Gerard Hastings PhD, OBE
Director Institute for Social Marketing and the Centre for Tobacco Control Research
Gerard Hastings is the first UK Professor of Social Marketing and founder/director of the Institute for Social Marketing (www.ism.stir.ac.uk) and Centre for Tobacco Control Research (www.ctcr.stir.ac.uk) at Stirling and the Open University. He researches the applicability of marketing principles like consumer orientation, branding and strategic planning to the solution of health and social problems. He also conducts critical marketing research into the impact of potentially damaging marketing, such as alcohol, tobacco and fast food promotion.
Key achievements:
- Author of Europe’s only social marketing textbook: Social Marketing: Why Should the Devil have all the Best Tunes?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=social+marketing&x=18&y=18
- Published over a hundred refereed papers in major journals such as the British Medical Journal, the European Journal of Marketing, the International Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Macromarketing, Psychology and Marketing, Social Marketing Quarterly
- Taught about social marketing on four continents (Europe, Asia, Africa and N America)
- Led the research team that conducted the first systematic review on the impact of food advertising on childhood obesity. The effects it uncovered were subsequently confirmed by the Institute of Medicine and have entered the canon of public health evidence
- Led the research teams that have unpicked the relationship between tobacco marketing and youth smoking (principal funder CRUK) and alcohol marketing and youth drinking (NPRI)
- Chaired the Advisory Board for the European Commission’s (and the world’s biggest) anti-smoking campaign (www.help-eu.com); a rare example of a successful public health brand
- Regular advisor to the Scottish, UK and European parliaments and to WHO
- The first Andreasen Scholar in Social Marketing (1997)
- Awarded the OBE for services to health care (2009)