Published in the National Business Review of 29 February 2008

There are too many social marketing campaigns running at any one time, and many of them focus too much on advertising, M&C Saatchi's boss Nick Baylis says.

His agency was recently responsible for the Buy Kiwi Made campaign and he describes himself as an expert in government marketing and communications.

He told a Wellington Chamber of Commerce breakfast that social marketing campaigns needed to focus on changing behaviour not just on getting a message across.

In the social policy area "we are often asking people to do things that they can't, won't or don't want to do.

He adds: "in social marketing there is too much emphasis on advertising. In a lot of cases it's social advertising not social marketing. And that's a copout. Too often advertising is seen as the only tool.

"If we believe that running an ad in isolation will change ingrained behaviour, we are kidding ourselves."

Mr Baylis said there were far too many social marketing campaigns and they are typically using measures like awareness, noticeability and recall of the message.

"The average mid 30s female resting on her couch will see ads to quit smoking, cut back on alcohol, get more exercise, get a cervical smear and consume five types of vegetables and fruit each day.

"That's too much for anyone to comprehend. All of these are health messages. We need to market one message about health not five separate ones."

He urges more effective approaches such as Jamie Oliver's campaign to reform school lunches in the UK .

"Jamie Oliver didn't run ads. He reported success after he had achieved it, and he did that through a documentary which was widely seen and people sat up and took notice of what had been achieved."

The documentary showed teachers in the schools saying that the kids behaved better were able to concentrate more and had better health as a result of the new and healthier school dinners. "Oliver created a swell of change," Mr Baylis said.