"Nagging" with Social Marketing in the U.K.

The Wall Street Journal today ran an article titled "U.K. Spends Millions Nagging Its Citizens" (unfortunately accessible to WSJ online subscribers only). The article discusses the dozens of social marketing campaigns that the U.K. government has running right now -- including pornography on the internet, drunken driving, chewing gum litter, and improper tax-benefit claims by married couples.The government's advertising authority is the third-largest advertiser in the country, behind Procter & Gamble and Unilever. The U.S. government, in contrast, ranks 25th among U.S. advertisers. Public interest advertising here in the U.S. is much more decentralized and fragmented.I was concerned about the implications in the article that these types of campaigns are the equivalent of "nagging." For example:

The British government spots strike some observers in the U.K. as excessively nannyish. Some question why the government is spending so much money to steer behavior on so many issues.

It sounds like perhaps they need to "market" social marketing, though the article's author does not say exactly who is reacting this way. Perhaps this initiative by the U.K. Department of Health and National Consumer Council to create a national social marketing strategy will help with addressing those issues. When done right, social marketing should never be perceived as nagging.