What we need in a Social Marketing Strategy for WP in LSES Communities

This Special Interest Group/Showcase will present the outcomes of consultation and research findings for the proposed Social Marketing Strategy for LSES Communities to equity practitioners engaged in WP activities at the EPHEA... [ view full abstract ]

This Special Interest Group/Showcase will present the outcomes of consultation and research findings for the proposed Social Marketing Strategy for LSES Communities to equity practitioners engaged in WP activities at the EPHEA conference.

The Queensland Widening Participation Consortium of 8 universities (ACU, CQU, GU, JCU, QUT, UQ, USQ, USC), through the lead university QUT, has been commissioned by the Australian Department of Education’s National Priorities Pool to work collaboratively across Australia and undertake the research and design of a Social Marketing Strategy for low-SES communities, to widen participation in tertiary study.
The project approach will be genuinely national, inclusive and evidence-based, and use a definition of the term ’social marketing’ to encompass a broad range of social change programs, not just communication strategies.
This initiative will build on the Widening Participation (WP) outreach work already underway across the country. This work is underpinned by partnerships and conceptual frameworks about ‘what works’. The strategy is based on the presumption that any national social marketing campaign should complement and reinforce the grass-roots, experiential outreach work, and not be stand-alone. Social marketing ‘messages’ need to connect with the lived experience of the target audience or they will fail to effectively engage them.