Marketing social marketing: getting inside those "big dogs' heads" and other challenges

Social marketing provides a powerful process for planning and implementing public health programs. Although often applied to the promotion of healthier lifestyles, social marketing can also be used to promote utilization of direct services or policy changes. Despite growing popularity among public health professionals, resistance by senior management, community advocates, policy makers, and others can create barriers to the use of the social marketing model. This article draws on the authors' observations, practice experiences, extensive training interactions, and qualitative studies with public health practitioners across the nation. It examines some of the key reasons that public health practitioners encounter resistance to using social marketing and discusses how a logic model can be used to market social marketing in organizations and communities.