JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

In 1951, Wiebe, in an attempt to stimulate marketing scholars and practitioners to seek ways of adapting commercial marketing principles and techniques to influencing social behaviour for the good of target audiences and the society, asked: “Why should the devil always have the best tunes?” While this simple but profound question gave birth to the concept of social marketing, it also laid the ground for the persisting narrow evaluation of social behavioural change organisations only through the lens of the benefits they offer to the society, without much consideration given to how supporting social change organisations could help them make more dents on social problems and serve the society better.

To overcome this limitation, social marketing scholars and practitioners have devoted resources researching and infusing concepts such as co-creation and branding, amongst others, into social marketing. To add zest to ongoing efforts geared towards improving the effectiveness of social behavioural change organisations, this study sought to examine how social behavioural change organisations can leverage social change initiatives co-creation for brand equity enhancement by integrating the concepts of social marketing, co-creation and brand equity enhancement into a holistic conceptual framework, which no existing literature has done.

This qualitative study employed the observation and semi-structured interview methods to investigate a case company and arrived at two empirically validated conclusions. 1. By co-creating social change initiatives with stakeholders, behavioural change instigating organisations will gain improved brand awareness, enhanced brand perception, higher brand loyalty, positive brand association and favourable podium to extend their brands to new initiatives and commercial investments. 2. To reap these benefits, firstly, social change organisations need to be adept at identifying, segmenting and managing their ecosystem of social change co-creators. Secondly, be more purposeful and strategic in their brand and social change initiatives positioning. Thirdly, become the orchestrators of their brand and change initiatives narratives on various social media platforms used by their target audiences, co-creators and followers.