Developing a framework for communications encouraging personal budgeting – a social marketing approach

This article illustrates how a framework can be developed and used to guide social marketing communications encouraging personal budgeting but also how academics can promote behavior change by summarizing information of importance for the general population. Academic literature, books, and thirty personal budgeting campaigns were identified, reviewed, and analyzed to assess WHAT needs to be communicated in terms of personal budgeting and also HOW best communicate information about personal budgeting to different kind of target groups. Keywords, themes and messages were identified and revised, and a two-page Table summary framework for personal budgeting social marketing communications was proposed. This paper links practice with theory in a very original way. No theoretical framework for personal budgeting messages has been found in the existing literature; therefore a framework was proposed by combining knowledge from academia with practice. Whereas previous research generally suggests using existing theoretical frameworks to guide and/or evaluate communications, the current research also shows how practice can guide theory. Designers of such initiatives can use this research for inspiration, to proceed when theoretical frameworks are not available, to design solid interventions based on available data, and also to contribute toward bridging the gap between theory and practice. Individuals looking to improve their financial situation can benefit from having significant accumulated knowledge easily available to them. In the personal budgeting context, individuals suffering from financial distress and living paycheck-to-paycheck can benefit the most from this research.