Dear all,

I just found a nice little chart from the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to explain how they see a market based approach in contrast with the "traditional NGO" sector. Since the cookstove world shares a lot of the problems as the WASH sector in terms of achieving scale, their site is worth a browse (cleancookstoves.org/market-development/).



Regards

Marijn

Dear all,
Thank you for all your answers. I think we have now quite a comprehensive understanding of the differences between sanitation marketing and market based approach.

Market based approach (l'approche axée sur le marché) looks at market development and involves a wide range of players and actions as explained by John in his post. For example, working on the enabling environment (role of government) or on technological research to come up with the right product which will be desirable and affordable for the potential customers are fully part of a market based approach (by opposition with a supply and subsidy based approach) but do no fall under sanitation marketing.

Sanitation marketing (le marketing de l'assainissement) is a component of market based approach to develop the sanitation market, consisting in using commercial marketing tools (as explained by Jonathan and Charlotte).

What I recently learned while doing this research is that market based approach is increasingly considered in the humanitarian sector to improve timeliness, effectiveness and efficiency of emergency responses. It consists in undertaking PCMA (Pre Crisis Market Assessments) to identify market players who can be relied on when the crisis breaks out. It limits market distortions (freely given latrines or free water supply may compete with existing supplyers who then have a hard time selling their commodities) and participates in resilience and economic recovery.

Issue n°7 of the Wash e-paper (of the German WASH Network) addresses this topic: Market-Based Programming in Humanitarian WASH.

Best regards,

Cécile

Hi Cecile,

Thanks for your question. Sorry I won't be able to help you with the French! Just a few points from my side. I agree with what colleagues have written but I might add one nuance that you didn't ask for. I think there is another term Market Development that comes into play here, which I think is important to address. I do see see market development as different to sanitation marketing and market-based approaches in that I think it looks more widely at the market players and functions. In sanitation marketing and market-based approaches, we are often (not always though) talking about players on the local level, like consumers, masons, plumbers, concrete manufacturers, etc. In market development we are also talking about importers, national level manufacturers, government's role, etc. We are also looking more widely at the market functions. For example instead of just looking at the 4 Ps (product, price, place, promotion), we are looking at coordination of market players, finance (public and private), quality control, work force development, social norms, formal and informal rules, regulation, etc. Again there might be instances where its done, but that's how I see the differences between Sanitation Marketing / Market-Based Approaches and Sanitation Market Development. There are also other key issues in terms of institutionalization and sustainability too, which we also explore in market development. Would love to hear others thoughts and experiences. If you'd like some market development resources I would start with The Beam Exchange . This stands for Building Effective and Accessible Markets.

On the sanitation marketing side there are some good resources to check out if you haven't seen them.

Laos Sanitation Marketing Tools

WSP Sanitation Marketing Toolkit

Thanks,

John

As a follow up , referring to "Social marketing for Urban Sanitation - Review of evidence and inception report" by
Amaka Obika, Marion Jenkins,, Valerie Curtis, and Guy Howard which is quite old now but still very relevant and interesting to this topic.
WEDC-KNOWLEDGE.LBORO.AC.UK/DOCS/RESEARCH...INCEPTION_REPORT.PDF

They use Weinreich (1999) definition of social marketing as "the use of commercial marketing techniques to promote the adoption of a behaviour that will improve health or well-being of the target audience or of society as a whole" and then apply that to sanitation in Section 3.1.3.

In this section, the authors refer to Mukherjee (2001) who concluded that "a major component for success was effective development
of the local private sector to deliver sanitation improvements in the longer-term. More significantly, it was concluded that emphasis should be placed on developing the technical and awareness-raising skills of the private sector, rather than subsidising construction. It was
noted that where the household had paid for latrines they were better maintained and more hygienic than when projects had supplied the hardware."

The above paragraph is in my opinion the essence of a market-based approach.

Hope this is useful/food for thought.

best regards,

Jonathan

Dear Cecile,
As a sanitation marketing expert let me try and shed some light on your question:
Sanitation Marketing will involve the use of commercial marketing tools to be able to reach a desired goal. For instance, to raise demand for a new toilet technology, some commercial marketing approach (e.g advertising) will be used and the goal is to ensure that there is uptake of the toilet technology. The end result should be that the uptake is triggered and demand is generated.
Market-based approach will entail studying what are the needs of the audience that the product is targeting and making them suit that need. More often than not, if the analysis and study of the market (which I synonymize with audience) is correctly articulated, then the final approach taken will yield results even without any marketing required.
Unfortunately, I can’t really comment on what French word to use. I haven’t the foggiest.
I hope my answer sheds some light.
Regards
Charlotte

Dear Cecile,

I would say that they are similar. When we speak about “sanitation marketing” we are talking about a process of combining social marketing and commercial marketing to sell sanitation goods and services and change behaviour for the societal good.

When you say “market based approach” you would also mean this, or whether you mean taking a completely commercial approach to sanitation.

Regards,

F H Mughal

Hi Cécile

This is a great question. Thanks

I perceive that there is a difference along the lines that Krischan suggests. That's the way I see it too.

i.e.

Marketing = promotion of a commodity (good or service) to stimulate demand.

Market based approaches (not just for sanitation programmes) cover a wide range of types of programming involving i) working with market actors (on the supply side) ii) combined with marketing on the demand side.

Please do tell us if this answers your question or is it not clear.

best regards,

Jonathan Parkinson

Now working for IMCWorldwide.com - but not had time to update my SuSanA profile yet.

stevensugden wrote: None

Hmm, maybe it's only semantics, but I would say that the focus of sanitation marketing is more on "marketing" i.e. demand creation, while market based approaches can include this, but are usually more focussed on market-based supply side improvements.

None

Dear Cécile,

I feel bad that your question didn't get a response yet. It was buried in another thread; I have now moved it to here, to give it some renewed attention.
I will also e-mail the leads from SuSanA's working group 2 on market development (www.susana.org/en/working-groups/market-development) perhaps one of them has an easy answer for this one.

There is no Wikipedia article on sanitation marketing yet, otherwise it might have given you some clues.

Or perhaps you have already discovered some answers by other means which you could now share here?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear all,

I looked at different documents and discussions but I am still confused about this: what is the difference between (sanitation) marketing? and market based approach (for sanitation programmes)? Are they the same or is market based approach more comprehensive and marketing would be tackling the commercial aspects? I could not find any comprehensive definition from a reliable source.

Then comes the question of translation in French. We often find for sanitation marketing: le marketing de l'assainissement.
For market based approach: approche axée sur le marché or approche basée sur le marché. I find it quite heavy especially when it is repeated so many times in an article or a report. What could be the synomyms?

Thanks for your help!
Cécile