Social Marketing Company (Smc)
Social Marketing: A Success Story in Bangladesh
Mahbubur Rahman, MA, MBA 1 and
Toslim Uddin Khan, MA, MSS, MBA 2
Social Marketing Company (SMC) is the largest privately managed social marketing organization in the world for a single country. It is a significant contributor to the reproductive and child health services in Bangladesh. The on-going social marketing programs of SMC include family planning, child health, disease prevention and maternal and neonatal health. SMC's mission is to improve the quality of lives of vulnerable and less privileged population primarily in public health issues through sustainable social marketing efforts in collaboration with national and international governments and donors. Social marketing is the application of commercial management techniques for popularizing and selling products and services that offer clear benefits to the people at prices they can buy. Thus, easy accessibility through wide availability and high affordability forms the key element of social marketing. The model of social marketing SMC adopted and continues to practice has two components - multi-strategy communications for initiating desired behavior change, and suitable, affordable, readily accessible product and service for sustaining the changed behavior using the techniques of commercial marketing.
Because of its remarkable success and its sheer size, social marketing in Bangladesh has become a model of best practices and attracted international attention. Two premier USA based graduate schools of business included the case study on social marketing program in Bangladesh in their curricula, which is an entire chapter of the renowned book titled “Let Every Child Be Wanted: How Social
Marketing Is Revolutionizing Contraceptive Use Around the World” written by Philip D. Harvey. The case on SMC is also included in the “Asian Marketing Casebook” written by Noel Capon and
Wilferied R. Vanhonacker. SMC is ISO 9001-2000 certified company.
Mahbubur Rahman, MA, MBA 1 and
Toslim Uddin Khan, MA, MSS, MBA 2
Social Marketing Company (SMC) is the largest privately managed social marketing organization in the world for a single country. It is a significant contributor to the reproductive and child health services in Bangladesh. The on-going social marketing programs of SMC include family planning, child health, disease prevention and maternal and neonatal health. SMC's mission is to improve the quality of lives of vulnerable and less privileged population primarily in public health issues through sustainable social marketing efforts in collaboration with national and international governments and donors. Social marketing is the application of commercial management techniques for popularizing and selling products and services that offer clear benefits to the people at prices they can buy. Thus, easy accessibility through wide availability and high affordability forms the key element of social marketing. The model of social marketing SMC adopted and continues to practice has two components - multi-strategy communications for initiating desired behavior change, and suitable, affordable, readily accessible product and service for sustaining the changed behavior using the techniques of commercial marketing.
Because of its remarkable success and its sheer size, social marketing in Bangladesh has become a model of best practices and attracted international attention. Two premier USA based graduate schools of business included the case study on social marketing program in Bangladesh in their curricula, which is an entire chapter of the renowned book titled “Let Every Child Be Wanted: How Social
Marketing Is Revolutionizing Contraceptive Use Around the World” written by Philip D. Harvey. The case on SMC is also included in the “Asian Marketing Casebook” written by Noel Capon and
Wilferied R. Vanhonacker. SMC is ISO 9001-2000 certified company.