Literacy campaigns, family planning, and programs to combat teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and AIDS represent only a fraction of the social campaigns launched by agencies throughout the world in an effort to change public behavior. These agencies hope that social campaigns may be the way to achieve social goals without repressive legislation, costly incarceration, or the resigned acceptance of defeat by society's ills. And yet, as marketing experts Philip Kotler and Eduardo Roberto find, most of these well-intentioned campaigns have had little effect.

Now, for the first time, Kotler and Roberto provide a comprehensive, straightforward guide for planning and effectively implementing social campaigns. Using real world examples, Kotler and Roberto show how organizations devoted to social change can use their resources far more efficiently and effectively than has been the case to achieve maximum results. In probing the hows and whys of failed campaigns and the requirements for successful ones in modern industrialized nations and in developing parts of the world, Kotler and Roberto focus on the methods and tools needed to market social change efficiently.

The process of effectively influencing the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals relies on communicating the right kinds and mix of offers, facilities, information, and promotion to target markets. The authors present new techniques for setting measurable objectives, researching the needs of different target markets, preparing appropriate products, services, and promotions, controlling ongoing performance, and assessing results. However, as Kotler and Roberto caution, social policy managers must also reconcile their proposed campaign features with the capabilities of their own organization and the political realities surrounding them.

Unfolding the different developmental stages of such recent social programs as the AIDS education campaign; the Condom Social Marketing Program in the Philippines; and antismoking, alcohol abuse, and environmental protection campaigns, Kotler and Roberto illustrate how developing the right marketing strategies can successfully sustain a social campaign. By following Kotler and Roberto's expert guidance, social policy managers will recognize the growing possibilities and advantages of using a social marketing approach rather than restrictive legislation or undifferentiated mass advertising to change public behavior.