The Social Marketing Mix Used by Non-governmental Organizations in Their Hiv/aids Campaigns in Kenya

Abstract

The HIV/ AIDS epidemic is biggest obstacle to reducing poverty and to achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Social Marketing is the use of marketing principles and techniques to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify, or abandon a behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole. Social marketing offers a great potential in the fight against HIV/ AIDS. While the contribution made by previous researchers in the subject area is appreciated, none of their studies focused exclusively on the use of social marketing mix used by NGOs fighting HIV/ AIDS. As Kotler (2000)has pointed out, use of the fight blend of marketing mixes can result in successful programs. This study therefore sought to determine the extent to which NGOs in Kenya use the various elements of the social marketing mix in their HIV/ AIDS campaigns. It further sought to determine whether there exist any differences between the social marketing mixes used by international NGOs compared to those employed by local NGOs. This was a descriptive survey. The population of the study comprised of NGOs with physical addresses in Nairobi that are involved in HIV/ AIDS campaigns in Kenya. According to records made available to the researcher by the Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium, there were 218 NGOs that fitted this criterion. A sample of 100 NGOs was selected randomly from the 218 that-have a physical address. This sample was considered representative of the population. A... structured self completion questionnaire was used to collect primary data from the respondents. The questionnaire was administered through a drop and pick method. Section A of the questionnaire was analyzed using frequency distributions and percentages. Data on Section B were analyzed using the mean scores and standard deviations. In order to determine whether there were differences in social marketing mixes used local vs international NGOs, mean scores and correlation matrices were used. , Vlll The findings indicate that the NGOs under study indeed practice many of the social marketing elements to a large extent. Product practices were mainly practiced to a very large extent with fighting stigma and communicating fatality being practiced to the greatest extent. However, issues to do with branding and use of brand names were practiced to a lesser extent. Price attributes were practiced to some extent with conducting research on affordability being the least practiced of all price attributes. Personnel attributes were practices to a large extent with most respondents agreeing on the extent of application. Process attributes on the other hand were only practiced to some extent according to the findings of this research. Promotion attributes are practiced to a large extent with some of the constituting variables being practiced to a very large extent. This was consistent for both locally and internationally owned NGOs. Place attributes were being practiced to a large extent. This was consistent for both locally and internationally owned NGOs. Partnership attributes were practiced to a large extent which was consistent in both locally and foreign owned NGOs. Publics attributes were practiced to a large extent with keen focus on stakeholders across all NGOs studied. The research recommended that locally owned NGOs need to learn from their internationally owned counterparts and use social marketing concepts to a greater extent than they are currently using in general. They also need to diversify their funding sources as they seem to mainly generate funds internally. The other recommendations are for the NGOs to increase the level of applications of the elements of social marketing thatsthey are practicing to a small exten