Social marketing, a behaviour change discipline that originated in marketing, has contributed to a better world delivering positive health, environmental and social outcomes over the past 60 years. While successes are documented, failures are also evident, and delivery of cost-efficient, feasible, and maintainable programs has been called for. While the benefits of applying social marketing benchmark criteria (BC) are verified, roadmaps for how to apply BC in behaviour change program design are not apparent. This paper marks a first attempt at applying BC to co-create a social marketing program. A conceptual model that applies eight BC across four studies; 1) Systematic quantitative literature review, 2) Segmentation study, 3) Expert panel reviews, and 4) Co-design workshops is proposed. This paper offers a reseacrh process that researchers and/or practitioners can apply to develop behaviour change programs with the aim of achieving enhanced program outcomes. Moving forward the proposed model will need to be tested and replicated in field to verify the effectiveness of applying eight BC within the program design process.

Koala populations are in decline and measures are necessary to change the current scenario. Social marketing aims to influence an audience to change behaviour for social or environmental benefit. This paper demonstrates how social marketing was applied to achieve environmental change. A pilot program, aiming to reduce dog and koala interactions, was designed and developed with dog owners and experts including koala conservation officers and dog trainers. Experts indicated that for dogs to be taught aversion, training of basic obedience skills was necessary. Therefore, a four-week dog obedience training program was implemented, emphasising a series of behaviours including sit, stay and koala aversion. A mixed method outcome evaluation was undertaken to evaluate Leave It. The evaluation included online surveys completed by dog owners’ pre and post program, and trainer observations. Results indicate that five of seven behaviours measures were changed from baseline to follow-up, namely sit, stay, come back when called every time, wildlife aversion and stay quiet on command. Successful koala aversion was also evident in field notes from trainers. Findings of this pilot program provide evidence of the effectiveness and potential of social marketing to change behaviours in an environmental context.