Marketing Assessment Initiatives For Marie Stopes International: Case Study

Mission of the Marie Stopes International

Discuss about the Planning Health Promotion Programs.

The non-for profit organisations are focusing on the innovative marketing techniques to remain competitive in this globalised world. The non-for profit organisations have been eventually facing the increasing market pressure and competition from the for-profit organisations (Döring, 2015). For example, competition for funding or generating more revenue becomes the major mission for this type of organisations. The study will thus describe the marketing assessment initiatives faced by Marie Stopes International, which has developed the Txt 4 Free Condomz social media campaigns (Ismconference.com.au, 2017). The marketing strategies will be developed in this study to gain insights to strengthen the marketing campaign in this competitive world.

Marie Stopes International is a non-for-profit global organisation that has been serving in almost 37 countries.  The company has been encouraging the women to remain healthy and have children by their choice and not by chance (Ismconference.com.au, 2017). The company has undertaken a social marketing initiative to encourage the condom usages, overcome the embarrassment, address the increasing STI rates, and cost issues of buying condoms. It helps in promoting the safe sex message by using the resonating method for the youths. The major goals for this campaign were:

• Establishment of the fruitful understanding the necessity of using condoms
• Reinforcement of the behaviour of using condoms
• The achievement of the changed behaviour of the ongoing condom usage

The campaign was first launched in the year of 2007. The youths started sending the text messages for receiving free condoms in plain packaging. Therefore, the mission of the company is to promote the safe sex among the youths and promote the safe sex messages (Ismconference.com.au, 2017). The youth only needed to order for the free condoms by providing their address details to 19 SEXTXT (19 739898).

Marie Stopes International promotes the safety sex by spreading awareness about the condom uses among the youth groups. According to Madden and Wodak (2014), sexual health is the wider area, which includes the significant challenges and issues. These issues are often concerned with the human rights related to sexual pleasure, sexual health, disease, sexual satisfaction, sexual dysfunctions, female genital mutilation, and mental health (Taylor, 2017). This type of organisations are providing the proper care and counseling to promote the awareness among the people all over the world. There are some of the specific reasons for sustaining this type of organisations. The reasons are as follows:

• These organisations help in identifying the sexual problems. They organize the regular health check-ups, breast and testicular self-scans, and health screening.
• These organisations provide the enriched knowledge about the mitigation process of sexual violence and sexual coercion (Young and McDaid, 2014).
• People need to derive awareness about the female genital mutilation.
• It is essential to mitigate the transmitting STI (including HIV)
• The impact of the sexual life of surgical or medical treatments is needed to be reduced (Milrod & Monto, 2016).
• These organisations provide education regarding the minimization process of sexual consequences of mental and physical disabilities.
• This type of organisations provides the concerns related to the eroticism. It determines the enriched ideas about the body functions while having sex, the recognition of sexual pleasure, promotions of the sexual relationships, and fostering the practices and enjoyment of mutually pleasurable relationships (Huang et al., 2016).
• These organisations promote awareness regarding the gender based sexual healths and the concerns regarding the sexual orientation.

It is to be specified that the organisations like Marie Stopes International mitigate the monetary challenges for the youth in using condoms. The marketing campaign is introduced for delivering free condoms after receiving the message from the people who needs it. The youth would not feel hesitated anymore and would not be worried about money (DeGue et al., 2014). The charges received from the messages would be profitable for the company. Moreover, the mission of the company would also be accomplished.

Reasons for Establishing this Type of Organizations

The study helps in gathering knowledge about the safer approaches in using condoms for sexual health. The study uses the behavioural theories to identify the human nature to organize the programs for understanding the subject course. The use of the Health Belief Model was helpful in developing guidance and providing information regarding the campaign (Wight & Fullerton, 2013). The model presents the personal beliefs of the human being that influence their behaviour. Furthermore, the model suggests the willingness of a person to change their behaviour that perceives benefits, susceptibility, seriousness, barriers, and self-efficacy. These factors may affect in time of adopting new behaviour. Hence, the study provides the clear ideas about the human behaviour.

The major target of Marie Stopes International is to reach as many youth as possible. Hence, the target group includes the national males and females aged 15-24. The major focus of this campaign was to use the low budget method for targeting this youth group (Santhya & Jejeebhoy, 2015). It included the direct marketing process through SMS services, postcard services, and online marketing services as well.

It has been notified that many of the youth group does not use the condoms or contraceptives in an effective way.

The above statistic table indicates that the many of the young people are unaware of the effective use of contraceptives. It is necessary to deal with the proper education based on such effective use of condoms and other contraceptives (Prb.org, 2017).. Therefore, Marie Stopes International is spreading awareness to make the young group informed about the necessity of contraceptive uses. This campaign is one of the most helpful medium to make the young group aware. Moreover, it has been observed that many of the young people avoid using condoms due to embarrassments and monetary issues (Eldredge et al., 2016). The initiative has undertaken to distribute the free condom through mobile messaging services. It generates the sense of necessity and the education about the effectively use such contraceptives. It minimizes the sexual health issues and improve the lifestyle.

The case study provides the ideas about the initiatives undertaken by Marie Stopes International to provide free condoms to the youth group in exchange of one message from their mobiles. The company recognizes the challenges that the young group often face due to the improper knowledge about the contraceptive uses. Majority of the young people avoid buying condoms due to embarrassments and inability to afford the price. Therefore, this marketing campaign allows the young group to order for condoms free of costs. They need to provide address details to the informed destination. The condoms will be received with natural packaging system. It promotes the awareness regarding the sexual health of the youth generation (Santhya & Jejeebhoy, 2015). Such initiatives would be much helpful in avoiding the associated sexual health problems.

