CDCynergy - Social Marketing Edition and "Lite" Edition

Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and published by Turning Point, "CDCynergy - Social Marketing Edition" is a tutorial and planning guide for applying social marketing systematically to public health programmes. It aims to help public health professionals analyse health problems and plan, implement, and evaluate social marketing programmes to address those problems. CDCynergy is an interactive training and decision-support tool. The product is designed for the individual with some knowledge of social marketing and moderate familiarity with computer technology.

Designed as an interactive training and decision support tool, the resource contains case studies, commentary from experts in the field of social marketing, and tutorials for each stage of effective programme development. It allows users to assemble the pieces of a health communication plan systematically by answering questions in a specific sequence. Sections include:

• Welcome and Main Menu Options
• Approaching the Social Marketing Edition (video)
• Step-by-Step Tutorials
• Examples
• Resources
• Consultant Videos
• Tools for Research
• Media Library
• My Plan and My Model
• Other Links

According to Turning Point, users will learn how to:

• Define the public health problem being addressed. The problem description section clarifies what the public health problem is, who is affected, and what you propose to do to address it. A full, clear problem description and analysis will help you decide whether to undertake a social marketing effort.
• Conduct market research (also called consumer or audience research)to better define audiences. This research is designed to enhance your understanding of the intended audience's characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviours, determinants, benefits, and barriers to behaviour change in order to create a strategy for social marketing programmes.
• Craft a market strategy, which is a plan of action encompassing the specific intended audience segment(s), the specific desired behaviour change goal, the benefits you will offer, and the interventions that will influence or support behaviour change.
• Plan the interventions, which are methods used to influence, facilitate or promote behaviour change (e.g., developing a website to promote drug-free activities to youth).
• Plan programme monitoring and evaluation. Evaluation activities should be useful, feasible, accurate, proper, and ethical.
• Implement and evaluate the intervention. Implementation is the point at which all your planning and preparation come together. Among the activities critical to your programme's success are planning the launch, holding a news event, taking advantage of unexpected opportunities, and defusing potential threats to your efforts.

CDCynergy Lite ("Social Marketing Made Simple") is an updated version based on the original Social Marketing Edition of CDCynergy. The original was developed jointly by the CDC, the Academy for Educational Development, and the Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative, a component of the Turning Point Initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These collaborators received feedback about how to improve the original tool from many of its users, took their suggestions, and made the revisions for the "Lite" version.

The tool takes the reader step-by-step through the process, providing instructions on "What It Is" and "How It Is Done" with tools and templates for each step. Appendices contain useful charts, forms, and questions to help one move through the planning process.