Verification of GPDS planning framework for social marketing: a Delphi method

This paper presents the GPDS (Getting Started, Planning, Design, and Sustainability) Planning Framework for Social Marketing. A qualitative research design was employed. Data were collected from social marketing experts using the Delphi method and analyzed using the thematic analysis approach. The proposed framework includes key strengths of existing Social Marketing Planning (SMP) approaches. It also embeds emerging social marketing principles in the planning process, such as 'Continuous Consumer Research and Feedback Loop' (embracing key aspects of monitoring and evaluation) and 'Expert Consultation' to overcome the lack of clarity on the interdisciplinary language used in the field. Importantly, the critical aspect of 'Sustainability' in the changed behavior is incorporated, aligning with the global consensus definition of social marketing and the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focus on sustainable outcomes. Both theory and practice have been applied to the development and verification process of the proposed framework. The framework has consensus from 23 social marketing experts worldwide , drawing on current best practices and experts' opinions/experience in the field. The GPDS Planning Framework for Social Marketing offers a comprehensive list of sources in the accompanying toolkit, including various activities for insight, design, implementation, and evaluation. This enables practitioners to prepare, plan and deliver social marketing programs to sustain behavioral outcomes. This research informs those working in social marketing, social policy, behavioral insight/design, public health, health communication, and service-user experience. These disciplines deploy social marketing practices in the design and delivery of interventions

Conceptualizing, embracing, and measuring failure in social marketing practice

Background: While failure in social marketing practice represents an emerging research agenda, the discipline has not yet considered this concept systematically or cohesively. This lack of a clear conceptualization of failure in social marketing to aid practice thus presents a significant research gap. Focus: This study aimed to conceptualize failures in social marketing practice. Methods: A qualitative survey was conducted using purposive sampling to solicit expert views of well-established social marketing academics and practitioners. Participants were asked to discuss failures in social marketing practice based on their experience in the field. A total of 49 participants provided their input to the survey. Thematic analysis was used to develop four themes addressing the research question. Importance: It is widely acknowledged that reflecting and learning from past failures to promote future best practices is desirable for any discipline. As an empirically based social change discipline, social marketing would benefit from the elevation of failure within its broader research agenda. Results: Four themes were identified: (1) Failures occur when the target behaviors are not achieved, (2) Tactics used to measure failures, (3) Process failure, and (4) Failures either not measured or reframed as lessons learned. A conceptual framework was created to characterize the nature of failures in social marketing practice, representing a feedback loop deemed problematic for the discipline. Recommendations: We call for social marketers to explicitly acknowledge and address failures when describing and reporting on their work and project outcomes. Efforts should be made to adopt a reflexive stance and examine and address internal and external factors affecting the program's failures

Use of social marketing principles in sexual health: an exploratory review

Purpose – This paper presents a systematic review of the use of social marketing principles in sexual health studies in order to determine the effectiveness of the programmes. Method – Systematic literature review method was used, and Andreasen’s (2002) benchmark criteria were adopted to analyse the use of social marketing principles in the selected studies. Findings – There is evidence of full use of some elements of Andreasen’s (2002) benchmark criteria, for example, consumer research, behaviour change objectives and segmentation. The use of the marketing mix theory and exchange elements were limited, whereas the evidence of the use of competition is not noted. In addition, the majority of the selected studies focus on short-term objectives leading to varying and inconsistent outcomes. Overall, no single element of Andreasen’s (2002) benchmark criteria was independently associated with the success of any of the selected studies. Implication - The review highlights a need to use more social marketing principles in planning and implementing sexual health programmes to enhance their effectiveness. Improvement in performance might be achieved through the development and application of a new social marketing informed methodology for designing social programmes on sexual health

Social marketing: advancing a new planning framework to guide programmes

Purpose - This paper aims to develop and present a new planning framework of social marketing, known as consumer research, segmentation, design of the social programme, implementation, evaluation and sustainability (CSD-IES). Design/methodology/approach - The proposed framework is based on recent theoretical developments in social marketing and is informed by the key strengths of existing social marketing planning approaches. Findings - The CSD-IES planning framework incorporates emerging principles of social marketing. For example, sustainability in changed behaviour, ethical considerations in designing social marketing programmes, the need for continuous research to understand the changing needs of the priority audience during the programme and the need for explicit feedback mechanisms. Research limitations/implications - The CSD-IES framework is a dynamic and flexible framework that guides social marketers, other practitioners and researchers to develop, implement and evaluate effective and sustainable social marketing programmes to influence or change specific behaviours based on available resources. Originality/value - This paper makes an important contribution to social marketing theory and practice by integrating elements of behaviour maintenance, consideration of ethical perspectives and continuous feedback mechanisms in developing the CSD-IES framework, bringing it in line with the global consensus definition of social marketing

