Welcome to Social Marketing. Read this syllabus carefully before registering and as you start the course, to be sure the course is what you want and that you are willing and able to meet the requirements. These pages form part of the rules you agree to by staying registered in this course.
THIS SYLLABUS IS NOT OFFICIAL UNTIL THE FIRST DAY OF CLASSES

Evaluation Summary and Description of Assignments
Effective writing is one of the most important skills you can acquire in a university course, and one that you will use in your education, your career and your life; so too is the skill of following instructions. All assignments in all courses I teach require you to write well and to submit work properly. Read carefully the full instructions on this web site on Writing Well for a Better Grade, on References, and on Format For Submitting Work Properly, and check out the Writing Programmes. Do not assume that because you have written papers before you have mastered the art; writing is something we continually work on to improve. Note that you may be asked to make reference in tests to any assignments and final projects.

Critical Analysis Group Paper
Although this assignment is the first step toward the final project, it is NOT the Plan itself, but rather it is the theoretical and social/emotional exploration of the issue that must precede the creation of any Social Marketing Plan. Start this paper by describing briefly in not more than 5 lines a social issue which you wish to market including to whom you are marketing it. Then, making clear reference to course materials, in a total of no more than 5 pages, double spaced, do two things. Discuss why the issue is important, including both how the members of your group feel about the subject ("i" statements by name or anonymously) and how the issue is currently viewed in academic writing and the popular press  (the epistemological showdown, but a discussion, not just a list of books). Then outline some of the issues you anticipate facing in designing a marketing plan to promote your product to this target market, including how you expect to meet those challenges. See instructions for submitting work (no binders, stapled only, etc.). Use the language of social marketing as described in the web pages; for example, with respect to the Product, you will want to state whether you will be marketing an idea (smoking is bad), a behaviour (quit smoking), or a tangible good (a physical device like a patch).  With respect to the campaign, consider the terms Monopolization, Canalization, and Supplementation. There are no further written instructions on this paper. 

Final Exam Substitute Group Project - Social Marketing Plan (PAGE LIMIT - 15 pages)
The Social Marketing Plan is done much like an Introductory Marketing Plan, but with a social issue as the product. Structure your Social Marketing Plan according to how it is laid out in Unit 3 here on the web site. Due to the fact that we have two very different textbooks in the class, I will grade these projects based on what is commonly available to all, which is the material on this web site. This is a term-long project to be worked on during the term; it is not a one-week assignment to be left till the last minute. Some of you have asked whether to write in essay form or point form and the answer is "both." There will be times when it will be appropriate to list things in bullet form, and there will be times when you will be discussing something or justifying a decision and sentence form will be appropriate. There are no further written instructions on this project. If you wish to review what a Marketing Plan looks like, click here to go to the one I use to teach the Introductory Marketing Plan Assignment.

Some Topics Studied by Previous Students in This Course

NOTE: A student's final course grade is not necessarily confined to a compilation of marks earned on individual course components. Final course grades may be adjusted to conform to Programme or Faculty grades distribution profiles. The average mark in this course is usually a low B.

photograph by Timothy Hudson

I'm your professor, Louise Ripley. Call me "Louise" or address me as "Dr. Ripley" but just don't call me "Miss" because where I grew up that's for young girls, old unmarried ladies, and schoolmarms, or "Mrs. Ripley" because that's my Mom; I'm happily married but I'm not anyone's "Mrs." The name Ripley belonged to my labour-union-organizer father and I carry it proudly. My office is 268C Atkinson. Email me; I don't answer my phone but I'm always on the email. I am a Professor of Marketing and in Women's Studies and Environmental Studies, with a PhD in Management Studies (major in Marketing) from University of Toronto, an MBA in Finance from Loyola University of Chicago, and a Bachelor's degree from Shimer, one of the world's finest (and smallest) liberal arts undergraduate schools. I worked in Finance and Marketing Research in Chicago and have taught at York for over twenty years. Click here to read more about me professionally and personally.  Social Marketing is one of my favourite courses to teach. I have a deeply rooted and long-time interest in the environment, having started my academic life as a botany major, and I get particular enjoyment out of using the techniques and theory we learn from Marketing to promote good causes, which is essentially what Social Marketing is all about. Social Marketing is "the use of marketing principles and techniques to advance a social cause, idea, or behaviour" (Kotler/Roberto text p. 24). It is NOT what too many companies are doing today - using social causes to promote products.

I started this course a decade ago when although we had three business programmes and a faculty of Environmental Studies, no one at York taught anything that combined business theory and environmental issues. Marketing was a particularly apt field in which to develop this combination of disciplines because Philip Kotler, the man who coined the term Social Marketing had just brought out a book by the same name. In addition to the course objectives common to all the courses I teach, this course aims to help you examine issues of social conscience in the area of marketing and how marketing can both help and hinder our realization of better living and working conditions. 

I use the same feminist pedagogy teaching this course as I do teaching Gender Issues in Management. The use of feminist pedagogy means we employ methods of research and teaching that may be new to you, particularly as a business student. One of my York mentors was dian marino, a professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies who so detested hierarchies that she refused to capitalize her own name. She taught that although we still need to read what experts have written, our own experience and what we feel and believe is just as important and as educational. The academic practice of proving our point by lining up behind us all the published, (usually) dead, (usually) white (usually) male authors who wrote what we believe, dian referred to as "the epistemological showdown." We still need to read and critique the work of others, but we also need to use what she called "i" statements: to put into your writing how YOU feel, how YOU react, what YOU think. I expect to see both in your work.