Systems-thinking social marketing: conceptual extensions and empirical investigations

ABSTRACT

Systems thinking dominated the 2015 World Social Marketing conference with the premise that a more holistic approach takes into account all the issues at play for effective change. Augmenting the broadening social marketing literature, we contend that systems-thinking social marketing enhances the field’s conventional behavioural change with concepts of scale, causation, and iterative co-creating change processes for complex health and environmental problems. The results of our empirical Sea for Society study, a sustainable European marine ecosystem examination of what the barriers to change are and how they are interrelated, find systems-thinking social marketing offers the potential to strategically and critically reinforce, not replace, behavioural change campaigns. With systems-thinking social marketing, a coherent theory of change becomes a possibility. Orchestrating social change may become a reality.     

Up,up and away: social marketing breaks free

Abstract

The social marketing literature has been dominated by questions about the field’s legitimacy along with the ethical and other implications of its relationship with commercial marketing. In reviewing social marketing’s origins and considering its future, this paper acknowledges then moves beyond these concerns, enabling a focus on the opportunities created for this vibrant field in the current environment. Three thematic areas frame the paper’s discussion: the legitimacy of social marketing as a field in its own right; the broadening and deepening of the field and the consequences for social change; and the strengths and opportunities arising out of social marketing’s relationship with mainstream marketing. The paper reviews social marketing’s origins, before considering how the field might draw on the turbulent environment and the dynamic developments taking place within marketing to shape its future.     

Avoiding academic irrelevance in the marketing discipline: the promise of the history of marketing thought

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a commentary on Hunt’s ‘Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: From promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment, (to promise?)’. We focus on three issues: (1) the historical origins of marketing strategy, (2) resource-advantage theory as a general theory of competition and/or a general theory of marketing and (3) the current state and future promise of doctoral training in the history of marketing thought.     

The impact of fairness on trustworthiness and trust in banking

Abstract

Theorists and empirical researchers in marketing and other fields suggest that fairness is important in underpinning trust, which, in turn, is integral to developing and maintaining buyer–seller relationships. However, empirical investigation of fairness in the domain of marketing has, to date, been limited. Consequently, the relationship between fairness and trust is not well understood. Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide a fully developed social exchange model examining the differential effects of various dimensions of fairness on trustworthiness and customers’ trust. Data were collected from customers of banks and were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings of the study show that perceptions of fair treatment on the part of customers are important in driving trustworthiness and engendering trust.     

Understanding contemporary marketing: Development of a classification scheme

The term Relationship Marketing has been used in a multitude of ways to describe and define marketing in the contemporary environment. This has led to the term being loosely defined and applied in the literature, resulting in frustration for both researchers and practitioners. Therefore, a classification scheme is developed from analysis of the extant literature, and used to systematically examine the meaning of marketing across twelve dimensions which reflect issues related to marketing practice. From this scheme, the authors identify two ‘perspectives’ of marketing, which encompass four distinguishable ‘types’ of marketing. Implications for future research in the area are discussed.     

The impact of university brand identification and eWOM behaviour on students’ psychological well-being: a multi-group analysis among active and passive social media users

ABSTRACT

Encouraging students to share positive online reviews should not be regarded only as a marketing tool. This study aims to examine (i) the relationship between positive online reviews behaviour for university and students’ well-being; and (ii) the impact of eWOM behaviour on students’ psychological well-being among active (those who share and read information) and passive (those who only read information) social media users. An online survey was conducted to examine the interplay of university brand identification, positive eWOM behaviour, and university life satisfaction on students’ psychological well-being. Results found that students who share positive reviews about university on social media tend to have better psychological health. This study also revealed that active social media users benefit more in terms of well-being through sharing positive online reviews about their universities. Implications for theory and practice of social media marketing in the higher education context are discussed.     

Impact of Traditional Chinese Culture on Business-to-Business Relationship Marketing and Service Firm Performance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This work addresses the mixed findings in relationship marketing studies regarding the importance of traditional culture-level (i.e., interpersonal) relationships on service firm outcomes.

Methodology/approach: This article leverages customer relationship marketing (CRM) theory to advance a framework for understanding the causal relationship between the Chinese cultural worldview and relationship marketing in order to better predict firm performance.

Findings: The author suggests that five major Chinese cultural characteristics—iren-qing, wa-pao, mianzi, chaxu-geju, and collectivism—can qualify the business-to-business (B-to-B) relationship building process and impact the effectiveness of interpersonal and/or group relationships on service firm outcomes.