Two-stage taxonomy for measuring success in social marketing practice

Purpose: Given the lack of understanding of social marketing success in theory and practice, this study aims to investigate how social marketing experts conceptualize success. Design/methodology/approach: In this qualitative study, the authors conducted an open-ended online questionnaire with 48 worldwide social marketing experts, most with more than 20 years of experience in the field. The authors analyzed data using topic modeling, a machine-learning method that groups responses/terms into cluster topics based on similarities. Keywords in each topic served to generate themes for discussion. Findings: While behavior change is mentioned as paramount to conceptualizing success, participants prefer to use more tangible and less complex forms to define/measure success, such as campaign recall uptick. In addition, lack of funding was considered an important factor in measuring success. This study provides a two-stage taxonomy to better understand success in social marketing. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to conceptualize success in social marketing practice

Evaluating the impact of an incentive scheme to encourage pregnant people to set a quit-smoking date

Purpose: This study aims to demonstrate the evaluation of an incentive scheme to encourage pregnant people to set a quit-smoking date. Design/methodology/approach: The paper outlines a collaborative approach, working with pregnant people, clinicians, tobacco dependency practitioners and academics to gain insights into their perspectives and experiences. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed. Findings: The incentive scheme and appropriate support from clinicians have been shown to encourage pregnant people to set a quit date. The tobacco dependency practitioners helped remove barriers, such as the perception of the stigmatisation of smoking when pregnant. The practitioners also helped pregnant people make informed decisions to support successful behaviour change. The impact of the scheme resulted in improved infant health indicators. The scheme’s evaluation also supported establishing stakeholder knowledge exchange and learning processes. Research limitations/implications: This is a single-site study among a relatively small group of people designed to achieve a specific evaluation objective. Caution in generalising to wider settings should be exercised. Practical implications: This study highlights the efficacy of an incentive scheme, complemented with support from clinicians, and the significance of knowledge exchange and collaboration between stakeholders in health care with significance in similar settings. Originality/value: The paper details the incentive scheme input, actions, output, outcomes and impact involving a wider range of stakeholders, including the emotional consequences for participants, clinicians and academics

Bacterial genotoxins induce T cell senescence

Several types of pathogenic bacteria produce genotoxins that induce DNA damage in host cells. Accumulating evidence suggests that a central function of these genotoxins is to dysregulate the host's immune response, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of the most widely expressed bacterial genotoxin, the cytolethal distending toxin (CDT), on T cells—the key mediators of adaptive immunity. We show that CDT induces premature senescence in activated CD4 T cells in vitro and provide evidence suggesting that infection with genotoxin-producing bacteria promotes T cell senescence in vivo. Moreover, we demonstrate that genotoxin-induced senescent CD4 T cells assume a senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) which, at least partly, is orchestrated by the ATM-p38 signaling axis. These findings provide insight into the immunomodulatory properties of bacterial genotoxins and uncover a putative link between bacterial infections and T cell senescence

3D semiconducting nanostructures via inverse lipid cubic phases.

Well-ordered and highly interconnected 3D semiconducting nanostructures of bismuth sulphide were prepared from inverse cubic lipid mesophases. This route offers significant advantages in terms of mild conditions, ease of use and electrode architecture over other routes to nanomaterials synthesis for device applications. The resulting 3D bicontinous nanowire network films exhibited a single diamond topology of symmetry Fd3m (Q227) which was verified by Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and holds great promise for potential applications in optoelectronics, photovoltaics and thermoelectrics

f(R) theories

Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations, and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom

A novel method for standardized application of fungal spore coatings for mosquito exposure bioassays

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interest in the use of fungal entomopathogens against malaria vectors is growing. Fungal spores infect insects via the cuticle and can be applied directly on the insect to evaluate infectivity. For flying insects such as mosquitoes, however, application of fungal suspensions on resting surfaces is more realistic and representative of field settings. For this type of exposure, it is essential to apply specific amounts of fungal spores homogeneously over a surface for testing the effects of fungal dose and exposure time. Contemporary methods such as spraying or brushing spore suspensions onto substrates do not produce the uniformity and consistency that standardized laboratory assays require. Two novel fungus application methods using equipment developed in the paint industry are presented and compared.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Wired, stainless steel K-bars were tested and optimized for coating fungal spore suspensions onto paper substrates. Different solvents and substrates were evaluated. Two types of coating techniques were compared, i.e. manual and automated coating. A standardized bioassay set-up was designed for testing coated spores against malaria mosquitoes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>K-bar coating provided consistent applications of spore layers onto paper substrates. Viscous Ondina oil formulations were not suitable and significantly reduced spore infectivity. Evaporative Shellsol T solvent dried quickly and resulted in high spore infectivity to mosquitoes. Smooth proofing papers were the most effective substrate and showed higher infectivity than cardboard substrates. Manually and mechanically applied spore coatings showed similar and reproducible effects on mosquito survival. The standardized mosquito exposure bioassay was effective and consistent in measuring effects of fungal dose and exposure time.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>K-bar coating is a simple and consistent method for applying fungal spore suspensions onto paper substrates and can produce coating layers with accurate effective spore concentrations. The mosquito bioassay was suitable for evaluating fungal infectivity and virulence, allowing optimizations of spore dose and exposure time. Use of this standardized application method will help achieve reliable results that are exchangeable between different laboratories.</p