Preventing racism using social marketing

Like all not-for-profit organisations, we’re occasionally asked about how we put our mission into practice. Our mission states that:

We aim to eliminate racist behaviour in Australia through innovative, evidence-based and effective social marketing.

Specifically, people want to know about “social marketing”. We define social marketing as the application of commercial marketing principles, tools and technologies to achieve benefits for society.

We interpret and apply this by:

  • basing our work on evidence and evaluating our outcomes;
  • using courageous, provocative and positive messages and images to encourage people to take action;
  • defining specific audiences with which to work on anti-racism strategies;
  • appealing to mainstream audiences; and
  • using a combination of tactics including face-to-face discussion, group discussion, social media discussion, working in partnership, and use of traditional advertising and media.

By using provocative messages like “Give Racism The Finger” our social marketing work encourages people to talk about racism. Through these conversations people will learn more about what racism is, and feel more confident about speaking up when they witness it.

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