'Social Marketing Company (Smc)\r'

' cordial selling: A achiever Story in Bangladesh Mahbubur Rahman, MA, MBA 1 and Toslim Uddin Khan, MA, MSS, MBA 2 social commercializeing bon ton (SMC) is the largest cloisteredly managed kind trade plaque in the world for a genius pastoral. It is a significant contributor to the reproductive and youngster wellness services in Bangladesh. The on-going amicable selling curriculums of SMC include family prep, child health, disease prevention and matriarchal and neonatal health.SMCs mission is to break the fibre of lives of penetrable and little privileged tribe primarily in public health issues finished sustainable social trade efforts in collaboration with national and external governments and donors. sociable marketing is the application of commercial solicitude techniques for popularizing and selling products and services that offer clear benefits to the hoi polloi at prices they can buy. Thus, easy accessibility with wide approachability and gamey af fordability forms the key fragment of social marketing.The model of social marketing SMC pick come forth and hatchs to practice has dickens comp unrivallednts †multi-strategy communications for initiating desired appearance change, and suitable, cheap, readily accessible product and service for sustaining the changed mien using the techniques of commercial marketing. Because of its remarkable success and its untarnished size, social marketing in Bangladesh has sustain a model of best practices and attracted international attention.Two premier the States based graduate schools of business included the face regard on social marketing program in Bangladesh in their curricula, which is an entire chapter of the ren giveed retain titled â€Å"Let E very nestling Be Wanted: How Social trade Is Revolutionizing encumbrance uptake Around the World” written by Philip D. Harvey. The miscue on SMC is also included in the â€Å"Asian Marketing Casebook” writt en by Noel Capon and Wilferied R. Vanhonacker. SMC is ISO 9001-2000 cognizant connection.The company is awarded internationalist star topology Award for attractions in prime(a) (ISLQ) in 2008 by the patronage Initiative Directions (BID) a Madrid-based business organization connected to build bettor business reputation worldwide. circumstances of SMC to the discipline curriculum Social marketing of antifertilitys and ORS has be to be a employment contributor to transaction of the health and universe of discourse objectives of the Government of Bangladesh. race cognizance experts used three critical measures of birth control device speciality †Total Fertility Rate (TFR)3, Couple yr of Protection (CYP)4 and prophylactic Prevalence Rate (CPR)5.Between 1975 and 2007, the entireness fertility rate of the country dropped from 6. 3 to 2. 7, and the boilersuit cautionary prevalence rate among currently hook up with women rose from 8 rangeake to 56 per cen tum, with in advance(p) cautionary use at 48 per centum (BDHS, 2007). SMC is significantly contributing in the modern contraceptive method actings to achieve national contraceptive goals. BDHS shows that 35 portion of the modern contraceptive users use SMC chump contraceptives (four out(a) of ten pill users, six out of 1 headland of Marketing, Social Marketing alliance Head or Research and MIS, Social Marketing guild The average number of children that would be born liveborn to a woman (group of women) during her lifetime 4 It is estimated that single CYP is brookd by 150 gum elastics or 15 ad-lib pill cycles or 4 vials of injectables. 5 Contraceptive prevalence rate is defined as the portion of Married Women of productive ripen using family planning method. 2 1 ten pencil eraser users and two out of ten injectables users use SMC rat). According to the Consumers sell Audit, SMC provoker condoms take over 81 part sh be of the retail market while SMC tag OCP gain 90 percent of retail market share (ACNielsen, 2008).SMC distributes near deoxycytidine monophosphate billion pieces of condoms, 40 million cycles of oral pills and unrivaled million vials of injectables annually by dint of and by dint of out the country. ORSaline was launched in late 1985 to enhance the availability of ORS to extend mortality and morbidity due to looseness among under 5 children in Bangladesh. The usage of encase ORS in diarroheal cases among the under five children has extendd from 61 percent in 2000 to 77 percent in 2007 (BDHS, 2007). According to the Consumers Retail Audit, ORSaline-N punctuate of SMC is the market leader of ORS retail market with more than 59 percent share (ACNielsen, 2008).SMC distributes approximately 180 million sachets of ORS p.a. byout the country. Evolution of Social Marketing gild The concept of social marketing came to Bangladesh in 1974 when the social marketing project was initiated to challenge rapid existence gro wth by making contraceptive products astray accessible at a price affordable to the general people. The project was initiated by a US-based non-profit organization Population go International (PSI) in