Case Studies - Social Marketing Branding in the commercial sector is pervasive and fairly easy to understand and recognize. However, branding in social marketing is not as common but becoming more popular as it is very effective in creating visibility and ensures memorability. The brand is the marketers most advanced emotional tool. It combines and reinforces the functional and emotional benefits of the offering and so adds value, encouraging consumption and loyalty. A good brand facilitates recognition, makes a promise, and, provided the full marketing back-up is in place, delivers satisfaction. Brands can provide very practical benefits. For example for young people, quick and clear brand identification can make both the buying and smoking of forbidden products such as cigarettes much less risky. Over time, brands become a fast powerful way of confirming the synergy between marketer and customer. (Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good by Philip Kotler, Nancy R. Lee) There is also evidence that branding may be particularly effective way to reach people in deprived communities. Experts in branding have concluded that the symbolic appeal of brands is particularly effective in targeting those individuals who do not have the time, skills and motivation to evaluate the objective attributes and benefits of a particular campaign. A recent review conducted on behalf of the UKs National for Health and Clinical Excellence also suggests that brands can be an effective way of reaching information-deprived communities. Branding with these communities seems to hold considerable promise. (Gerald Hastings in Social marketing ... why should the devil have all the best tunes? p100). In Canada and the USA, many government departments are constantly looking for effective ways to best hard to reach groups. This new finding should certainly be explored for hard to reach and deprived communities.The following list includes a few of the stronger brands , in these cases names that have been to identify programs and products and are used consistently in an integrated way which is very important for social marketers.Participaction... encouraging physical activity (CANADA)VERB ... encouraging physical activity (USA)Break Free... Anti smoking (Canada)Truth ... Anti -smoking (USA)McGruff the Crime Dog... Crime preventionOperation Red Nose/Nez Rouge... Drinking and driving (Canada)Road Crew ... Drinking and driving (USA)Dont mess with Texas... Litter prevention (USA)Rock the vote... VotingBack to Sleep... Sudden Infant Death SyndromeEnergy Star ... Energy conservationOne ton Challenge... Climate change (Canada)Smokey Bear... Wildfire prevention5 A Day... NutritionFight ... fight fear, fight distress and fight chaos, Military recruiting campaign (Canada)Be all you can be... Military recruiting campaign (USA)Yes You Can...International Competitiveness (Canada)Believe in Yourself... Student Loan (Canada)Here is an excerpt from a blog from branding in the field of social marketing from Nedra Kline Weinreich which provides some further information on this topic.Nonprofits and government agencies are generally several steps behind the commercial sector in applying marketing concepts to their health and social issues. Branding is a word that is thrown around a lot by marketers of all stripes without a complete understanding of what it actually means. We know we want to have a strong brand, but to some that just means creating a