Social marketing is a social change approach that is gaining wide popularity as another tool for practicing anthropologists and public health practitioners. The goal is to influence the voluntary behavior of targeted populations with specific health-communication messages, materials and interventions. Social marketing is:
… the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of society. (Alan Andreason, Marketing Social Change: Changing Behavior to Promote Health, Social Development, and the Environment. San Francisco: Jossey Bass 1995)