The impacton academy

: a social marketing approach for the promotion of sustainable development in the educational context

Abstract

Our world is facing a time of tremendous social, economic, and environmental challenges. Addressing these requires action of the people, who need to be equipped with the right knowledge and skills to contribute to sustainable development. Education therefore plays a crucial role in this undertaking. Especially the tertiary education sector and therewith the group of tertiary students promise high potential to promote societal change. Due to the difficulty to transform education systems, other ways of providing education in sustainable development need to be investigated. By means of a social marketing approach, the aim of this dissertation is to introduce the Impacton Academy as an add-on learning solution to the existing curriculum to promote sustainable development through education. To control for its viability, the right customer segment profiles by means of a qualitative survey are defined and the competition examined through a benchmark analysis to elaborate the right marketing mix and identify the market position for the Impacton Academy. Results revealed the optimal customer segment for the Impacton Academy that promises the highest potential to promote sustainable development are students in the age between 19-25 years who want to take action in sustainable development. Deriving from the needs of this target group and considering given competitive threats, the Impacton Academy should position itself in the market as a mobile learning and community platform that delivers educational content in micro-learning format and connects students with sustainable development practitioners, such as NGOs, social businesses and entrepreneurs.

Date of Award	26 Apr 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Marta Bicho (Supervisor)