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In 2004 the government in England decided to undertake a review of social marketing to assess its potential to guide the development and implementation of its future health promotion efforts. This decision was taken despite the fact that England does not have a strong tradition or a welldeveloped social marketing infrastructure. Moreover, there is skepticism about the value and principles of social marketing in some segments of the public health workforce.In June 2006 the government accepted the recommendation of the review that social marketing should be used to guide all future health promotion efforts directed at achieving behavioral goals, and it has begun to adopt a national approach to systematically applying social marketing principles to guide its efforts. This article sets out the history and policy-drivers for this dramatic change.The article also sets out the findings and a summary of the recommendations. It also discusses some of the key lessons learned about developing a national strategic approach to the application of social marketing and some of the tactics employed to ensure social marketing is adopted.

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The urgency and scale of contemporary health challenges are enormous. The review It's Our Health! published in 2006 found that social marketing had considerable potential to increase the effectiveness of health improvement work, with the intention that it should build on core health promotion principles and not replace them. Health promotion has, however, lost its focus and identity in recent years in some parts of the country, partly due to repeated organizational change, and it has suffered from a lack of proactive workforce development. Over the last year, the National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC) and the Shaping the Future of Health Promotion Collaboration (StFofHP), hosted by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), have explored the relationship between social marketing and health promotion and led a debate with stakeholders. A Delphi consultation with an expert panel drawn from specialists and strategic leaders in several settings, and the academic community, is currently under way and will report in the autumn. Findings so far emphasize the wide variation in understanding and interpretation of the two skill sets, much confusion about definitions and what added value both health promotion and social marketing bring to health improvement. Some of the distinctive contributions of both are described in this paper.