“For a Million Steps”: The Use of Social Marketing and Wearable Devices in the Promotion of Physical Exercise to Achieve Quality of Life

Abstract

Consumer quality of life and well-being are critical objectives of advanced societies. Nowadays, some of the most important problems in these societies are the lack of physical exercise and the sedentary lifestyle, which must be addressed in order to promote the well-being of the population and face the current obesity pandemic. Social marketing and the development of technology offer opportunities to companies and public institutions for the development of new products and their commercialization, which helps to improve the quality of life and well-being of the population.

The development of wearable and smart devices provides new ways of practicing physical exercise and controlling our physical condition and health, responding to the consumer’s need for well-being. The initiative “For a million steps” (“Por un millón de pasos”, in Spanish) started by public institutions in Andalusia (Spain) allows to take advantage of the possibilities that social marketing and wearable devices offer. It is a program that manages to promote the acquisition of physical exercise habits with the support of wearable devices. This case study describes the objectives and keys of the social marketing program that have achieved a greater quality of life and well-being in the participants through the initiation and/or maintenance of physical exercise.

Teaching Notes

Questions Regarding Social Marketing Towards Quality of Life

• 1. Do you consider that technological innovations provide opportunities for companies and/or institutions to adopt an orientation towards social marketing quality of life?

Taking up the case study “For a million steps”, students can identify and propose other possibilities to use new technologies in order to promote the adoption of an orientation of social marketing towards quality of life.

Technological innovations applied in other areas and how they help to achieve a higher quality of life among consumers and/or society can be considered. For example: (a) innovations aimed at monitoring health (with technological devices that control blood sugar levels and help people with diabetes to live better), (b) the technological devices that help elderly and dependent people (with alarm systems tailored to their needs), (c) applications that can contribute to making learning new languages and/or subjects more enjoyable and fun than in the past (such as applications that allow to take advantage of gamification and digital media to develop educational programs), and (d) technological advances that help make a home more comfortable and ecological (such as systems that adjust lighting based on existing solar lighting), among others.

Questions Regarding the Case Study “For a Million Steps”

• 2. Do you think that the objectives of the “For a million steps” program are important?

In this question, students can link the implementation of this program with current data on health and well-being problems associated with sedentary lifestyle among the population of developed countries.

• 3. Which do you think have been the success factors of the “For a million steps” program?

After reading the case, students can identify important keys such as the involvement of the participants in a common project, the development of friendship during their participation in the project, social recognition achieved for each of the participants, the possibilities of customizing the program according to the needs of the group, and many other possibilities.

• 4. What new proposals would you make so that the “For a million steps” program brings new things to participants of previous editions? What other objectives would you add to the program?

The answer to this question may be open to ideas raised by students.

Suggestions that can be taken into account: participation of other groups of the population, adoption of goals associated with the achievement of social challenges, addition of new routes based on nature or culture, theming each of the editions, linking the development of the walks with the benefits of a healthy diet, etc.

Additional Questions

• 5. Create and design a program proposal from marketing orientation in general, and from social marketing towards quality of life in particular, to respond to a situation that you want to improve in your environment.

These questions can be answered by those students who identify an opportunity for improvement in their environment based on the principles of social marketing towards quality of life; and by those who consider that it would be feasible to achieve an improvement in that environment thanks to one of their proposed actions or programs.

• 6. Prepare the necessary materials to communicate your proposal to a company and/or public institution (as appropriate) and, as far as possible, try to make an appointment with those responsible for the company and/or public institution to explain your draft.

At this stage, the teacher could tutor the students to prepare quality presentation materials or proposals, in addition to giving guidelines to manage to make an appointment with a company and/or institution so that they can present a proposal and do an appropriate presentation.

This can be a motivating opportunity for personal growth for the student and for the improvement of the environment.

Additional Reference Material

Chapter 7 “Developing Quality-of-Life Pedagogy in Marketing Courses: A Structured Approach” from the book Tonon (2020).