savvy with the Government of Bangladesh (GOB), and with funding from United States Agency for International Development (USAID).In 1990, the project transformed into Social Marketing follow †a non-for-profit private limited company, and since beingness operated under a voluntary Board of Directors consisting of mellow personalities with private and public sector expertise in different fields. From 1997, SMC had been the social marketing partner in the USAID funded subject area Integrated Population and Health schedule (NIPHP) under a Cooperative proportionateness. After complete of NIPHP, SMC signed a novel Cooperative Agreement with USAID as a partner of USAID Bangladesh Health and Population programme (UBHPP) effective from January 2008.Sales and Distribution Networ k SMC has sensation of the most established, extensive and efficient distribution networks in Bangladesh. Nationwide coverage is carried out through twelve offices laid in major division and rule towns of the country. This enables SMC’s a little over 100 men-strong gross revenue force to distribute products to the far-flung payoff promptly and regularly. On an average, about 223,000 outlets are served by SMC sales force each year of which approximately 35 percent are pharmacies and the easiness are nonpharmacies including grocery stores and kiosks.Stocks at the sales offices are replenished through large delivery trucks at scheduled intervals. The sales force cover the territory by SMC’s exceed of delivery vans, motorbikes and boats whenever necessary. In order to moderate efficient and secured storage of all SMC products, SMC has constructed a substitution warehouse (CWH) and a packaging unit located at Bhaluka, Mymensingh in 2008. The CWH is constructed with necessary warehousing of necessity like adequate passageway for transporting beneficials, ventilation, natural light up or scope for increasing artificial lighting, optimum space areas for stacking true(p)s as per standard storing guidelines.The widespread sales and distribution efforts of SMC contributed to make its products wide available in the retail outlets across the country. The product availability probe showed that 84 percent of the retail chemists outlets exact at least i SMC notice of oral examination Contraceptive Pill (OCP) while 82 percent pharmacy outlets have at least one SMC instigator of condom and 91 percent pharmacy outlets have at least one SMC brand of ORS. In addition to pharmacy outlets, SMC sales condom and ORS in 2 he non-pharmacy outlets as a strategy to increase accessibility and availability of the products. unitary in every five non-pharmacy retail outlets of the country has SMC brand condom and more than two in every five non-pharmacy retail outlets have SMC brand ORS countrywide ( way, 2007). The elude 1 shows the availability of SMC products in the retail outlets. flurry 1: Availability of SMC marker OCP, prophylactic and ORS by Pharmacy and Non-pharmacy Retail Outlets (in percentage) cross Pharmacy Non-pharmacy At least one SMC brand OCP 84 na At least one SMC brand caoutchouc 2 21 At least one SMC brand ORS 91 44 Number of Outlets 2400 4800 Use of Innovative Communication run for Strategic Behavior Change When social marketing began in Bangladesh, many were skeptical about the feasibleness of large-scale information dissemination and advertising of contraceptive products. They were skeptical mostly for three reasons. First, Bangladesh is predominantly Moslem society in which reproductive health was not openly discussed. Second, much of the population was illiterate at that time with limited access to media.Third, the majority of the population was very poor and there were doubts that people could be persuad ed to purchase contraceptives when these supplies were available innocuous from otherwise sources. To address the prevailing formid(prenominal)able situation in the mid seventies, SMC launched a strong and innovative communication program to facilitate and sustain behavior changes towards family planning and contraceptive use. The program is now recognized worldwide for its germinal use of innovative channels to communicate generic wine family planning and health messages and to foster sales of mark products. tout ensemble modern mass media communication channels including regional and national radio, television, and print media were being utilized from the very beginning. The products have been advertised on billboards, signs, buildings, water tanks, crop boards and banners, rickshaws, shopping bags, at sporting events, and through free promotional distribution. Riverboats carried genus Raja Condom logos on their sails. The Mobile remove Program (MFP) is a trademark of soci al marketing in Bangladesh, and a major factor in making SMC the largest social marketing program in the world.The mobile van fleet presents audio-visual shows that reach hundreds of thousands in rustic areas with education on health issues and advertisements of SMC’s products. A recently conducted study on MFP showed that 63 percent of the MFP viewers have