Social Marketing for Social Innovation: The Employment Plan of the Spanish Red Cross as a Case Study

Abstract

[Abstract] Social innovation consists of developing and implementing new ideas to meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. Social marketing can contribute to achieving socially desirable outcomes or impacts, including those originating from new solutions to social problems. The goal of this chapter is to understand how the application of commercial marketing to influence the ideas and voluntary behavior of target audiences can contribute to the development and implementation of innovative solutions to social problems. Our case study focuses on work integration as a relevant social challenge globally and analyzes the social marketing campaign undertaken by the Spanish Red Cross to promote equal opportunities and treatment in the labor market for the most vulnerable citizens. Findings suggest social marketing may not only be a key strategy to promote socially innovative initiatives for work integration but also become a social innovation of the marketing type in its own right.