TY - JOUR AB - Purpose– This paper aims to explain how the principles of marketing can be applied to the planning and implementation of a social marketing campaign.Design/methodology/approach– A wealth of secondary sources are reviewed and discussed, including academic literature, market research and campaign data.Findings– The planning and implementation of social marketing campaigns is complex and requires a wide range of tasks. For one, the case study illustrates that identifying the right themes is crucial in order to reach the desired target audiences to create attitudinal and behavioural change. Further, a coherent implementation of the marketing mix is necessary in order to ensure campaign effectiveness over time. As social marketing campaigns often need to reach a wide range of audiences, the task of managing marketing initiatives in these contexts is more complex and requires constant evaluation in order to identify levels of effectiveness and areas for improvement over long periods of time.Originality/value– Applies marketing theory to an interesting real‐life social marketing campaign and highlights the complexity of the tasks involved. VL - 29 IS - 7 SN - 0263-4503 DO - 10.1108/02634501111178712 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/02634501111178712 AU - Henley Nadine AU - Raffin Sandrine AU - Caemmerer Barbara ED - Anthony A. Hines PY - 2011 Y1 - 2011/01/01 TI - The application of marketing principles to a social marketing campaign T2 - Marketing Intelligence & Planning PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 697 EP - 706 Y2 - 2024/04/20 ER -