Seek or destroy? Examining value creation and destruction in behaviour maintenance in social marketing

ABSTRACT

This article presents an empirical investigation of how behaviour maintenance is supported or hindered through value creation and destruction in social marketing. Using a longitudinal, netnographic approach, we identify and examine the key facilitators and barriers encountered during the maintenance of physical and mental health behaviours. Data were collected over a 12-week observation period via Twitter from a sample of 242 participants. A total of 5212 tweets were analysed using content and thematic analysis facilitated by NVivo software program. The findings identify key barriers to and facilitators of behaviour maintenance at the individual level (downstream), meso level (midstream), and policy level (upstream) that have an influence on value creation and destruction in social marketing. These findings demonstrate the importance of employing a strategic and integrated approach to social change management.

KEYWORDS:

• Value destruction
• value creation
• behaviour maintenance
• social marketing
• social media
• Twitter
• content and thematic analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadia Zainuddin

Nadia Zainuddin is Lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong. She has a PhD in social marketing and specialises in preventative health and wellness services. Specifically, Nadia’s primary research interest lies in the areas of value creation and destruction in services and social marketing. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Services Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Management and the Journal of Social Marketing.

Kendall Dent

Kendall Dent is a PhD candidate in Marketing at the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. Her PhD research investigates the psychosocial and technological drivers of consumer engagement in online consumption communities, and relational outcomes pertinent to mental health, including consumer empowerment and consumer well-being. She received her Bachelor of Commerce (Honours-Class 1) degree from the University of Wollongong with her thesis titled ‘Behaviour maintenance in social marketing: A netnographic investigation of value creation and value destruction’, and was awarded the university medal in the Faculty of Business.

Leona Tam

Leona Tam is Professor in Marketing at the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. She has a PhD in marketing from Texas A&M University, an MPhil degree and a bachelor's degree in marketing from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her main research interests are in motivational consumer psychology. She is currently working on projects about habit versus loyalty, temporal effects and repeated behaviour in personal health and finance contexts. She also studies group decision-making. She has published in a number of marketing and management journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research and Psychological Science.