Recommended readings
Uganda: Partnering with the private sector to meet Uganda’s health care needs
Social marketing of reproductive health products in Uganda
Authors:
; Commercial Marketing Strategies
Publisher:
Commercial Marketing Strategies , 2003
This report from the USAID project Commercial Marketing Strategies (CMS) provides an overview of the organisation’s social marketing of reproductive health products in Uganda. This work has focused on a number of branded contraceptive and sexual health products, as well as products which improve maternal and child health. The main objectives were to increase accessibility and distribution of commercially available products.
The report provides detailed information on how the multiple strategies of this social marketing intervention have been carried out. The results of this intervention were increased use of all contraceptive methods, and in particular increased access to condoms and the creation of a strong condom market. CMS also marketed a number of new health products, including a safe delivery kit for midwives and the first commercially available insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), and through advertising stimulated demand for them. The report indicates a number of lessons learned from this project. The introduction of new products can face obstacles caused by government policies. In Uganda the introduction of a kit for treating sexually transmitted infections (STIs) which CMS were marketing was hampered in this way. The experience of CMS in Uganda also suggests that dialogue between competing social marketing programmes can be very productive and that population-based research provides essential insights for developing targeted social marketing strategies.
