The Internet in Social Marketing Research

Social marketing campaigns are usually aimed at problems that exact a large toll in the community. Any campaign must be properly researched during the development process and afterward, to assess its impact. The target market for social marketing campaigns often includes younger members of the community. The research methodology used when developing or assessing these campaigns must therefore be appropriate to adolescents. This article discusses the application of Internet technology to research among adolescents using experience gained while testing potential antismoking messages among a sample of UK school students to illustrate the issues. Internet-based research has the potential to generate data that is comparable to that generated by conventional research methods and with improved efficiency in terms of timescale, cost, quality, and quantity of responses.(C) 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.