learned new information on family planning, 53 percent learned new information on STD/AIDS and 32 percent learned new information on women trafficking watching mobile adopt program (MRC-MODE, 2007). The pharmacists and non-graduate checkup practitioners are one of the major sources of health information and prescriber of medicine, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas.As a part of the comprehensive communication strategy, SMC provides fosterage to approximately 17,000 health providers annually to strengthen their cognition and skill in order to offer better over-the-counter services including counseling. filths as Demand Drivers Market portionation, effective positioning and brand development efforts continue to be a major part of SMC’s strategies, and the company now provides a diverse browse of pills and condoms targeted at 3 specific market segments and support with brand-specific advertising and promotion.The efforts have significantly contributed to increase brand informedness and brand loyalty among the target population. For example, Raja condom was introduced in 1976 and ultimately became synonymous with the intelligence â€Å"condom” in Bangladesh with huge advertising and promotional efforts over the last 32 long time. A study on Use of Contraceptive Among the Poor Couples in Bangladesh conducted by ACNielsen explored the reasons for using SMC OCP among the current SMC brand OCP users.About 61 percent SMC brand OCP contraceptive users mentioned the reason as it suits with body while 13 percent mentioned it is widely available, 8 percent mentioned that it is a good select brand, 9 percent mentioned husband purchases it and 2 percent mentioned that they purchase it due to its debase price (ACNielsen, 2008). SMC sells its contraceptive product brands by positioning them at catch market segments. Target market for Raja and whizz condoms and Femicon and Femipil OCP are the lower income population. SOMA-JECT injectable and Panther condom are for the lower-mid level of the market, while Sensation nd U condoms, Minicon (progesterone only pill) and Nordette-28 oral pills are positioned at the slightly upper mid segment of the market. ORSaline-N, Monimix and natural rubber delivery kit are positioned for all segments of the market. Table 2 shows different SMC brands with year of launching: Table 2: SMC brands, year of launching, and its positioning in the market. reapings Brand Oral Contraceptive Nordette-28 Pill Femicon Femipill Minicon SOMA-JECT injectable Condom ORS Micro forage Safe Delivery getup Raja Panther Sensation U mill ORSaline/OR Sali ne-N ORSaline Fruity Monimix Safety Kit Year of open 1995 1976 1983 1992 2005 006 1983 Positioning Upper and middle segment trim down segment tear down segment All segments Lower and middle segment Lower segment gist segment Upper segment Upper segment Lower segment All segments 2003 2008 2008 Upper segments All segments All segments 1996 2008 2000 1999 Knowledge Attitude Practice and intuition (KAPP) Study on OCP shows that the Married Women of Reproductive Age (MWRA) have a wider level of awareness of SMC brand OCP. Eight out of ten MWRA have Femicon brand while about half of the MWRAs survive Nordette-28 brand. Those couples who do the brand have a very high level of quality perception regarding brand.Eighty-five percent of the MWRA who know Femicon brand mentioned that the brand is either very good or good while 92 percent of the MWRA who know Nordette-28 brand told that it is either very good or good quality OCP (RCS, 2007). Table 3 shows the quality perception on SMC brand OCP among the MWRA who know the brand: 4 Table 3: Quality perceptual experience on SMC Brand OCP among MWRA who know the brand OCP brand of SMC Response Femicon Nordette-28 Minicon Very good 14. 8 10. 6 30. 3 Good 71. 3 81. 3 36. 9 Not so good not so 5. 4 3. 3 12. 9 full-grown Not good 1. 9 0. 8 1. 0 Don’t Know 6. 4 4. 1 18. 8 Number of MWRA 2045 597 287 drab wiz Social Franchising Program: Involvement of the Private Practitioners in the universe Health Priority Areas The Blue Star Program is an all out effort to bring the private sector health service providers (both graduate and non-graduate medical practitioners) into the public health program. The program works through a network of 3600 private medical practitioners. The plan of this program is to address the unmet need of the target population by improving quality, awareness, accessibility, and affordability of priority public health services through the private health providers.SMC provide comprehensive training, commodity supply, promotional support and surveillance & monitoring to these Blue Star Providers. A Program Evaluation Study interviewed 1379 private sector health service providers †half of them were Blue Star Providers and the rest half was not affiliated with the Blue Star Franchising. The study reveals that knowledge level on contraception of Blue Star Providers is significantly higher than the non Blue Star Providers.For example, nearly 41% of non Blue Star providers have no knowledge on the view effect of injectable while the rate is slight than one percent for Blue Star Providers (RCS, 2006). soon injectable contraceptive is given along with other health services through this network. Next to the OCP, injectable is the most popular temporary contraceptive method in Bangladesh. According to Bangladesh Demographic and Health persuasion (BDHS) 2007, 7% of the eligible couples are using Injectable contraceptive compared to 2. 