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Social Marketing Standards Setting Project

National Occupational Standards for Social Marketing

The Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body (MSSSB) is developing the first set of national occupational best practice standards in social marketing. These standards will enable marketers to work with social problems (such as drink driving, obesity, destructive behaviour) and help make healthier changes in society.

We hope to publish the Social Marketing National Occupational Standards in autumn 2008. We will be informing all contributors as soon as the standards are ready for use and we will make a free copy of the standards available to them.

Discussion Forum

You can discuss your ideas about the social marketing standards with colleagues and experts on the SMNOS Yahoo! Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/SMNOS/?yguid=315904448

Consultation Questionnaire

Many thanks to all those who contributed to the consultation on the draft Social Marketing National Occupational Standards, which closed today. We have so far counted well over 100 responses which we will be analysing over the next couple of weeks.

A initial scan of the feedback suggests that:

there is a high level of satisfaction overall with the structure, coverage and content of the draft standards
greater emphasis is needed on:

evaluation

ethical responsibility

exchange process

timescales involved in social marketing (years, decades, generations)
differences between engagement of target group and engagement of other stakeholders
differences between products, services and experiences
care needs to be taken over terminology and the connotation of words (eg "campaign")
some respondents want specific reference to their specialist area (eg health inequalities) – perhaps not appreciating that these are generic Social Marketing standards with the potential to be used in relation to any issue
professional or academic qualifications based on the Social Marketing NOS would be of interest to nearly half of respondents; only a quarter would be interested in vocational qualifications.

The full findings from the consultation will be discussed at the Project Advisory Group meeting, chaired by Prof Jeff French on 1 July, after which the standards will be redrafted to include the required knowledge and skills.

It is hoped to launch the Social Marketing National Occupational Standards at the World Social Marketing Conference on 28-29 September in Brighton.

Trevor Boutall
The Management Standards Consultancy Ltd for MSSSB
13 June 2008