Social marketing is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole. Combining ideas from commercial marketing and the social sciences, social marketing is a proven tool for influencing behaviour in a sustainable and cost-effective way. Social marketing helps to ensure policy is based on an understanding of people's lives, making policy goals realistic and achievable. Research into how people used water, and where it was wasted, led to a focus on improving plumbing systems, rather than calling for individual action