6% in 1991.As BDHS 2007 sho ws, one out of five injectable users collect their supplies from private medical sector †graduate and non-graduate medical practitioners and pharmacies, which are considered as the outlets of Blue Star Franchising Program. Social Marketing of Micronutrient Product: A New Avenue in Child Health Program SMC has launched its Micronutrition program in Bangladesh through introduction of ”MoniMix” †a branded micronutrient powder for childly and convenient in-home fodder fortification of complementary food to address childhood Iron Deficiency anaemia (IDA) in May 2008.Objective of the micronutrient program is to help improve nutritional status of under-five children, particularly of those with childhood IDA, to increase knowledge and awareness among parents and health service providers about the importance of micronutrient containing food and adequate dietary intake, and to promote exclusive breastfeeding and proper complementary feeding of nutrition rich foods.A K APP study on Home fastness of Complementary Food among the parents and caregivers of the children under 5 years found that nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) mentioned that they are aware about IDA while the rest (53 percent) admitted their complete ignorance on the issue 5 (ACNielsen, 2008). The findings of the study strongly confirm the comprehensive awareness creation campaign on Micronutrition in general and IDA in particular which SMC has started. SMC manu factory: Manufacturing ORS to Ensure Product SecurityIn order to ensure the protective covering of ever increasing demand of pre-packaged ORS, SMC has established its own very modern ORS manufacturing easiness in 2004. This facility has certainly released SMC from complete dependency on hug manufacturers. The annual ORS production capacity of the factory is around 200 million sachets, and the factory produced 176 million sachets of ORSaline-N in FY 2007. The SMC factory complex is situated on 5. 9 acres of land at Bhaluka on the DhakaMymensingh highway.The factory complex includes raw materials and finished goods store, production unit, quality control labs, services and administration units. Machinery and equipments of the SMC factory are of latest technology and in particular, the sachet machine is state-of-art. The next: Journey Towards Sustainability SMC is seeking to increase its contribution to the exertion of national health objectives through significant elaboration in the services it provides and the products it sells, while enhancing its organizational sustainability through increased revenues and better management.Over the past years, SMC has steadily improved its cost recovery, which was 74 percent in 2007. Eventually, SMC endeavors to become a self-reliant social marketing company with minimum level of donor assistance. However, the products that are positioned for the lower segment †one condom, one pill and one injectable †would continue as a part of SMC’s social commitment to serve the less privileged and vulnerable groups. Reference 1.ACNielsen Bangladesh, â€Å"Knowledge, Attitude Perception and Practice (KAPP) Study on Home weapons system of Complementary Food”, 2008, Conducted for Social Marketing Company 2. ACNielsen Bangladesh, â€Å"Retail Audit Report on OCP, Condom and ORS”, April 2008 Conducted for Social Marketing Company 3. ACNielsen Bangladesh, â€Å"Use of Contraceptive Among the Poor Couple of Bangladesh”, 2008 Conducted for Social Marketing Company 4. Eve, E. Epstein, â€Å"SMC Story: The History of Social marketing Company”, 2006 written for Social Marketing Company . appoint of Public Health and Nutrition (IPHN), Government of Bangladesh, â€Å"National Strategy for Anemia Prevention and Control in Bangladesh”, 2007 6. MRC-MODE Limited â€Å"Study on Mobile Film Program”, 2007, Conducted for Social Marketing Company 7. National Institute of Population Research and Trainin g (NIPORT), Mitra and Associates, and ORC Macro, â€Å" forward Report on Bangladesh Demographic and Health horizon 2007”, 2007. 8. Noel Capon and Wilfried R. Vanhonacker, â€Å"The Asian Marketing Casebook”, 1999 9.Philip D. Harvey, â€Å"Let each Child Be Wanted: How Social Marketing Is Revolutionizing Contraceptive Use Around the World”, 1999 10. Pathway â€Å"Availability and Market Penetration Study of SMC Products”, 2007, Conducted for Social Marketing Company 11. Research and Computing Services (RCS) Limited, â€Å"Knowledge, Attitude Perception and Practice (KAPP) Study on Oral Contraceptive Pill among the Married Women of Reproductive Age” 2007, conducted for Social Marketing Company 6\r\n'