Reflections from ESMC 2024

In November the European Social Marketing Association had the privilege of welcoming the fantastic social marketing community at the sixth European social Marketing Conference in beautiful Ljubljana, Slovenia. A heartfelt thank you to our partners for hosting such a successful event: Fuse, the National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC), and the amazing colleagues from the University of Ljubljana, (Prof Tanja Kamin), National Institute of Public Health, (Judita Kolavec, Silva Nemes) and the Slovenian Association for Social Marketing, (Dr Sinja Gerdina). Thank you to all our committee members, participants, speakers, volunteers, sponsors and supporters for creating such a strong community of practice for social good. A warm thank you to our colleagues in Slovenia for making us feel so welcome! A big thank you to our sponsors Onderzoekshuis, The Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI) Nigeria, and ICE) and all our supporters, (the Italian Marketing Association, Institut du marketing social, iSMA, Ljubljana Tourism, and the Behaviour Change Collaborative).

The 6th European Social Marketing Conference was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia across 3 days (4 – 6 of November) and there were 24 countries represented at the event covering Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia. The event was attended by 119 passionate change makers who embraced our theme of Enabling Change: Strategies for Inclusion, Equity, Wellbeing and Sustainability. We had a full programme that presented over 70 peer reviewed submissions including …

71 x research and case study presentations
2 x mass collaboration sessions
7 x keynote & panel sessions
13 x posters

Of the papers presented the most popular conference tracks were:

  • Health and Wellbeing
  • Planetary Health: Environment and Sustainability
  • Theories and Methods
  • Upstream social marketing, policy and stakeholder engagement

I left inspired and humbled by the strong behaviour and social change work from Europe and around the world presented at the conference. The examples form Slovenia were an inspiration particularly in terms of showing the citizen power to mobilize for social change (David Razboršek, and Lucija Borak). We were reminded about the value of connecting with and understanding people to be able to support change (Tessa de Groot) but also the need to work in partnership with communities and other stakeholders for meaningful positive change (Jan Peloza, and Tomaž Gorenc). The importance of responsible prevention, emphasising strengths and assets rather than symptoms and deficits in the mental health field and not only (Dr Saška Roškar, and Prof Tanja Kamin). There were many powerful examples demonstrating that social marketing works even in some of the most challenging contexts ranging from disability to conflict areas (John Bromley). I am delighted that the conference led to a few actions and developments that will support our community and its work for social good:

  1. The work presented, and the connections formed at the conference led to the emergence of a special group in disability and social marketing. If you are interested in joining this group, please contact us.
  2. I am thrilled that we are taking steps as a community to join forces, support PhD students and early career colleagues, increase collaborations and the impact of our work. Watch this space for news about this, but in the meantime if you want to be involved in creating a support group for early career social marketers, please get in touch.
  3. We were also impressed by the positive reactions to the launch of the free open access Peer Community in Behaviour and Social change. For more information and to get involved in supporting the peer community, please contact Dr Diogo Verissimo.
  4. The forum discussions facilitated by the conference also inspired a call for action to think about ways in which our community could mobilise forces to generate more impact. We will be exploring ideas for international collaborations in the new year. Stay tuned for more news soon!

We look forward to continuing this work and connecting again with our community at our events in 2025.

Dr Nadina Luca, Chair of ESMA