Target Group

This initiative undertaken by the company is much helpful for the individual and society. The young individuals would not worry about the high prices of the condoms or would not have to face any embarrassment while purchasing condoms (Wight & Fullerton, 2013). This type of organisations are providing the proper care and counseling to promote the awareness among the people all over the world. Moreover, these initiatives are helpful enough in making society aware of sexual pleasure, sexual health, disease, sexual satisfaction, sexual dysfunctions, female genital mutilation, and mental health.

The 4P’s of marketing mix provides the comprehensive details about the product, place, price, and promotions for a marketing assessment. The description of this marketing mix is presented further.

The case study reveals that the condoms will be provided to the youth group free of costs. In order to receive the products, the youth group needs to send a text message with the address details in a specific message address. These contraceptives are essential to mitigate the sexual health issues and make people aware of the necessity of using condoms (Milrod & Monto, 2016). With the help of this marketing campaign, the company would be able to spread awareness regarding the sexual health, sexual satisfaction, female genital mutilation, and others health concerned issues.

The case study signifies the distribution of free condoms through SMS services. This marketing campaign is for every young males and females all across Australia. Furthermore, the campaign was extended to target the sexually active Australians (Young & McDaid, 2014). The responses derived from the Australian market would determine the expansion of the products in other countries as well.

The condoms were supplied at free of cost whenever a text message is received from the target group of people. The text message cost were 55c and in one year campaign, almost 1,036 youth messaged the company for condoms at free of charge. The company received almost 1,595 text messages from the youth in the second year of the marketing campaign (Ismconference.com.au, 2017).

This marketing campaign collaborated with Schoolies Week. The major motto of this campaign was to increase awareness regarding the sexual health and use of the contraceptives. Receiving the responses through the text messages was much successful. Therefore, the company started spreading awareness through positive and negative media coverage (Young & McDaid, 2014). Apart from sending the text messages, it also includes the postcard drop facilities, online marketing, and Schoolies event.

Behaviour of the Study

Criterion	Mark	Your mark
Outline the mission of the non-profit organisation in this study.	2	2
Find academic literature that explains the reasons why this type of organisation is needed.	4	3
Determine if an appropriate target market was chosen and justify your choice using additional information not provided in the case study.	2	2
What is the behaviour is the case study trying to create?	4	3
What are the benefits of this behaviour to both the individual and society?	4	3
Provide comprehensive details of the product	5	4
Provide comprehensive details of the price	5	4
Provide comprehensive details of the Place/distribution	5	4
Provide comprehensive details of the Promotion/communication	5	4
Based on the information given in the case study, how will you rate the effectiveness of the message to the target market?	4	4
Total	40	33

Conclusion

The case study indicates the effective marketing campaign arranged by Marie Stopes International to distribute the free condoms to the youth group after receiving the text messages. This initiative was undertaken for making the youth group aware of the sexual health issues. Moreover, the society receives much benefit from this marketing campaign. This type of organisations are providing the proper care and counseling to promote the awareness among the people all over the world. The marketing mix specifies the segments individually. The successive response would lead the company to expand the target market among the sexually active Australians.

References

DeGue, S., Valle, L. A., Holt, M. K., Massetti, G. M., Matjasko, J. L., & Tharp, A. T. (2014). A systematic review of primary prevention strategies for sexual violence perpetration. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(4), 346-362.

Döring, N. (2015). Consensual sexting among adolescents: Risk prevention through abstinence education or safer sexting?. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 8(1).

Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Kok, G., Ruiter, R. A., & Parcel, G. S. (2016). Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Huang, E. T. Y., Williams, H., Hocking, J. S., & Lim, M. S. (2016). Safe sex messages within dating and entertainment smartphone apps: a review. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 4(4).

Ismconference.com.au, (2017). Txt 4 Safe Sex [online] Available at: <https://www.ismconference.com.au/uploads/2/5/6/2/25627116/2014-ism-conference-industry-case-example.pdf> [Accessed 23 Mar. 2017].

Madden, A., & Wodak, A. (2014). Australia’s response to HIV among people who inject drugs. AIDS Education and Prevention, 26(3), 234-244.

Milrod, C., & Monto, M. (2016). Condom Use, Sexual Risk, and Self-Reported STI in a Sample of Older Male Clients of Heterosexual Prostitution in the United States. American journal of men’s health, 10(4), 296-305.

Prb.org, (2017). Meeting the need, fulfilling the promise: youth and long acting Reversible Contraceptives [online] Available at: <https://www.prb.org/pdf16/pace-policy-brief-larcs-2016.pdf> [Accessed 22 Mar. 2017].

Santhya, K. G., & Jejeebhoy, S. J. (2015). Sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescent girls: Evidence from low-and middle-income countries. Global Public Health, 10(2), 189-221.

Taylor, S. C. (2017). Community perceptions of a public sex offender registry introduced in Western Australia. Police Practice and Research, 1-16.

Wight, D., & Fullerton, D. (2013). A review of interventions with parents to promote the sexual health of their children. Journal of Adolescent Health, 52(1), 4-27.

Young, I., & McDaid, L. (2014). How acceptable are antiretrovirals for the prevention of sexually transmitted HIV?: A review of research on the acceptability of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis and treatment as prevention. AIDS and Behavior, 18(2), 195-216.