Social marketing for good governance
December 19, 2001 | 12:00am
Another Filipino is being born as you are reading this sentence. His parents will call him Emmanuel. After his birth, he will lead a miserable life. In the streets. Just like his parents. He is one of the thousands of other Filipinos around the country who have been robbed from birth. Robbed before he can even open his eyes.
We all know that a newborn child like Emmanuel has as much right as anyone else. Right to all of life’s possibilities and wealth. But because of the pervasive culture of corruption in our country, what rightfully belongs to Emmanuel is ruthlessly being taken away from him. His right to survival and progress. His right to equitable living standard, food, and health care. His right to protection and education. Before he can even walk, his self-respect is already crippled.
But Emmanuel is not the only one who’s hurting. Because by consenting to corruption through our collective apathy we, too, are being deprived of our basic human rights. Our self-respect as a people is somehow being maimed, too, just like Emmanuel’s. How many times in the past have we fed the monster of corruption by handing out "grease money" to government employees just to quickly get a birth certificate, a police clearance, or a business permit? Do we lift a finger when a traffic policeman bluntly asks us for P50 in exchange for our confiscated driver’s license? Do we even think of reporting a tax examiner who’s been harassing our accountant?
We don’t need to cite more examples. We’ve read and heard all kinds of corruption in our country, from a vendor who bribes policemen to a president who deals with big-time crooks. We even experience them. In fact, we now know, thanks to a paper written by a team of experts from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, and De La Salle University, that an average P279 million a day is lost due to corruption! Imagine what that amount can do to bring back the self-respect of the Emmanuels in our midst, not to mention ours. It can be used to provide food, shelter, and health care; to generate jobs; to educate our children; to increase the salaries of government employees; to improve our roads. There are just many things we can do with that kind of money. But before we can do all that, we need to stop corruption.
Do we hear oops (!) from the people in the peanut gallery who don’t believe something can be done about the problem? People who think that corruption is already part of our culture and have dug in so deep that it can only get worse? Well, that’s precisely what we need to conquer first– our cynicism that it is impossible to tame, or even slay, the monster.
J. Edgardo Campos of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) proudly reports, "Look around you today. Civil society organizations have emerged to question government and demand from it better policies and services. Some have done this directly by offering alternative options to government services as a means to generate competitive pressure, such as in skills training, garbage disposal, or micro finance. Others have taken up the cudgels to raise awareness of lingering problems and demand solutions to them. In either case, government tends to be pressured to respond."
Recently, the FEF launched a social marketing campaign called Walang Ku-Corrupt! It aims to increase public awareness of the need for corporate transparency, improved governance procedures, and community vigilance in a final push to reduce the role played by corruption in our economy and politics. Likewise, the foundation hopes to change private sector attitudes, as it believes that in every bribery case, there is a bribe-taker and a bribe-giver.
Social Marketing was first used by Kotler and Zaltman in 1971 to refer to the application of marketing to the solution of societal problems. Marketing has been remarkably successful in encouraging people to buy products such as Coca-cola and Nike trainers, so the argument runs, it can also move people to adopt behaviors that will enhance their own and other people’s lives.
Some social marketing campaigns are designed merely to help bring problem areas into the open and draw attention to their roots. Although sharpening society’s awareness of a problem is indeed necessary, it is by no means sufficient for bringing about changes in social attitudes and behavior, as these are shaped by habits, interests, feelings, and beliefs, among other factors. That is why social marketing campaigns, to be effective, must go beyond education and agitation.
Social marketing is distinguished by its emphasis on so-called non-tangible products – ideas and practices as opposed to the tangible products and services that are the focus of commercial marketing. Its primary focus is on the target publics – on learning what they want and need rather than trying to persuade them to buy what we happen to produce. The planning process takes this target public focus into account by addressing the elements of the marketing mix. This refers to decisions about the Product – the solution to a genuine social malaise; Pricing – what the public must do in order to obtain the social marketing product; Place – decisions about the channels through which the public will be reached with information and training; Promotion – the integrated use of advertising, public relations, idea promotions, media advocacy, coalition building, networking, personal selling and entertainment vehicles; Partnership – the identification of organizations which have similar goals which can be tapped for possible team- ups; Policy – the generation of support from the external environment to push program initiatives; Politics – the implementation of some political diplomacy with community organizations to gain support, to get access to the target public or to head off potential adversaries at the pass.
The Walang Ku-Corrupt! movement, cognizant of these social marketing principles, will be implementing a multi-pronged and multi-dimensional war against corruption. The idea is to sell good governance like soap or shampoo. It will involve corporate contributions to public education through the inclusion of the Walang Ku-Corrupt! logo in their advertising and product packaging. Student groups will conduct anti-corruption seminars to explain the adverse impact of corruption on the poor. Business associations will initiate agreements among themselves to reject corruption as a means of doing business. An independent group of distinguished citizens will certify companies for being corruption-free and transparent in the conduct of their business activities. Government agencies will help by improving their internal procedure in order to remove incentives for corrupt activities.
