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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the core tenets of social marketing communications in managing acute infectious disease outbreaks based on a historical review of two major pandemics in South Korea.

Two researchers reviewed newspapers, journal papers, archived documents and other historical materials to examine social marketing communications used in both Spanish flu and COVID-19 pandemics by South Koreans.

Despite two events being a century apart and the social context of two eras being starkly different, behavioral recommendations for both pandemics were nearly identical. Two major lessons arose from the review. First, a full disclosure of the pandemic-related information is important. Second, proper management of conflicting information is highly desired as an integral part of pandemic social marketing communication campaigns.

Understanding the importance of social marketing in raising public awareness, this paper provides a historical comparison between the 1918–1919 Spanish flu and COVID-19, focusing on the social communications used during these two pandemics. The paper contributes to the health marketing literature as well as to practice by drawing implications relevant to social marketing communication used in disease pandemics.

This paper aims to examine the influence of interactive social media marketing communications on teenagers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral attitude components in South Africa. The study also considers the impact of a number of additional factors such as usage (access, length of usage, log-on frequency, log-on duration and profile update incidence) and demographic (gender, age and population group) variables on young consumers’ attitudes toward social media marketing communications.

A survey was used via three self-administered questionnaires, which were distributed to over 13,000 learners in the age range of 13-18 years (Generation Z cohort) at colleges and high schools in South Africa. A generalized linear model was used for statistical data analysis.

The study ascertained that social media marketing communications had a positive on each attitude component among adolescents, but on a declining scale, which correlates to the purchase funnel. The results also revealed that teenagers who used social media for long time periods; updated their profiles frequently and were from the Colored and Black population groups, displayed the most favorable attitudinal responses to social media marketing communications.

Social media was collectively analyzed and did not consider the number of different social media types, which could be examined individually. This investigation only considered the Generation Z cohort, but other cohorts to attitudes toward social media marketing communications could also be assessed.

Companies and their brands should consider using and/or adapting their strategies based on the declining impact of social media marketing communications on the hierarchical attitude stages among young consumers and the divergent influence on usage and demographic variables when targeting the lucrative and technologically advanced, but capricious, Generation Z consumers.

This research established that social media marketing communications had a favorable influence on cognitive, affective and behavioral attitude components among young consumers, but on a declining scale, which is in congruence with the purchase funnel model. This investigation also makes an important contribution to attitudinal research in developing countries, where there is a lack of research in social media marketing communications.

The present chapter aims to assess how digital transformation impacts current trends in city branding, to analyze the role of digital communication in the branding of selected cities, and to compare the level of exploitation of digital communication for city branding between European and Slovak cities. We conducted empirical research in several phases, and the overall sample consists of 155 cities in Europe and Slovakia. The results of our research showed that European and Slovak cities use to some extent all the investigated tools of digital marketing communication in city branding with a dominant position of social media, both in terms of exploitation and importance for city branding in European and Slovak cities. European cities score significantly better than Slovak cities in all elements of the City Brand Hexagon, as well as in the overall city brand index. Therefore, city branding strategies in the best European cities can serve as a good practice example or inspiration for Slovak cities. Cities with lower rankings and scores on city branding should focus on strengthening their city branding or strengthening their digital communication. The possible trajectory is also the concerted strategy for the branding of the city and its digital communication.

By applying ecological models of health behaviour to marketing communications to achieve behaviour change, this paper aims to illustrate the importance of taking into account various economic, environmental and social influences.

A two-part study was undertaken. Part one involved exploring the lived worlds of the targeted population. Part two explored how the needs of the target audience informed a social marketing communications strategy. This was illustrated through Childsmile, a Scottish Government funded oral health institution.

A variety of intra- and inter-personal influences where identified that encouraged or discouraged oral health. Complementing this was how these needs are incorporated into an ecological social marketing communications campaign. Although the long term effects of the ecological social marketing campaign will not become evident for a number of years, initial results indicate its important role in changing behaviour.

The importance of engaging with various groups within social marketing is shown. Specifically, the need to understand and encourage interaction between individuals, their community, health institutions and the Government.

Behaviour change, through social marketing communications, is possible among socio-economic deprived groups. Change supported with face to face interactions with health professionals.

Previous criticisms of social marketing research being American-centric, and avoiding issues around socio-economic deprivation are addressed. In addressing this, the paper also answers calls for research into ecological models of social marketing communications to understand how influences affect its applicability.

