2005 to respond to the increasing need for a centre of expertise within the department and close to government. They have edited the book and also contributed much of the material themselves, with other chapters provided by recognized experts such as Gerard Hastings and Martine Stead. The book provides a welcome UK contribution and is a blessed relief from the hitherto US-dominated texts. This allows the authors to discuss social marketing in ways that appeal to public health professionals, most notably how the discipline fits within other behaviour change approaches in health, ethical issues, partnerships, sociological influences and many other items. The text is deliberately introductory/accessible and does not allow itself to be sidetracked by, for example, lengthy debates on defining social marketing or involved discussions of theories (a book in itself). Instead, there are 22 quite short chapters, reducing the scope for in-depth debate admittedly, but allowing for broad scope. This allows interesting short pieces on, for example, policy (Chapter 5) and measuring effectiveness (Chapter 6), the latter pointing out that RCTs—so loved by clinical experts—are far from ideal in unpicking the effectiveness of disciplines like social marketing. Amen to that. Cash strapped trusts might also be attracted by ‘social marketing on a shoestring budget’, Chapter 16. All in all, this is a welcome contribution from an expert team who has been leading players in the recent UK development of social marketing and who know their stuff.