It's the morning of day two of the conference, and having missed hearing Alan Milburn speak, I thought I'd take the time for a quick update on yesterday's key speakers. I have some ten pages of notes and all my tweets as a starting point, but given the amount of information yesterday, this is just a summary.
The first half of the morning's plenary was comprehensive in its scene setting for the UK and international health context and the role that social marketing plays. After an introductory video from UK health minister Dawn Primarolo, Angela McNab (director of public health, performance and delivery at the Department of Health England) spoke about how social marketing helps people make the changes they want to make. She talked on the need for good social marketing to be based in good research, and pointed to the launch of a one stop research shop for social marketers next summer. She was followed by Philip Kotler (marketing god... not sure if there's a more appropriate job title) who gave a presentation provocatively titled "Reducing poverty through social marketing". If I was in any doubt that marketing was going to save the world, Philip Kotler was extremely persuasive. He set out a series of principles in social marketing, namely
- framing the problem
- segmenting the market
- targeting segments where the most good can be accomplished
- determining desired behaviours
- developing strategies using all four tools in the marketing toolbox
- and finally monitoring and evaluating results
As a sideline, the four Ps themselves have been under much discussion, particularly on the sidelines of the conference, with lots of talk on whether they provide a robust and comprehensive framework. Anyhow, as much as Kotler's talk was an exposition of the great work done my many social marketers internationally to help people raise themselves out of poverty - the example of Mechai Viravaidya, Thailand's "condom king", sticks in my mind - it was also a clear call to action to us as marketers. As he said
Social marketers with compassion with ask "What do you need?" and "What will help?"
Broadening the context even further, Sameer Deshpande talked about the history and context of social marketing in Asia, particularly in south Asia, reminding us that marketing is not education, nor is social marketing social networking. Sudha Tewari ended the first half of the morning's plenary with a reminder of the real life impact of social marketing in the Indian context. With 5.5 million unwanted children born every year and 6.7 million unsafe abortions, condom marketing has never been more important, and her organisation is leading the way.
The second half of the plenary (after a very well deserved coffee) saw Nancy Lee take the stage with four real life examples of the four Ps in practice, looking at tobacco cessation, littering, HIV testing and... using flags to cross the road. I can't begin to imagine that British people would even begin to think about carrying a flag across the road, but the benefits in road safety were clear. What was most striking from Nancy's presentation was the enormous cultural difference between the UK and US - and it certainly is a reminder to challenge my assumptions that I understand the context in which I'm working. Driven by real consumer understanding and deep research, Nancy's examples showed how powerful the four Ps could be in shaping meaningful social marketing programmes.
The afternoon's highlight for me was Katherine Lyon Daniel (from the US's national centre for health marketing at CDC). I heard her speak twice, once on the context of health marketing in the US and the other on her centre's work on autism. She was inspiring. In her first talk, she challenged us to take a long view, and talked about a native American saying that
In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation.
She talked too about how consumers were overwhelmed with information, how we needed to ensure that health information, like Coca Cola, was "within an arms reach of desire" and she set out four principles for social marketing, drawn from her centre's mission statement. She said that it should be
- Accessible - ensuring we address issues of the digital divide and health literacy
- Accurate - stressing the need for us to document research and outcomes and build our body of knowledge as a profession
- Relevant - needing to understand audiences and undertake appropriate research, and finally
- Timely - again, going back to the concept of information being within "arms reach of desire"
That's it for now. About to start day two in earnest!
When I started out on my tache oddysey at the beginning of September, I wasn't sure entirely what to expect. Aside from the physical act of transforming my facial hair, I've found myself talking about my tache all the time to anyone who'll listen.
I've met a lot of new people in September, and I've found myself starting conversations with the words "I don't usually look like this..." Partly, I want people to know I don't normally look like a 70s porn star reject and partly, I want to plant the seed of them being able to recognise me when they meet me, not during September, and I don't have a moustache! I'm not sure it's a look I'd want to maintain the long term. I also can't stop playing with it, stroking it in a contemplative fashion that makes me look, well, a bit bonkers.
A surprise upside of growing my top lip has been a new a Remington grooming kit. It's been really handy throughout the month. My top lip hair does not grow universally straight and neat, so being able to tidy up the edges has helped me maintain an air of manicured (faci-cured?) orderliness. I've mostly used the medium width trimmer, but the Remington comes with other interchangeable bits too. There's even one for dealing with nose and ear hair... yum... though it's a tad vicious and pulled out a piece of hair, prompting lots of eye watering! Still, I suppose that's better than my former grooming machine, which seemed to totally give up at the sight of a thicker than normal hair, and frequently ran out of juice midway through a trim. It's got a neat little charger and a places to store all the bits, and has pride of place on my bedside table.
All in all though, I can't wait til Wednesday morning when the tache can come off. My tache has raised £75, and I'm currently ranked at number 297 (ah well, can't win them all) so I feel like I've done my bit for tacheback. I also have a list of people to email on Wednesday morning who've promised to sponsor me to shave the tache off, so I should be able to push my total up a little higher.
The only thing I have to decide is what to do next. Growing a moustache has the same kind of facial impact as shaving off an eyebrow. It's one thing to be cleanly shaven, even to have all over stubble, but it takes a kind of strange persistence to grow hair on just one part of your face. Still, I suppose with my new clippers, my face is my oyster.
Just arrived in Manchester for Labour Party Conference. Strictly speaking, our hotel is actually in Salford and a bit of a trek to the main event. We'll head out in a bit and explore our way back into town by tram. Mysteriously, when we arrived, there was some kind of demonstration in the city centre and trams weren't running in this direction. We'll have to see whether that changes later.
But, first thing's first. Conference timetable. Tonight is the London reception at 6pm and a chance to catch up with the one or two people I know and the thousands that Paul knows. And then later it's the Only Party in the Village, LGBT Labour's party somewhere in Canal Street. Ironically, it's no longer the only party in the village (as it genuinely was last year) because having officially kicked off today, there's lots of conference happening already.