The ESMA Board supports the development of ESMA as a globally recognised professional organisation for European Social Marketing. The Board members and their personal statements are listed below.
Nadina Luca (Chair)
I am a social marketing specialist, researcher and teacher. I am currently a Lecturer at the University of York where I teach ethical marketing and sustainability and work on food and well-being and public health projects.
As a passionate social marketer with a long-standing interest in social change I have always been committed to supporting the advancement of social marketing. I welcomed the ESMA project as a great opportunity for our field and engaged with its activities since the very early stages of the project contributing to the creation of the Association, including branding and website. Having held the ESMA administrator position since 2014 allowed me to contribute to developing the Association, including setting up the membership, managing the ESMA communications and working closely with the Board on creating new services for our members. My experience with ESMA’s developmental stages has given me rich insight on the needs of the Association and a clear view of the future pathways.
My experience as a social marketing researcher in health and well-being with a focus on community programmes enabled me to develop knowledge of the key issues in the field, build networks with academics and practitioners in the UK and Internationally and contribute to the efforts to advance social marketing theory and practice. I have helped to organise the European Social Marketing Conferences and look forward to supporting future events.
I am enthusiastic to continue my work to further develop the ESMA and increase awareness of its valuable contribution to the field of social marketing. One of my aims is to work with the Board to expand the ESMA membership across Europe and I would like to focus especially on setting up a knowledge sharing platform and strengthening the skills and application of social marketing in European countries with an emerging interest in social marketing.
Thomas Anker (Vice-chair)
Social marketing is a core part of my professional identify, both in terms of teaching, research, peer-review, conferences and connections with practice.
Social marketing offers a unique approach to solving social, environmental and public health problems that impact on us all. It does so by using the same methods of communication, branding, product and service development as commercial marketing, and then combining this with a deep insight into social and behavioural sciences. As a discipline, social marketing has recently turned 50, but the approach continues to develop at pace to adapt to the constantly changing nature of society. I find this to be such a fascinating and effective way to address societal issues and am delighted to use my position as ESMA Board Member to further strengthen the role of social marketing across Europe.
I have published on a number of social marketing topics, including theory, ethics and more applied research into alcohol advertising and graphic health warnings on tobacco products. My research is currently focusing on consumer dominance in social marketing and how individuals self-organise into social groups that drive societal and environmental change from the bottom up.
John Landels (Secretary)
A late arrival to social marketing after a previous career in the transport industry, I have worked for the UK National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC) since 2014. My work largely involves conducting research with hard-to-reach communities and providing practical social marketing training courses to public and private organisations, as well as NGOs, across the world.
Through my work at the NSMC I have seen the power of social marketing to change people’s lives and I am committed to the growth of the social marketing community across Europe. Whether it’s working to improve the access of hard-to-reach communities to vital health services in the UK or reducing gender-based violence in South Sudan, social marketing gives the marginalised a voice and the policy makers a chance to develop more customer-focused and innovative solutions to the challenges they face.
As Secretary to the ESMA Board, my primary responsibilities are to ensure the smooth operation of the Board and that members are kept in touch with our work. In particular, I am committed to increasing the participation of our national reps in the work of ESMA and to share amongst ourselves the great social marketing work going on around Europe.
Beatriz Casais (Membership and Learning & Development Committees)
I am a social marketing researcher, passionate for social causes and projects with the purpose of improving the welfare of society. Following social marketing experience at the Portuguese Ministry of Health, in the National HIV/AIDS program, I became a marketing scholar at the University of Minho (Portugal), with special research interests in the field of social marketing. I participated in the initial discussion meetings around ESMA’s identity and statement purpose and I have spoken and presented at a number of ESMA and iSMA events.
As an ESMA board member, I aim to help the organisation strengthen the connections between scholars and practitioners, in order to promote theoretically-based good practices and research into relevant topics for practitioners. I also believe that it is important to strengthen the positioning of social marketing in the marketing field, by promoting the research impact of the discipline in a growing number of research journals and achieving greater media coverage, particularly in the digital environment. Finally, I believe it is important to promote the growth of the ESMA community through events and learning initiatives. It is vital that the lessons of social marketing application during the pandemic around the world should be systematised in order to provide guidance for future applications.
