Truth in social marketing: applying truth frameworks to the strategic evaluation of social marketing campaigns

Marketing regulations and codes of conduct require that all claims conveyed by a campaign should be truthful. Although social marketing may convey all types of claims (factual, emotional, symbolic, behavioural) the commitment to behavioural change puts special emphasis on understanding how to evaluate the truthfulness of behavioural claims. This paper provides a framework for the evaluation of truthfulness of behavioural claims in social marketing. First, we introduce the correspondence, coherence and pragmatic theories of truth. We then test three examples against the theories, demonstrating how social marketing campaigns may fail to meet the requirements of truthfulness. Finally, we introduce the idea of truth equilibrium, suggesting conditions under which it is justified to execute a campaign that fails on one truth dimension.