Professor Jeff French

Global thought leader

Prof Jeff French PhD, MBA, MSc, DipHE, BA, Cert.Ed.

Professor Jeff French is a global thought leader in the fields of behavioral influence, Social Marketing, social communication and program planning and evaluation.

Jeff has published over 90 academic papers and five books and numerous guides and tool kits on these subjects. Jeff is a visiting Professor at Brighton University and a Fellow at Kings College London University and teaches at four other universities on a regular basis. Previously Director of Policy and Communication at the UK Health Development Agency and a senior civil servant in the UK Department of Health. In 2004 Jeff led the UK government review of Social Marketing and set up the National Social Marketing Centre in 2005. In 2009 Jeff became the CEO of Strategic Social Marketing Ltd.

Strategic Social Marketing works internationally with some of the world’s biggest private companies, NGO’s, global organizations such as WHO and governments on the development and evaluation of programs that aim to influence positive social and health behavior.

Jeff is a member of several national and international policy committees and a member of the Editorial Boards of four professional Journals. Jeff is a member of the European Social Marketing Association Board and the EU funded ASSET pandemic preparedness program. Jeff is also an advisor to the Dying Matters coalition, serves on the advisory committee of the European EPODE obesity prevention ‘Open program’ advisory committee and the National HIV Prevention group for England. Jeff has worked in over 29 countries working with NGO’s, private sector companies, government departments and agencies around the world on behavioral programs related to:  health, transport, safety, drug misuse, sexual health, gambling, forestry, environmental issues, recruitment, obesity and animal health and service reconfiguration. Jeff is a highly sought after keynote speaker at international conferences and also offers a training and mentoring service.

Recent major successes include:

• 2014 Facilitating and chairing the WHO European International Health regulations forum.
• 2015 Development, field testing and delivery of the first professional technical guide to Social Marketing for the European Centre for Disease Control.
• 2015 The completion of the social marketing component of the EU funded ECom pandemic communication and marketing research program.
• 2015 Working as a WHO consultant, the development of an internal and external marketing and communication strategy for the Greek government’s health reform program
• Co-ordinating the European and Worlds Social Marketing conferences in Finland and USA.
• 2015 The development for the Wellington City Government in New Zealand a marketing and communications strategy for the cities post-earthquake bus transport system.
• 2015 Publication of ‘Strategic Social Marketing’ by SAGE.
• 2016 Completion of a systemic literature review and strategy for Purina Ltd on the health promotion benefits of pet ownership.
• 2016 Advice and training for the UK Government on the application of Social Marketing across social policy.
• 2016 Completed as part of the pan-Europe E-com@eu, consortium, a four-year EU funded research program on pandemic behavioral influence.
• 2016 Systematic meta review of human and animal health promotion for Purina Ltd.
• 2016 Appointed to the National HIV prevention England scientific advisory board.
• 2017 Second Edition of the bestselling book ‘Social Marketing and Public Health’ Oxford University Press Published.
• 2017 Advisor to government of Finland on developing citizen centric service reform.
• 2017 Chair of the World Social Marketing Conference Washington DC.