Social Norms Marketing

Commercial marketing promotes goods and services for a profit. Social marketing promotes ideas designed to influence the voluntary behavior of the target audience. Social norms marketing is a focused application of social marketing based on applying social marketing techniques to social norms theory, which suggests that much of people's behavior is strongly influenced by their perceptions of what is "normal" or "typical." However, it has been shown that people often overestimate what they perceive others think and do and sometimes underestimate what they themselves do. In the case of substance abuse, many overestimate the number of people who drink or use other drugs, thereby creating the perception that alcohol and other drug use is normal behavior, and therefore, it must be acceptable. Social norms marketing ...