The link between IMEK Research Center in Marketing & Development and the Latin American Social Marketing Association (LAMSO) evidences our commitment to articulate efforts to address Latin American problems using social marketing approaches.
Some members of IMEK Research Center in Marketing & Development collaborate with Latin American Social Marketing Association (LAMSO). This link is given naturally because both organizations share the purpose of positioning social marketing as an efficient approach to contribute to social change in the global south, specifically in Latin American countries.
This is given because LAMSO is a platform that allows forming of cooperation networks between academics, students, and professionals, who are interested in integrating social marketing with other disciplines and, so, to influence positively on societies changes in Latin America, which keep facing countless social challenges, politics, and economics; and IMEK, for its part, is dedicated to generating scientific evidence through research about health, education, and gender to the global south. IMEK and LAMSO understand social marketing as a tool that could enable developers to contribute to positive societal change.
These organizations identified needs related to evidence diffusion about the uses and benefits of marketing, with a social approach. They decided to work collaboratively with the purpose to highlight the opportunity that represents social marketing for responding to the specific needs of the population, mentioned, through effective actions as the generation of behavioral changes that seek wellness. An articulated job that connects all involved sectors will allow reaching a much greater impact. The generation of meeting spaces between academics and different social change actors is one of the options that enable a constructive dialogue to produce, call up and share scientific knowledge that supports and contributes solutions for facing inequality, which is a problem of many populations in the global south.
Likewise, the joint construction of information and knowledge, besides making decisions for generating public policies that help to influence change, turns on an essential input to change communities and societies in the frame of collective action. Therein lies part of the value that generates when science, politic, and economy, represented by different actors of society with diverse interests, is joined and accompanied by collective efforts, that are connected through common purposes, where science needs more than research for producing progress.
Therefore, it is worth mentioning that the article “Social marketing in Latin America: a historical review” (summary here) is a collaboration between members of LAMSO board directors and IMEK. This document is a starting point to know what social interventions have been made in Latin America using behavioral change approaches and social marketing. This review highlights the importance of resources from international cooperation to attend to Latin American challenges. It is necessary to begin designing and planning each project considering the specificities of the population’s local reality to reach their maximum potential.
Authors: Caicedo, M J, López Sánchez, MC.
