In social marketing, the 4 P's of product, price, place, and promotion are commonly accepted dogma (Andreasen, 1995:15). Their application to the development of effective social marketing interventions, in turn, must be supported by market and audience research, a challenging and often difficult task. On the surface, the specification of these elements may suggest that their application leads down a straight road to desired outcomes. In the real world, the development process usually moves along a much more winding road.
The Maneje Seguro! (Drive Safely!) program, initiated in 1994, illustrates the winding evolution and development of one social marketing effort in California. This program was initiated with aspirations of becoming a social marketing program that would use good market analysis along with attention to the 4 P's. The three-year history of this program began with a narrowly focused outreach effort (Phase I), followed by a community education program (Phase II) and most recently has led to the current but nascent social marketing form (Phase III). Its evolution illustrates the roles research played in the transformation, along with the importance of participation and partnerships.
This paper details the role of this participation and partnerships, as well as the standard 4 P's and the market research that have facilitated the three phases of development of this social marketing intervention, which is targeted at Spanish-speaking farm workers and their driving practices.
As the program developed, on-going market research efforts drove the transformations from one phase to the next. In each phase, a transformation of product, price, place and promotion occurred. The other P's — participation and partnerships — also proved critical in the evolution of the Maneje Seguro! program. Community participation and partnerships were critical to the market, audience, and product development research. Similarly, participation and partnerships contributed to the development of price, place, and promotion activities. Without them, the Maneje Seguro! social marketing program could not have been developed. Partnerships were crucial to the implementation and success of various promotion activities, most importantly in two mass media campaigns. Moreover, partnerships and participation permitted a more rapid transformation from a community education program to a social marketing program.
