Failure is a stepping stone for success

Abstract

On the basis of a number of case studies of social marketing that did not fully succeed in Guinea-Bissau, extensive research was carried out to determine the causes of failure. These cases revealed several difficulties encountered when implementing the projects, despite all good intentions. Refinements and fine-tuning of existing social marketing tools have been brought to light, looking for indications of the causes of unsuccessful outcomes in the cases studied. A risk analysis was used in an attempt to pragmatically produce a framework able to fully address the final social behavioral change envisaged. As a result of this analysis, some contributions for a breakthrough in social marketing frameworks have been provided, namely the importance of the diagnosis of the problem, in which cultural differences between beneficiaries and promoters play a central role.