The 5^th World Social Marketing Conference 2017 hosted 500 delegates from 31 countries and four continents to exchange and develop the field of Social Marketing.  Across two days the event hosted over 100 peer-reviewed paper sessions, 10 workshops and 6 keynote presentations.

The agenda included pre-conference and post-conference workshops about developing a social marketing plan; social marketing community coalitions; developing effective evidence based programs; segmenting, targeting and reaching audiences digitally; service design to develop a social marketing intervention and community-based social marketing.

On Tuesday May 16^th luminaries from across the world were recognized for their contribution to Social Marketing and to the creation of the social marketing associations worldwide. Representatives of each of these associations presented the “Outstanding Contribution to Social Marketing Awards” conferred to a total of 13 social marketers, as follows:

• Gael O’Sullivan founding board member of the iSMA presented the awards to Winthrop Morgan and Nancy Lee
• Nadina Luca on behalf of the ESMA conferred the awards to Professor Jeff French, Gerrard Hastings, Prof. Dr. Alan Andreasen, the creator of the social marketing benchmark criteria and a posthumous award for the late Dr Sue Peattie
• Dr Ross Gordon, President of the AASM bestowed the awards to person Tom Carrol and Judy Drennan
• Kelley Dennings, President of the SMANA granted the awards to Dr Craig Lefebvre, Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Jay Kassirer, Carol Bryant and Mike Newton-Ward

The Conference also served as a venue for the Boards of Directors of the different associations to have internal meetings and to part-take in decision making related to the iSMA. The relationship among the associations was further strengthened during the conference and new common projects are on their way.

As a tradition, the WSMC conferred awards in the different categories of submissions.

• The best poster winner was for Gary Wootten from Hitch, for the campaign ‘Have you got the balls to #getchecked’
• The best academic paper award was bestowed to Joy Parkinson and the team from Griffith University, for the paper ‘Developing the UNICEF Malawi school handwashing with soap program’
• The best practice paper award was given to Caryn Ginsburg from Priority Ventures Group, for the paper ‘iAnimal – Using Virtual Reality to Increase Plant-based Easting’
• The best student paper award was conferred to Nathaly Aya Pastrana from Università della Svizzera italiana, for the paper ‘Social Marketing Interventions for Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Systematic Review’

The World Social Marketing Conference successfully concluded leaving the audiences satisfied with the variety of content of the presentations, the high quality of the event and its organization, and the potential opportunities that could arise from the networks created. Conference evaluation highlights:

• 84% of attendees would definitely or be very likely to recommend the conference to a colleague or professional contact
• 85% of attendees rated the conference very good or excellent
• 87% of attendees thought that attending the conference would have a positive impact on their work

The event organizers are already looking for a country to host the next conference, preferable in a developing country, if you or your organization are keen help host the next WSM conference please contact the team at [email protected]

Dates and location will be made public in the future.