Design of a Social Marketing Plan on Salt Reduction for the Control and Treatment of Noncommunicable Diseases in Costa Rica

High blood pressure and other non-communicable diseases associated with excessive salt/sodium consumption represent a major challenge to the health of the world’s population. Consumption is a human behavior that is usually influenced by significant factors, internal and external to people. The design of a national social marketing intervention is described. The whole process was developed by a national interdisciplinary team over the course of a decade (2011-2022). Its purpose is to promote changes in this behavior, through gradual reduction of salt/sodium consumption in the target populations of Costa Rica, for the prevention and control of associated diseases. The process includes four phases: research, situation analysis, creation of a proposal for the social marketing strategy, and implementation and evaluation. Last phase was not developed by the research team. The main inputs used to design this intervention were the data generated in three qualitative researchers carried out by the national work team and the social marketing regional plan for salt consumption reduction in Latin America. By analyzing these research data, marketing mix components were determined for designing the intervention. The marketing strategy is promotional and is based on encouraging a natural diet with less sodium using natural seasonings and adding less discretional salt and industrialized products high in sodium, in the preparation of food and dishes. The primary key audience is the mother of the school-aged child, and the secondary is the adult caregivers of this child. It is expected that in the short term, health promoters from different government and non-state sectors will contribute to the implementation of the national social marketing plan, to achieve, in the medium or long term, a consumption that approaches five grams of salt per person per day. This plan is a country initiative to position the value of a natural diet with less sodium and to contribute to the prevention and treatment of HT and NCD associated diseases.

Theatre Arts as Social Marketing Application Tool： Sustainable Development Approach to Diffuse the Environmental Message to Teenagers in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Often, the word ＂community＂ and ＂sustainability＂ are interlinked in 21st century development approaches. Most development communicators have focused on top-down communication strategies and used various means to diffuse the message to the target community. However, with the change in media landscape today, the challenge is how to select the ＂right＂ communication application to foster the behavioral and cognitive sustainable changes in their own community. This research aims to investigate theatrical performance as sustainable communicative means demonstrating environmental issues and the concepts of sustainable development among high school students and Chiang Mai University students. With the application of ＂Devised Theatre＂, the process provides a space to investigate the attributes, characteristics and development of community theatre on how it reflects the concept of communication for social change. The research, therefore, examines the outcome of this creative social application tool and utilizes Practice as Research （PAR） a research methodology. The result will reveal the following： （1） how dramatic arts can be an effective means of social marketing to raise ＂awareness＂ on environmental issues; （2） how the performance raises environmental awareness in not only physical and psychological phases, but also spiritual dimension as a learning process among the participants, and （3） the sustainability of theatrical social application tool in which the participants of devised theatre project （devisees） can become the devisors in order to form new generation of the devisees--the teenage audience.

Impact of thumb up sharing advertising in social media

“Thumb up advertising”is a new and effective way to spread shared advertising in social media.How the retailer adapts“thumb up advertising”in marketing with a game theory model is analyzed.The results show that when the retailer chooses to thumb up the advertising in Moments,a higher reward will increase the equilibrium price but hurt the retailer s expected profit;if the consumers can more easily reach the thumb up amount,the retailer will charge a higher price,and possibly gain more profit.When the retailer chooses thumb up at the end of the advertising context,a higher reward will increase the equilibrium price and the retailers expected profit will increase/decrease.If the consumers are easier to reach the thumb up amount,the retailer will charge a higher price,and may get more profit.If a consumer s click cost of clicking the sharing advertising is higher,the retailer charges a lower price;and if the consumer s additional perceived value from the advertising is higher,the retailer charges a higher price and reaps more profit.

Notions of Free Market and Social Welfare in Islamic Economics

Trading and business in Islam has been identified as the second best profession after agriculture and Prophet Muhammad （PBUH） himself has been engaged in trading. The Islamic theory of market aims to provide optimization of returns and satisfaction for all stakeholders. It also seeks to make ＂free market＂ an instrument of promoting equity and social justice for the welfare of society. It combines tenants from the free market model as well as those in command market economy. Islamic economics identifies certain functional parameters for the efficient functioning of the market to achieve the optimization of returns and social welfare like absence of middle men, prohibition of hoarding, mode of finance free from interest and usury, taxation and other wealth redistribution instruments like Zakat and Khums, asset-based and risk-sharing partnerships and stakes, etc.. It essentially creates conditions for proper functioning of a competitive market as an instrument of economic progress and social equity. In Islamic economics, the role accorded to the state is to ensure that institutions are set up and vigilance officers are appointed which create the specified condition for the proper and fair functioning of the market and hence preventing what is identified as ＂market failure＂. The role of the state is to improve the functioning of the market as opposed to that of systematic intervention. This paper tries to examine the Islamic notions of ＂free market＂ in the traditional sources like Qur＇an, Hadees, the early texts of Islamic Jurisprudence, and contemporary writings on Islamic economic system and to make a comparative analysis with theories of market in capitalist and socialist frameworks. The paper will examine the extent to which Islamic notions of free market offer an alternative model to resolve the problems of growth, inequity, and risk management.

