Social Marketing Case Study: Street Vendors and Food Safety

The case study analyzed is titled “Street vendors and Food Safety: A community- Building Example.” The case study is among the numerous studies listed in the turning point social marketing case studies. The Street vendors and Food Safety was based in the Republic of Mexico in the city of Oakland in late 1990. Donors funded the project. The project addresses a critical global menace of food safety with people succumbing to unsafe foods. The initiative targeted the ordinary citizens who could not afford the food prices from malls but had to utilize the available food regardless of their safety. The purpose of the project is to safeguard the population depending on the vegetables from health risks by enforcing measures ensuring there is food inspection before they reach the consumers. The program encompassed most of the population living in Oakland and its surroundings as well as the law enforcing agencies.

The involvement of authorities ensures the program is legal and public even though voluntary. The initiative captures the essential and practical behavioral steps the target population has to adapt to realize food safety. Importantly, with a technical staff engaging in food preparation at a central point, there is improved oversight of the activities. The project’s benefits are enormous and cost-effective among the affected population. As a result, vendors expand their market base while supplying safe food. Forcing vendors to purchase the cart derails the goal as it does not address the vendors’ financial constraints. Concentrating people in one place rob them their privacy and creates congestion. The promotion is location oriented and narrowed to use nationwide. Overall, the initiative was fruitful both health-wise and environmental safety.

The case study of ‘Street vendors and Food Safety’ revolves around ways of improving food quality and safety. Traditionally, vendors are selling uninspected vegetable foodstuffs to residents of Oakland; a habit risky to the population. The initiative, therefore, intends to deduce and instill better ways of handling food products. The project managers are lending the hawkers recommended carts to use for transporting food items. Similarly, the idea is to concentrate food preparation areas to ease the evaluation of the progress. The initiative is more persuasive and voluntary. However, local authorities are called upon to help in implementing the legal aspects of the project. There is a definite response from the target community members and subsequent success of the project of food safety.

Comparison between Social and Commercial Marketing

Social marketing refers to use of techniques of retail marketing to manipulate the willing habits of the concerned audience to improve their individual and societal lives. On the contrary, commercial marketing involves the application of concepts that essentially advertise, focusses on products’ delivery that would generate income for the company with little attention given to participants’ welfare. Similarly, social marketing concentrates on client behaviors and society’s norms and traditions while commercial marketing is concerned with client’s need, the products, and the implementation processes. Social marketing is sensitive to members’ feelings and opinions, but commercial marketing is more profit-oriented (Singh, 2017). Nevertheless, both social and business marketing share similarities; item introduction to clients is paramount to creates to kick-start the awareness exercise. Also, persuasion on advantages of a product is crucial to the target audience. Moreover, there is continuous evaluation and follow up of the reception of the idea or item. Both exercises segment the audience for effectiveness. Also, their analysis of results and utilization of the outcome for development (Koekemore, 2014).

Limitations of Social Marketing

Many at times researchers fail to conduct formative research. As a result, social marketing has had the impression of being an end to itself due to lack of resources or unrealistic expectations. Similarly, there are inadequate funds that derail implementation of the ideas. Also, the technique suffers from untrained personnel to spearhead the initiatives into reality. In most cases, social marketers lack common professional backgrounds thus making it hard to achieve the set agenda (Novelli, 2010).

Recommendations

A marketing manager can adopt creative management approach to address the issues of limited resources. Researchers should formulate research as part of the primary goal by widening their thinking and embracing modern techniques. Also, there is need to understand the social-political aspect of the target groups and work within the provisions of particular environments to attain positive changes (Digital Standout, 2016).

Reference

Digital Standout. (2016, March 30). How To Avoid The Disadvantages Of Social Media Marketing. Retrieved from Digital Standout: http://blog.digitalstandout.com/how-to-avoid-the-disadvantages-of-social-media-marketing

Koekemore, A. (2014, June 23). Social marketing’s great, but there are still serious disadvantages. Retrieved from Memeburn: https://memeburn.com/2014/06/social-marketings-great-but-there-are-still-serious-disadvantages/

Novelli, B. (2010, October 29). tandfonline. Retrieved from Barriers to Effective Social Marketing: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/108107397127635?journalCode=uhcm20

Rundle-Thiele, S. (2018). Social marketing theory measurement. Journal of Social Marketing, 71-74.

Singh, A. (2017, December 3). How Does Social Marketing Differ From Commercial Marketing? Retrieved from DigitalSEOGuide: https://www.digitalseoguide.com/digital-marketing/how-does-social-marketing-differ-from-commercial-marketing/