Carla Rodriguez-Sanchez (Communication Committee)
As an Associate Professor at the University of Alicante (Spain), I currently conduct research into social marketing in relation to pro-environmental and addictive behaviours (alcohol, Internet, etc.). Regarding addictive behaviours, I am an evaluator of the Spanish Ministry of Health in the National Drugs Plan. Furthermore, I have also an extensive expertise in the field of sustainable tourism and behavioural change. Since I have been in academia, I have witnessed the important role of social marketing in international marketing forums and top journals, where I have published my research.
However, my interest in social marketing dates back to when I started volunteering for the Spanish Red Cross and Ayuda en Acción. In the latter, while studying my degree in Business Administration at the university, I taught women at risk of social exclusion how to create business plans with a social purpose. It was a very enriching experience to help many women grow as professionals and achieve financial independence. It became clear to me that I wanted to focus my personal and professional efforts on social marketing.
Since I became aware of ESMA, I have wanted to have an active voice in this organisation to help it grow and gain recognition worldwide. I am currently designing, along with other colleagues, a project to create an organisation of social marketing researchers and professionals in Spain, since there is currently no such organisation in my country.
Diogo Verissimo
I am a behaviour change specialist with 15 years of experience in the fields of social marketing and community-based natural resource management. My focus has been the design and evaluation of interventions to change environmentally relevant human behaviours, in particular those focused on biodiversity conservation. My research has been published in more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.
In 2016, I was recognised by the IUCN Commission of Education & Communication with their Young Professional Award and in 2017 by the Society for Conservation Biology, with their Early Career Conservationist Award.
I am currently an Oxford Martin Fellow at the University of Oxford, where I work on interventions to reduce demand for illegally traded wildlife products, such as ivory, shark fin or rhino horn. I was previously a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where I worked on the impact evaluation of different behaviour change interventions focused on environmental conservation.
I have been an ESMA member since its foundation, and hope to help broaden the scope of its work towards environmental conservation as well as strengthen the research component of our field by improving the links between academic institutions and practitioners on the ground.
You can learn more about my work at www.diogoverissimo.com
Giuseppe Fattori (ESMA Representatives and Volunteers Committees)
I’m an anaesthesiologist by training with residences in nutrition science, biotechnology, hygiene epidemiology and public health with clinical and management experience. However, my activities are presently focused on social marketing and health promotion.
I coordinated the FIASO Laboratory (Italian Federation of Health and Hospitals) “Health Communication and Promotion”.
Between 2000 and 2017, I was the director of the Social Marketing department at the national health system in Modena – Emilia Romagna (Italy), leading the Program for Health Promotion. During this time, I coordinated the “Map of Health Opportunities” and “Help-AIDS” projects for the region. Since 2006 I have been adjunct professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Bologna (Italy), titular of a series of lectures on Social Marketing on the Masters programme.
I have peer-reviewed publications in various fields of medical science and social marketing and am the author of the first Italian manual of “Social marketing for health and the environment”. Currently, I am:
- Member of ISDE (International Society of Doctors for the Environment).
- Member of the Advisory Board of the “Journal of Social Marketing” (Emerald).
- Member of the Advisory Board of the “Social Marketing Quarterly” (SAGE).
I am President and founder of the “Italian Social Marketing Association” as well as being one of the founders of the European Social Marketing Association at the 2nd World Non-Profit & Social Marketing Conference in Dublin in 2011. It is now an honour to partner with ESMA again to help develop social marketing in Europe and Italy.
Jeff French
I have been involved with ESMA from its founding and continue to believe that the ESMA is a key vehicle for promoting evidence and citizen informed social policy. I have chaired the ESMA conference committee that has delivered a number of highly successful conferences in Lisbon and Rotterdam and Espoo, our forth conference will take place in Antwerp in September 2018. I have also chaired the global definition of Social Marketing group that resulted in the publication of the first global consensus definition in 2013 and the consensus principles working group. The global principles of Social Marketing were endorsed by ESMA and all other associations and published in October 2017.
