Social-marketing as a Tool of Behavioral Change in Youths’ Personal Development

This paper aims to study the link between the concept of social marketing and personal development of the youth. More specifically, it aims to identify the internal/external determinants of youth development and design, implement and evaluate the impact of community-based social marketing intervention program upon youth. A mixed methods research design with an overarching participatory paradigm is implemented, which includes a purposive sample of youth between the ages of 18-29. Qualitative methods include focus groups and face-to-face interviews. Quantitative methods included a pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design used to determine whether there is a difference in the personal development of youth. The findings conclude that there is a significant difference in the before and after experimental group when subjects are exposed to social marketing concepts as compared to the control group receiving no such exposure over a two-month time frame. However, there is no difference in the personal development within the experimental group on the basis of gender.