IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jbusin/v4y2024i2p13-210d1406781.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Vision of the Future: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Strategic Social Marketing

Author

Listed:
  • William Douglas Evans

    (Department of Prevention and Community Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA)

  • Marco Bardus

    (Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK)

  • Jeffrey French

    (Strategic Social Marketing, Atabara, Lophook, Hampshire GU30 7QW, UK)

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming much of society in a short time. Regardless of whether we know it, we interact with AI systems when we seek information online, shop, work, and engage with social media. AI has massive potential to promote human wellbeing but also poses considerable risks, as set out in an open letter signed by leaders in the field, such as Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI”. This paper examines how AI can be used as a powerful tool to change pro-social behaviors as part of social marketing programs. We examine opportunities to build on existing efforts to use AI for pro-social behavior changes and the challenges and potential risks that AI may pose. The specific aims of the paper are to explore how AI can be used in social marketing policy, strategy development, and operational delivery. We also explore what this means for future social marketing practice. We present an overview of case studies from the social marketing field and the application of AI in the past, present, and future. We examine the following key question: can these new technologies can be used to promote social good, and if so, how? Through examples from policy, strategy development, operations, and research in social marketing, we examine how AI has been used and successfully applied to improve consumer outcomes and analyze its implications for social marketing. We conclude that AI has substantial promise but also poses some challenges and has potential negative impacts on efforts to promote pro-social behavior changes. Used well, AI may enable social marketers to more rapidly assess how to modify programs of action to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness. We suggest future research and programs within this field.

Suggested Citation

  • William Douglas Evans & Marco Bardus & Jeffrey French, 2024. "A Vision of the Future: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Strategic Social Marketing," Businesses, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-15, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jbusin:v:4:y:2024:i:2:p:13-210:d:1406781
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7116/4/2/13/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7116/4/2/13/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeff French & Sameer Deshpande & William Evans & Rafael Obregon, 2020. "Key Guidelines in Developing a Pre-Emptive COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake Promotion Strategy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-14, August.
    2. Key, Thomas Martin & Czaplewski, Andrew J., 2017. "Upstream social marketing strategy: An integrated marketing communications approach," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 325-333.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nikita Moiseev & Alexey Mikhaylov & Hasan Dinçer & Serhat Yüksel, 2023. "Market capitalization shock effects on open innovation models in e-commerce: golden cut q-rung orthopair fuzzy multicriteria decision-making analysis," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, December.
    2. Prarawan Senachai & Jakaphun Julsrigival & Raksmey Sann, 2022. "Social Marketing Strategy to Promote Traditional Thai Medicines during COVID-19: KAP and DoI Two-Step Theory Application Process," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Nathaly Aya Pastrana & Rafael Obregón, 2023. "Harnessing the power of social marketing for sustainable development," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(3), pages 661-692, September.
    4. Yudong Miao & Yi Li & Wanliang Zhang & Jian Wu & Jianqin Gu & Meiyun Wang & Wei Wei & Beizhu Ye & Chengyuan Miao & Clifford Silver Tarimo & Wenyong Dong, 2022. "The Psychological Experience of COVID-19 Vaccination and Its Impact on the Willingness to Receive Booster Vaccines among the Chinese Population: Evidence from a National Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-11, April.
    5. Agnieszka Izabela Baruk & Grzegorz Wesołowski, 2021. "The Effect of Using Social Media in the Modern Marketing Communication on the Shaping an External Employer’s Image," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-23, July.
    6. Suhail Ahmad Bhat & Mushtaq Ahmad Darzi & Iqbal Ahmad Hakim, 2019. "Understanding Social Marketing and Well-being: A Review of Selective Databases," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 44(2), pages 75-87, June.
    7. Dorit Zimand-Sheiner & Ofrit Kol & Smadar Frydman & Shalom Levy, 2021. "To Be (Vaccinated) or Not to Be: The Effect of Media Exposure, Institutional Trust, and Incentives on Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-14, December.
    8. Viral Tolia & Rajkumar Renin Singh & Sameer Deshpande & Anupama Dave & Raju M. Rathod, 2022. "Understanding Factors to COVID-19 Vaccine Adoption in Gujarat, India," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-21, February.
    9. Alessandro Sapienza & Rino Falcone, 2022. "The Role of Trust in COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance: Considerations from a Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Almudena Recio-Román & Manuel Recio-Menéndez & María Victoria Román-González, 2022. "Political Populism, Institutional Distrust and Vaccination Uptake: A Mediation Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-13, March.
    11. Aleksandar Radic & Bonhak Koo & Eloy Gil-Cordero & Juan Pedro Cabrera-Sánchez & Heesup Han, 2021. "Intention to Take COVID-19 Vaccine as a Precondition for International Travel: Application of Extended Norm-Activation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(6), pages 1-15, March.
    12. Rėklaitis Kęstutis & Pilelienė Lina, 2019. "Principle Differences between B2B and B2C Marketing Communication Processes," Management of Organizations: Systematic Research, Sciendo, vol. 81(1), pages 73-86, June.
    13. Nida Buawangpong & Wachiranun Sirikul & Chanya Anukhro & Mathuramat Seesen & Aroon La-up & Penprapa Siviroj, 2022. "Health Information Sources Influencing Health Literacy in Different Social Contexts across Age Groups in Northern Thailand Citizens," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-19, May.
    14. Noelia Rodríguez-Blanco & Sergio Montero-Navarro & José M. Botella-Rico & Antonio J. Felipe-Gómez & Jesús Sánchez-Más & José Tuells, 2021. "Willingness to Be Vaccinated against COVID-19 in Spain before the Start of Vaccination: A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-15, May.
    15. Almudena Recio-Román & Manuel Recio-Menéndez & María Victoría Román-González, 2021. "Vaccine Hesitancy and Political Populism. An Invariant Cross-European Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-20, December.
    16. Chi-Horng Liao, 2020. "Evaluating the Social Marketing Success Criteria in Health Promotion: A F-DEMATEL Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-19, August.
    17. Mercy Wanjiru Ngundo & Wanjiku Ng’ang’a Kinyanju & Julius Kahuthia Mwangi, 2020. "Marketing Strategies, Competitive Strategies and Organization Performance of Media Houses in Kenya," International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 7(7), pages 177-186, July.
    18. Guillaume Plaisance, 2023. "Vaccine Strategy During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Community Engaged Research Supporting a Policy Oriented Towards Nonprofit Organizations and Volunteers," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 79-95, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jbusin:v:4:y:2024:i:2:p:13-210:d:1406781. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.