Table 1 The eight principles of social marketing

Customer orientation

Focus on the needs, wants and attitudes of the targeted persons towards the intervention.

Insight

Examine why people behave the way they do.

Segmentation

Dividing a heterogeneous target group into more homogeneous segments, based on motives, values, behaviours, attitudes, knowledge and opinions, is called audience segmentation [26–28]. Developing an intervention based on these motives/values for a certain segment increases the chance that the audience will adopt the targeted public health intervention [26, 29].

Behavioural goals

Clear and attainable behavioural goals must be set for the audience in a chosen segment.

Exchange

Incentives for the targeted behaviour must be increased and barriers must be removed.

Competition

Competition, which is all the forces that compete with the time/interest of the target group, must be clear. Competitive factors for drinking less alcohol include, for example, the social norms and peer pressure.

Methods mix

It is important to mix interventions, because a mix will be more successful than one single intervention [22].

Theory based

Developing a targeted intervention for the audience of one segment must be based on behavioural, health educational, and promotional theories, in addition to communication theories [22, 30].