I am keen to contribute to the next phase of ESMA development. My vision for ESMA is that it will become recognised as one of the central global sources of expert advice and information about good practice in Social Marketing.
I believe that ESMA has a key role to play in ensuring that social marketing is seen as an integral part of all social policy development programme delivery. Finally I believe that a European perspective on Social Marketing needs to be articulated and contributed to the global development of the field and that ESMA is the organisation that can deliver this.
Julie Huibregtsen
Why promote social marketing? In my experience social marketing is a practical method, that fits within the daily work of professionals. It requires skills that most people already have, like true curiosity, which only needs to be recognised and put to use as a professional competence and supported by social marketing tools.
My main drive for the last years? To enlighten the daily work and challenges of professionals. Social marketing can do this, by helping you collect the insights you need to be truly effective.
My value for ESMA? My experience in providing training in, promoting and implementing social marketing and translating social marketing into practice, always aware of the implementation challenges.
I’m fond of metaphors and one I often use is the elephant trail: the small, often bumpy and sandy paths people walk or bicycle, perceiving it’s a faster lane then the official sidewalk. As a metaphor elephant trails represent the heart of social marketing. They are about being curious about how people ‘walk’ instinctively and why. Just like elephants always choose the straightest path into the wilderness, people do so in their daily life. This helps you realise that you need to know exactly why people behave the way they do, before (re)designing your program. So you design a path they will walk voluntarily…
Julie runs the Dutch company Huibregtsen Sociale Marketing. Julie was one of the first to provide social marketing training and support to professionals in the Netherlands since 2008. She was one of the organisers of the European Social Marketing Conference in the Netherlands, Finland and Antwerp.
L. Suzanne Suggs
I am invested in the growth of social marketing globally and in Europe. I am one of the co-founders of ESMA and served as an interim Board Member during the initial years. I am dedicated to continue to grow ESMA, helping us to become the European go-to place for social change know-how, networking, evidence and skill development.
I am a researcher, teacher and practitioner of social marketing and am dedicated to developing better dialogue between researches, practitioners and policy makers to facilitate sustainable social change. One of my aims is to continue to promote the organisation within Europe and abroad. I work with the knowledge sharing work group to support the exchange and development of accessible quality research and practice. I also support training in social marketing in communities, regions and universities. Having helped organise the first two ESMA conferences, I look forward to the third and to celebrating the successes we have achieved so far as an organisation and network.
Disclosure of roles and affiliations with other organisations (boards)
- WHO Regional Health Network: Steering Committee
- Geneva Health Forum: Steering Committee
- Journal of Health Communication: Editorial Review Board
Mike Wooderson (Advisor)
I am delighted to be part of the ESMA team and look forward to working with the Board in ensuring that our data protection processes are of the highest standard.
I have over 25 years of experience in information security and data protection and work to ensure that the ESMA complies with global privacy regulations such as GDPR.
Throughout my career I have worked on the implementation and control of data protection, including setting-up ISO standards for quality management and information security. Following the setting-up of my own consultancy in 2018, I provide remote and onsite consultancy and practical help with companies’ GDPR and data protection compliance.
Rita Brophy
I am a social marketing professional specialising in strategic research, development and training to inform, design and deliver user-centred behavioural change programmes.
A passionate advocate of the benefits of embedding social marketing in social policy, I travel into the heart of communities in order to fully engage with people from various target audiences to identify their situations, hopes and aspirations and work with them to create public-centred services that meet their needs.
Working at a senior-level, advising public health organisations, charities and global manufacturers specialising in the health-care and well-being sectors, it is my intention to communicate the work of ESMA with the aim of inspiring appropriate partnerships to deliver programmes for social good.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of ESMA since its inception, having attended its launch in London in 2011 and being an active member of the working group, chaired by Jeff French, that developed the ESMA, iSMA and AASM global consensus definition of social marketing in 2013. I am excited about ESMA’s future and I look forward to working together as a team to further strengthen ESMA’s position as a centre of excellence in social marketing within the European and global community.