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About us2026-03-08T20:50:18+00:00

ESMA

The European Social Marketing Association (ESMA) is a professional association dedicated to advancing the discipline of social marketing across Europe — fostering its development as a recognised and effective approach to tackling complex societal challenges. At its core, ESMA’s mission is to ensure “social marketing is recognised as one of the key the means of solving social issues across Europe and the world.” This mission drives every aspect of the organisation’s work — connecting practitioners and researchers, building evidence, advocating for best practice, and promoting the discipline’s use by governments, organisations, and communities.

Social marketing itself is the adaptation of marketing principles — such as audience insight, segmentation, positioning, and the marketing mix — not for commercial gain but to encourage positive behaviour change that benefits individuals, communities, and society at large. It combines approaches from behavioural science with marketing tools to address pressing issues such as public health, sustainability, equity, safety, and social inclusion. ESMA views social marketing as both a strategic and ethical framework that puts people at the heart of design and implementation, seeking not just behaviour change but lasting social good.

ESMA was established with the explicit aim of connecting social marketing professionals, researchers, and practitioners across Europe. Historically, much of the literature, training, and community in social marketing has been centred in English-speaking countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Recognising the need for a more pan-European exchange of ideas that reflects diverse cultural, political, and social contexts, ESMA was formed to catalyse this community at a continental scale.

Its core aims can be summarised as follows:

  • Building a community of social marketing professionals and scholars across Europe, facilitating cross-national dialogue and collaboration.
  • Enhancing and facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experience across fields of behaviour and social change, including public health, environmental sustainability, safety, and social inclusion.
  • Promoting the use of social marketing approaches in policy and practice, encouraging organisations from public, private, and third sectors to adopt evidence-based strategies for behaviour change.

Collectively, these aims help ESMA pursue its overarching mission: not merely to define social marketing, but to embed it as a recognised and respected methodology for solving real-world problems across Europe.

At its heart, ESMA is a membership-driven community. Individuals from a wide range of backgrounds — researchers, academics, practitioners in government or NGOs, programme managers, educators, and consultants — come together through ESMA to share insights, debate approaches, and learn from one another. This diversity reflects the broad applicability of social marketing: from health promotion and environmental campaigns to equity, inclusion, and safety initiatives.

ESMA offers both individual and organisational memberships, giving access to resources, networks, and opportunities for professional development. Members benefit from a platform that supports multidisciplinary collaboration and strengthens their ability to design, deliver, and evaluate effective social marketing programmes.

Partnerships with other regional and global organisations are also central to ESMA’s work. It maintains affiliations with bodies such as the International Social Marketing Association (iSMA) and its regional affiliated associations around the world. This partnering work seeks to link European practice with global developments in the discipline.

ESMA’s work is multifaceted, spanning research, advocacy, training, and community building:

  1. Advancing the Evidence Base

A key part of ESMA’s mission is to contribute to the development of the evidence base for social marketing. Through encouraging research, sharing case studies, and promoting best practice, the association helps ensure practitioners apply approaches that are not only innovative but also effective and grounded in scientific rigour. This involves disseminating research findings, facilitating discussion on theoretical advancements, and connecting research with real-world programmes via its networks, communication channels and newsletter.  

  1. Conferences and Knowledge Sharing

ESMA organises major events such as the European Social Marketing Conference — a flagship gathering of professionals where ideas are exchanged, innovations showcased, and collaborations forged. These events bring together public health officials, policy makers, academics, third-sector leaders, and marketers to discuss pressing social issues and explore how social marketing can contribute to solutions.

  1. Training and Capacity Building

A significant emphasis for ESMA is teaching people how to plan and deliver effective social marketing. Through workshops, on line training, webinars, courses, and symposia, it supports skills development for professionals at all stages of their careers

  1. Advocacy and Promotion

ESMA actively works to raise awareness about social marketing and its value. By engaging with policy makers, organisations, and academic institutions, it advocates for the inclusion of social marketing principles in public programmes and strategies. This advocacy helps elevate the visibility and credibility of social marketing within broader public and academic discourse.

Annual activity reports highlight ESMA’s focus on expanding its community, strengthening partnerships, developing standards and guidance, and offering opportunities for networking and professional growth. These efforts demonstrate a strategic commitment to both deepening the discipline and broadening its reach throughout Europe and beyond. Through its inclusive and collaborative model, ESMA supports social marketing not just as a set of tactics but as a holistic, evidence-based, and ethical approach to behaviour and societal change — one that is responsive to the complexities of modern social challenges.

In summary, the European Social Marketing Association is a central hub for the social marketing community in Europe — uniting research, practice, training, advocacy, and collaboration in pursuit of meaningful, measurable social impact.

ESMA was founded with the aim to connect social marketing people, research and practice at the European level.

By creating a community where people practicing and researching social marketing in Europe can connect with other colleagues to share experiences, knowledge, findings, methods, and practices ESMA endeavours to contribute to the development, evidence base and promotion of the social marketing discipline in Europe.

ESMA aims:

  • to establish a community of Social Marketers in Europe
  • to enhance and facilitate knowledge and experience exchange in the different fields of social and behaviour change
  • to promote the use of social marketing as an approach to social change in Europe

The European Social Marketing Association (ESMA) is a professional association for individuals and organisations practicing, researching and teaching social marketing in Europe. ESMA endeavours to contribute to the development, evidence base and promotion of the social marketing discipline in Europe and the world.

Social marketing adapts established marketing approaches and techniques used in the commercial sector, alongside other behaviour change concepts to achieve socially beneficial outcomes, such as better health, safer communities, or cleaner environments.

  • people who practice social marketing
  • academics and researchers
  • people who work in the behaviour change/social change fields
  • programme managers in government bodies and institutions (department/ministry of health or environment etc.)
  • policy officers and social policy advisors
  • not-for-profit programme managers
  • future programme managers
  • managers of professional education programmes
  • behaviour change communication consultants
  • public health officer

For social marketing to be the means of solving social issues across Europe and the world.

We will achieve this mission by:

  • developing the evidence base for social marketing
  • helping social marketers meet, share and collaborate with each other and people from other disciplines and cultures
  • advocating for social marketing to be practiced in all sectors
  • teaching people how to do effective social marketing
  • ensuring that people are aware of social marketing and recognise its benefits

Most social marketing information and knowledge exchange comes from the USA, Australia, Canada, or the UK. There is a need for a broader exchange and development of a social marketing at a European level, including the UK.

Some of the key characteristics of how social marketing is defined and practiced in a European context include:

  • a commitment to social democracy and citizen centric social policy
  • being strategic
  • adopting a whole-system approach
  • a focus on engagement and building relationships
  • working to address social determinants
  • a passion about social justice/fairness
  • an understanding of inequalities
 
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