The study aims to analyse the possibilities of positioning the anti-consumption through different communication appeals. It analyses commercial and social marketing campaigns in the global context, with the aim to recommend communication guidelines to empower anti-consumption among different industries.

The study conducted a qualitative content analysis of marketing communication focused on anti-consumption promotion.

The results bring a comprehensive overview of possible communication appeals of anti-consumption and prove feasibility of their implementation. The analysis of used appeals leads to recommendations for developing effective marketing communication for promoting anti-consumption.

The recommendations can serve both for-profit and non-profit organization as a showcase to discover the idea of anti-consumption as communication appeals. By empowering anti-consumption, consumers could reach personal welfare and participate in social equilibrium. Also, the study brings recommendations for further research considering the evaluation of the implemented strategies.

The study covers a gap in published literature focusing on comprehensive analysis of existing anti-consumption marketing communication strategies and appeals and brings an overview of potential strategies for empowering anti-consumption among modern consumers.

This paper aims to analyse the practical applicability of integrated marketing communications (IMC) to micro-organisations operating in the UK’s fashion industry, focusing specifically on the use of online platforms.

Qualitative methodological tools including semi-structured interviews, semiotics, Twitterfeed and Facebook analysis are used to examine to what extent micro-organisations apply IMC.

The findings suggest that these micro-organisations have a limited understanding of IMC. Although they utilise various channels, including social media, there is a disconnect between reaching the audience, understanding their needs and linking these aspects. External factors influence the use of various communication channels, leading to further fragmentation of sent messages.

This research focuses on five micro-organisations within the fashion industry and thus may be seen as limited in nature. Whilst implications of the findings are discussed in terms of their impact to the wider industry and other sectors, this needs to be further researched.

Micro-organisations are underdeveloped in terms of both IMC and social media and require practical advice.

This study investigates two under-researched areas, IMC in micro-organisations and the use of social media within IMC, thereby moving forward our understanding of IMC in practice.

Contemporary businesses face rapidly evolving changes and complexities that challenge their respective managerial responses and capabilities. The natures of information and communication systems, ways of doing business, knowledge-transfer methods, diffusion channels of innovation, and industrial habitus are shifting. Additionally, methods, concepts, and frameworks to study these challenges need to be in accordance.

Many of these features characterizing the new business environment influence not only the consumer business, but also the business-to-business (B2B) sectors and their ways of functioning. Interestingly, the influence also connects domestic with international business through the global connectedness. This is particularly visible in marketing communication, as the difference between domestic and international business communication has further diminished due to digital and virtual dimensions and applications. In this new age, it is assumed that new ventures and small- and medium-sized enterprises can turn their vulnerabilities and size constraints into competitive advantages by addressing these challenges with efficient social media usage. To address this technology-enabled dimension of B2B relations, the authors present a case study illustrating how a firm advances its relationship management and communication by introducing social media instruments. The study contributes to relationship management and international marketing communication and provides new insights into the workings of social media within the B2B context.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that integrated marketing communications (IMC) must be used in social marketing, like it is in commercial marketing, by illustrating that IMC principles are effective in social marketing contexts within an education setting. Specifically, the paper provides evidence of IMC being successfully used in the communication of school‐based health promotion activities within health promoting schools (HPS).

Depth interviews with principals and teachers at three case schools were conducted to investigate the communication of health promotion programmes within HPS. In total, 19 people participated in this study.

A key finding was that IMC principles are evident in the HPS philosophy of health promotion. That is, the extent to which health concepts are customer focused and integrated into school life; and, communication which is synergistic and based on stakeholder needs, has a significant impact upon achieving desired health promotion outcomes.

This research explored communication within the specific context of HPS. To further explore the application of IMC in social marketing, the authors recommend that other social marketing contexts or cases be investigated.

The fact that IMC principles are relevant and effective when facilitating school‐based health promotion programmes implies that IMC would offer value to other social marketing contexts too.

The paper is unique in that we provide evidence of IMC used in a school‐based social marketing context. The context of an education setting for this research broadens existing understanding of how IMC can and should be used in social marketing. The research offers insights for social marketing practitioners seeking to improve their communications efforts.

