The Social Marketing Behavior Change Institute was created to promote the field of Social Marketing to managers and organizations in Greece and Cyprus, by providing training and access to innovative expertise and tools for the application of Social Marketing framework.

Another goal of the Institute is to undertake primary and secondary research initiatives that draw on the Social Marketing framework and promote it through the writing of manuscripts for scientific journals and presentations at conferences.

The  SMI Greece will aspires to become  the scientific bridge connecting Greece with  international Social Marketing networks, such as the International Social Marketing Association, European Social Marketing Association and other organizations related to the field.

 The core to understanding marketing and Social Marketing is that it is fundamentally about influencing human behaviour in a way that is acceptable to and valued by citizens.

Ever since humans have existed, they have tried to influence each other. The Social Marketing Behavior Change Institute focuses on understanding these influences to change behavior for good.

Social Marketing is not a new concept. People and governments all over the world have been using Social Marketing for more than fifty years to develop and deliver programmes to solve wicked problems like disease prevention, family planning, environmental protection, economic development, crime reduction, and compliance with laws and regulations. In Greece Social Marketing can be traced back to Kapodistrias who understood the behaviour and culture of Greeks, and came up with a creative approach to build positive behaviour of the people towards adding potatoes to their diet. Social Marketing is becoming standard practice in many countries due to the successful application appropriate behavioral theories to behavior change initiatives.

This case study describes the “Trikala Quits Smoking” initiative, which was designed to enforce smoking legislation in Trikala, creating a new social norm to counter the national indifference to enforcing the law regarding smoking indoors. Declared a smart city three times since 2009 and considered one of the most digitally progressive cities in the country, Trikala presents a good example of how to achieve behavior change in a high-context culture. This article outlines the processes used and the lessons learned to achieve the long-term goal of protecting adults and children from the effects of indoor second-hand smoking (SHS) by changing perception and acceptance of indoor smoking by the community, business owners, and local government.

Read more about the case and see the “Highly Commented” poster that was submitted in world social marketing conference in Edinburgh in 2019

In the 11th episode of Social Growth, Arsenia Malakozi and Anna Tsiakiri,   Leonidas Skerletopoulos discussing the process of inclusion through self-employment, and pilot the potential of building a social enterprise for beneficiaries of Society for Social Psychiatry and Mental Health beneficiaries.