Social Marketing and COVID-19 in Greece: What ``Millennials'' Think!

Abstract

Social marketing has been developed to create a change in people’s attitudes toward the achievement of public health and social welfare. Social marketing techniques are used for health promotion, prevention of injuries, environmental protection, and social awareness. This study aims to explore the attitudes of Greek citizens toward the impact of social marketing techniques on their awareness of public health in general and their fight against COVID-19 in particular. A primary survey was conducted in May–June 2021 to a random sample of Greek citizens. Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to identify the main attitudes of Greek millennials toward the impact of social marketing on people’s awareness regarding public health in general and the fight against COVID-19 in particular. Therefore, two main attitudes were derived from PCA: (a) social marketing contributed significantly into public awareness regarding public health issues and COVID-19 fight, and (b) some social marketing techniques had a negative impact on the use of vaccines as a protection measure toward COVID-19. Cluster analysis was performed to classify those citizens into groups according to their attitudes toward the use of social marketing in public health and COVID-19 issues. It identified three groups of citizens: (a) those who believe that social marketing has a significant impact on people’s awareness regarding public health and protection against COVID-19, (b) those who are uninterested, and (c) those who believe that social marketing contributes to the dissemination of negative information regarding vaccination against COVID19. Nonparametric tests, including the Chi-square and Friedman nonparametric tests were performed to develop the profile of those citizens. Keywords: social marketing, millennials, COVID-19