This paper aims to understand the contribution made by Facebook as a marketing tool for companies, and through empirical observation (interviews and questionnaires) and theoretical analysis (studies and academic literature on the subject), to analyse the reactions of individuals in social media (particularly in Facebook) and its confluence with the organizations. The overall aim is subdivided into three objectives covering more precisely the two poles of marketing communication (the consumers and the businesses), within the context of Facebook: to learn about the users’ vision on Facebook and their point of view on being a part of it; to understand the strategic vision of Facebook from those responsible for marketing and communication in companies; and to analyse the role of Facebook in marketing activities and interactive communication (users and companies).

The first part of this study is a theoretical study of the area and existing published research. The second part is a qualitative study. In this sense, the theoretical analysis in the field of social networks supports the propositions discussed in the empirical analysis, which is based on a random sample of individuals and representative companies. The analysed universe consists of a randomly unrepresentative group of consumers living in Portugal, particularly in the cities of Funchal (Madeira) and Lisbon, and company representatives established in Funchal (Madeira), to understand if the theoretical arguments are also verified in these regions regardless of their particular characteristics, especially the geographical and demographic.

Today the focus continues to be very connected to sales and promotions and to traditional communication channels when it should move to create interactions with meaning for the audience through content before focusing on sales. Organizations should consider the way they communicate with their target audience and consider social networks and mobile technologies as a new way of expanding the business, adapting to this new consumer not contemplated by the traditional marketing and communication media.

Furthermore, the existing literature quickly becomes obsolete without addressing the issue in depth, sometimes referring qualitative studies based on demographic and geographic variables and traditional models. Moreover, most of the authors are Anglo-Saxon and discuss realities away from the one studied here. Geographical location and time are also other important limitations, as in Portugal, the phenomenon is recent and both individual users and company representatives (who constituted the study sample) have little practical experience in the use of online technologies and social networks; probably the main setback is the limited period of the study, concentrating the analyses on the current interviewee experience instead of an evolutionary people's behaviour analyses concerning the use of social networks. Although the evolution of information technology is a catalyst for a more intense online social experience, it is important to understand how to live the virtual experience and how the communication between individuals and companies evolves (how to adapt to this new consumer audience), face the current short-term models based on offline actions, reactive strategic actions, misperception of users and lack of information on social network consumers’ life.

Organizations should consider the way they communicate with their target audience and consider social networks and mobile technologies as a new way of expanding the business, adapting to this new consumer not contemplated by the traditional marketing and communication media. The study presents a qualitative analysis of the behaviour, the reactions and the attitudes of individuals towards organizations, with the aim of understanding which are the social factors that contribute to sustainable competitive advantage to organizations and support strategies and future actions.

The social aspects are a part of the experience in the Facebook community and also of the shopping experience. So it is important to monitor these behaviours in Facebook or other networks to perceive users of social networks, and consequently define marketing and communications actions to transform fans into customers. Relevant factors come associated with tacit knowledge of the organization, particularly those related with learning and social interaction of the organization and organization knowledge about virtual communities. To a higher coexistence of these factors, the more difficult the replication is, and the higher the strengthening of the hypothesis of sustainability of competitive advantage.

Organizational survival increasingly depends on the socialization, sharing interests and activities with the audience linked to the incorporation of digital technologies in their activities, especially those related to social networks. Technology emerges as a support for the satisfaction of social connection, transforming communication between people and companies, making it much more dynamic and transparent. As we have seen, there are many positive factors associated with the participation in the social networks. Prominent among these are the interactivity, the detection of customer needs, the adjustment of supply, transmission of content without geographical boundaries and the ease of implementation of viral marketing campaigns.

This paper aims to highlight the importance of social marketing at the midstream (meso) level as a key component of a proposed model for co-creating public services. The model demonstrates how supportive relationships and conversations within and between service organisations, front-line service staff, social networks and clients are essential for the effective co-creation of health and welfare services and social marketing interventions.

This is a conceptual paper that uses network and services theory and a case study to show how the midstream social marketing approach and service co-creation can be applied in practice and how these concepts relate to upstream and downstream social marketing.

The case study demonstrates the powerful role of social networks, staff–client relationships and conversations in the co-creation of effective services and the improvement in communications, trust and understanding between service providers and the community.

The paper shows how service providers and social marketers can achieve co-created, customer-oriented services/interventions through the development of congruent, empathetic narratives, relationships and conversations. The case study demonstrates how this can be achieved in practice through staff training, the identification of “community communicators” and value-based targeting and communications.

The integration of conversations, relationships, values, services and midstream social marketing into a model for co-creation offers a valuable tool for social marketing and health/welfare service professionals.