Analysis of optimal referral reward programs for innovative offerings

A nested Stackelberg game among a provider of a product,a sender(existing customer),and a receiver(new customer)is developed to explore the optimal referral reward programs(RRPs)for innovative offerings.The results indicate that the provider should forsake RRPs and purely rely on customers'organic word-of-mouth communication under certain conditions.In particular,when the innovativeness of the referred product is extremely high,the provider should forsake RRPs completely,even though few customers will make organic referrals for the product.When the innovativeness is on other levels,the provider should make optimal RRPs decision depending on both the sender's persuasion effectiveness and the tie-strength between the two customers.Moreover,the optimal rewards increase with the innovativeness of the referred product when the provider opts to use RRPs.These results seem contrary to the existing empirical finding to some extent,and it is due to the high referral cost for making a successful referral for the high innovative offerings.

NUDGING OCCUPANT BEHAVIOR-CULTIVATING POSITIVE ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN COMFORT,HEALTH,AND BUILDING EFFICIENCY ACTIONS WITH THE DENVER HOUSING AUTHORITY

1.INTROD CTION Established in 1938,the Housing Authority of the City and County of Denver(DHA)is one of the nation’s most successful housing authorities,providing a variety of livable affordable housing options throughout Denver Colorado.DHA’s mission is to serve the residents of Denver by developing,owning,and operating safe,decent,and affordable housing in a manner that promotes thriving communities.DHA manages,owns,and operates a large portfolio of residential,warehouse,office and commercial properties through the City and County of Denver,CO.One of DHA’s strategic goals is to develop and operate sustainable energy efficiency properties through the Denver community.DHA continues to develop and rehab buildings that meet the USGBC rating system and Green Enterprise Communities Standards,include the development of LEED Platinum buildings.In addition to developing and maintaining energy efficient properties,DHA is also focused on engaging with residents to encourage responsible choices around energy use.DHA believes there is significant opportunity for energy and water savings through focusing on the human dimension of energy efficiency.YR&G has been working with DHA since 2010 supporting sustainable design initiatives for their new construction projects.In 2014,YR&G began working with DHA to design,implement,and perform measurement and verification for a resident education and engagement program focused on energy and water conservation behaviors.The intent is to produce a replicable program that can be implemented across DHA properties.

Delivering reproductive health services through non-state providers in Pakistan:understanding the value for money of different approaches

Background:Delivering Reproductive Health Results(DRHR)programme used social franchising(SF)and social marketing(SM)approaches to increase the supply of high quality family planning services in underserved areas of Pakistan.We assessed the costs,cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of DRHR to understand the value for money of these approaches.Methods:Financial and economic programme costs were calculated.Costs to individual users were captured in a pre-post survey.The cost per couple years of protection(CYP)and cost per new user were estimated as indicators of cost efficiency.For the cost-effectiveness analysis we estimated the cost per clinical outcome averted and the cost per disability-adjusted life year(DALY)averted.Results:Approximately£20 million were spent through the DRHR programme between July 2012 and September 2015 on commodities and services representing nearly four million CYPs.Based on programme data,the cumulative cost-efficiency of the entire DRHR programme was£4.8 per CYP.DRHR activities would avert one DALY at the cost of£20.Financial access indicators generally improved in programme areas,but the magnitude of progress varies across indicators.Conclusions:The SF and SM approaches adopted in DRHR appear to be cost effective relative to comparable reproductive health programmes.This paper adds to the limited evidence on the cost-effectiveness of different models of reproductive health care provision in low-and middle-income settings.Further studies are needed to nuance the understanding of the determinants of impact and value for money of SF and SM.

A COUPLED DYNAMIC MODEL OF BRAND ACCEPTANCE AND PROMOTIVE INFORMATION SPREADING

When people try to decide to buy or not to, they are often influenced by both their inherentopinions and the social marketing activities e.g. advertising, social news with strong point of view.Then people will make their final choice, or even convince other people to buy. After all, this is thebrand acceptance formation process. Factually, the dynamics of brand acceptance is essentially aninterwoven dynamics of endogenous opinion dynamics disturbed by an information diffusion process.To have a better understanding of the dynamics of brand acceptance, we propose and analyze a coupledagent-based dynamic model that combines the Majority-Rule-based Voter model in opinion dynamicswith the SI Model for information spreading to analyze the dynamics of brand acceptance in socialmedia. We focus on two important parameters in diffusion dynamics： the decayed transmission rate （fl）and the diffusion frequency （f）. When the system is stable, the order parameter of the system is theduration time （r）. In the absence of opinion interaction, the simulation results indicate that, when abrand tries to occupy a larger market share through social marketing approaches, it is always effectiveto let the opponent to be the propaganda target. While with the Majority-Rule-based Voter Modelincluded, we observe that the opinion interaction could have a dual function, which shows that a brandholding a small market share in the first place needs to adopt diverse marketing approaches accordingto different marketing environment types.

B2B MARKET FORMATION AND WELFARE IMPLICATION IN A BUYER'S MARKET

The emergence of B2B electronic markets has greatly changed the relative bargaining power of buyers and sellers.We study the equilibrium market structure in a buyer＇s market.We find that buyer-controlled B2B markets and neutral B2B markets have different equilibrium structures,and the emergence of B2B markets will increase social welfare,but its effect on buyers and sellers will be different：B2B markets increase the consumer surplus of the end market,but their effects on buyer and seller profits are moderated by the relative bargaining power of buyers and sellers.The profits of the side with much weaker bargaining power will decrease due to the introduction of B2B markets.