Roundtable: Exploring Downstream Partnerships to Market Zinc Supplementation to Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) in Developing Countries

Abstract

To explore downstream partnerships at the 2005 Innovations in Social Marketing Conference, participants formed roundtable discussion groups, assuming roles of stakeholders marketing zinc supplementation to oral rehydration solution (ORS) in a hypothetical developing country. Recent developments, including reformulation of ORS and results of clinical trials on zinc, have in effect created a new approach to diarrheal treatment, reflected in new WHO guidelines. Using ORS during diarrhea and taking zinc for 10–14 days reduces the duration and severity of episodes and helps prevent new episodes of diarrhea, a significant child health problem in developing countries.

Social marketing partnerships: Evolution, scope and substance

“…Even during this era, social marketers realized that partnership creation is neither a simple nor a direct process (Sowers, 2005). However, the growth of social marketing partnerships over the past 50 years highlighted the potential for developing social marketing programmes at scale by focusing on the market, not the individual (Lefebvre, 2011).…”

“…This conference resulted in the publication of a special edition of Social Marketing Quarterly in the Fall/Winter of that year. This special edition was dominated by round-table discussions (Lagarde et al, 2005; Niblett, 2005; Sowers, 2005; Williams, 2005) and conference proceedings (Lee et al, 2005) incorporating a mixture of academic and state of play perspectives. The ISM conference epitomized a number of significant milestones in relation to partnerships in social marketing.…”

“…For instance, in reality a lack of formality has been a criticism of partnership formation in the past, with practitioners equating its absence to limited campaign success (Ojeda et al, 2009). Active engagement is equally important as it helps to differentiate a stakeholder and sponsor from a partner (Sowers, 2005). Within social marketing’s perspective, commitment and trust are thought to be greater among parties whom do not receive monetary rewards for their activities (Hastings and Saren, 2003).…”

“…(French, 2010: 309)Stakeholders and partnership relationships in this context are differentiated through the level of commitment to the social marketing activity. Therefore, for stakeholders to become partners they need to be actively engaged (Sowers, 2005) as opposed to passively supporting an idea.…”

Analyses for the U.S. 2010 Census Partnership Program

“…Lefebvre (2006) discusses strategies such as ways of identifying potential partners for recruitment and methods for gaining insight into the target audiences aimed at developing partnerships in a manner that is mutually beneficial to the campaign and the partners. Sowers (2005) identifies different roles that partners may play in the campaign, including ''donors'' who initiate the process of persuading stakeholders to become partners and ''influential individuals'' who may be able to sway particular groups in the target population. The 2010 Census Partnership Program engaged 824 national organizations in addition to 38,684 local and 217,339 community organizations to serve as advocates for the 2010 Census and thereby help gain an accurate count.…”