Edgardo Campos adds, "We intend to capture the imagination of the people and help push the quality of governance in our country to a new level of efficiency and competence. We think this is the most effective way of reducing poverty incidence and building a modern economy for our people."
Indeed, "Walang Ku-Corrupt!" is the public-private linkage that can extensively promote good governance and good citizenship. And by giving this program a chance, we give the Emmanuels around us, and ourselves a chance. A chance to maintain our self-respect and protect our basic human rights.
For comments and suggestions, e-mail bongo@campaignsandgrey.net or bongo@vasia.com. Merry Christmas!
But Emmanuel is not the only one who’s hurting. Because by consenting to corruption through our collective apathy we, too, are being deprived of our basic human rights. Our self-respect as a people is somehow being maimed, too, just like Emmanuel’s. How many times in the past have we fed the monster of corruption by handing out "grease money" to government employees just to quickly get a birth certificate, a police clearance, or a business permit? Do we lift a finger when a traffic policeman bluntly asks us for P50 in exchange for our confiscated driver’s license? Do we even think of reporting a tax examiner who’s been harassing our accountant?
We don’t need to cite more examples. We’ve read and heard all kinds of corruption in our country, from a vendor who bribes policemen to a president who deals with big-time crooks. We even experience them. In fact, we now know, thanks to a paper written by a team of experts from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, and De La Salle University, that an average P279 million a day is lost due to corruption! Imagine what that amount can do to bring back the self-respect of the Emmanuels in our midst, not to mention ours. It can be used to provide food, shelter, and health care; to generate jobs; to educate our children; to increase the salaries of government employees; to improve our roads. There are just many things we can do with that kind of money. But before we can do all that, we need to stop corruption.
Do we hear oops (!) from the people in the peanut gallery who don’t believe something can be done about the problem? People who think that corruption is already part of our culture and have dug in so deep that it can only get worse? Well, that’s precisely what we need to conquer first– our cynicism that it is impossible to tame, or even slay, the monster.
Recently, the FEF launched a social marketing campaign called Walang Ku-Corrupt! It aims to increase public awareness of the need for corporate transparency, improved governance procedures, and community vigilance in a final push to reduce the role played by corruption in our economy and politics. Likewise, the foundation hopes to change private sector attitudes, as it believes that in every bribery case, there is a bribe-taker and a bribe-giver.
Some social marketing campaigns are designed merely to help bring problem areas into the open and draw attention to their roots. Although sharpening society’s awareness of a problem is indeed necessary, it is by no means sufficient for bringing about changes in social attitudes and behavior, as these are shaped by habits, interests, feelings, and beliefs, among other factors. That is why social marketing campaigns, to be effective, must go beyond education and agitation.
Social marketing is distinguished by its emphasis on so-called non-tangible products – ideas and practices as opposed to the tangible products and services that are the focus of commercial marketing. Its primary focus is on the target publics – on learning what they want and need rather than trying to persuade them to buy what we happen to produce. The planning process takes this target public focus into account by addressing the elements of the marketing mix. This refers to decisions about the Product – the solution to a genuine social malaise; Pricing – what the public must do in order to obtain the social marketing product; Place – decisions about the channels through which the public will be reached with information and training; Promotion – the integrated use of advertising, public relations, idea promotions, media advocacy, coalition building, networking, personal selling and entertainment vehicles; Partnership – the identification of organizations which have similar goals which can be tapped for possible team- ups; Policy – the generation of support from the external environment to push program initiatives; Politics – the implementation of some political diplomacy with community organizations to gain support, to get access to the target public or to head off potential adversaries at the pass.
The Walang Ku-Corrupt! movement, cognizant of these social marketing principles, will be implementing a multi-pronged and multi-dimensional war against corruption. The idea is to sell good governance like soap or shampoo. It will involve corporate contributions to public education through the inclusion of the Walang Ku-Corrupt! logo in their advertising and product packaging. Student groups will conduct anti-corruption seminars to explain the adverse impact of corruption on the poor. Business associations will initiate agreements among themselves to reject corruption as a means of doing business. An independent group of distinguished citizens will certify companies for being corruption-free and transparent in the conduct of their business activities. Government agencies will help by improving their internal procedure in order to remove incentives for corrupt activities.
Edgardo Campos adds, "We intend to capture the imagination of the people and help push the quality of governance in our country to a new level of efficiency and competence. We think this is the most effective way of reducing poverty incidence and building a modern economy for our people."
Indeed, "Walang Ku-Corrupt!" is the public-private linkage that can extensively promote good governance and good citizenship. And by giving this program a chance, we give the Emmanuels around us, and ourselves a chance. A chance to maintain our self-respect and protect our basic human rights.
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