Research implications: The study’s framework suggests that Chinese cultural characteristics, universal concepts manifest in the activities of Chinese society and organizations, have a positive effect on customer relationship marketing. Chinese culture characteristics can be used to generate excellent relationships with customers and thus create a consumer preference for certain companies and drive service marketing repurchase.

Originality/value/contribution: This study’s theoretical framework (a) distinguishes between Chinese cultural characteristic and relationship marketing relationships; (b) suggests that Chinese cultural characteristics and customer relationship marketing have a positive and substantial effect on service firm performance and that Chinese cultural characteristics are related to customer relationship marketing in their effect on service firm performance; and (c) provides managerially relevant guidelines for strategic sales planning.     

From Public Education to Social Marketing: The Evolution of the Canadian Heritage Anti-Racism Social Marketing Program

SUMMARY

Over recent years, whilst there has been increasing acceptance of the existence and role of marketing in the political arena, there has also been much discussion as to the applicability of its concepts and models. This paper focuses upon issues surrounding definition of the ‘product’ and the ‘marketing mix.’ It examines the varying definitions of the political ‘product’ and, from the perspective of elector as ‘consumer,’ offers its own. In addition it suggests that political marketers should follow the lead of their counterparts in the fields of service and social marketing and modify the marketing mix to suit the political environment in which they function. Finally, based upon existing definitions of the political ‘product’ and the criticisms of the current marketing mix frameworks, initial suggestions are made for the provision of a new political marketing mix.     

Beating,ditching and hiding: consumers’ everyday resistance to marketing

ABSTRACT

This article illuminates consumers’ views of marketing in light of theories of resistance. It argues that consumers engage in resistance to the power of marketing through their everyday actions and also through the ways they construct their accounts of these actions. It identifies three theoretical approaches to resistance (hegemonic, relational and autonomous). These are used to discuss consumers’ accounts of marketing collected through 78 personal interviews in which participants were asked to describe marketing and provide examples of their experiences with marketing as they defined it. Through this, the study uncovers various forms of consumer resistance, which can often go unnoticed. These are conceptualised through the notion of everyday resistance to marketing and are used to challenge existing marketing theory and develop paths for future research.     

Social marketing and big social change: personal social marketing insights from a complex system obesity prevention intervention

ABSTRACT

To address ‘wicked problems’ such as obesity, family violence or community safety, we need systems change interventions that reach large numbers, are scalable and can be enriched over time.

Follow the development of a social marketing platform as it became a critical component of Healthy Together Victoria; an internationally recognised, and radically different, approach to driving change for better health. Working beyond the delivery of public education campaigns, social marketing became a key pillar of this powerful movement – one that emboldened governments, business and other partners across sectors and communities – to tackle the rising tide of obesity through leadership, big thinking and joint action.     

Historical research in marketing theory and practice: a review essay

Abstract

This paper reviews 30 years of interdisciplinary scholarship that deals with marketing history or the history of marketing thought. We have ranged across the humanities and social sciences to review the very best scholarship that these domains have produced which speaks to issues likely to concern the readers of the Journal of Marketing Management (JMM). These domains include: the history of marketing management, history of market research, history of market segmentation, product management history, retailing and channels history, promotion history, advertising history, the history of marketing thought, and marketing and the management of subjectivity, among others. Given obvious page limitations we have nevertheless tried to appeal to the paradigmatic span of the readers of the JMM. With this in mind, we have critically reviewed material that will be of interest to managerially oriented academics, as well as those who subscribe to consumer culture theoretics and critical marketing studies.     

Marketing strategy and the hunt for era V

ABSTRACT

This paper is a response to a recent special issue of the Journal of Marketing Management in which Shelby Hunt celebrates the achievements of 40 years of marketing strategy. In noting the passing of the ‘old guard’, Hunt calls on a new generation of scholars to meet the challenges confronting marketing and to develop new theories and frameworks to advance Marketing Strategy into Era V. We take for our inspiration Hunt’s own words, specifically his reference to the ‘promising’ and ‘problematic’ that he uses to characterise the current and latent state of marketing strategy. To build our vision and map out our agenda we offer an alternative reading of this discipline through the idea of Marketing Strategy as Discourse (MSAD). Within the paper, we outline the role that discourse can perform as a resource to reconfigure our appreciation of marketing strategy.     

From conspicuous to considered fashion: A harm-chain approach to the responsibilities of luxury-fashion businesses

Abstract

Throughout the marketing literature, little attention has been paid to the responsibilities of luxury-fashion businesses. Harnessing Polonsky, Carlson, and Fry’s harm chain, the extended harm chain, and the theoretical lens of institutional theory, this conceptual paper explores a systematic way to examine the potential for value co-creation, the harmful outcomes linked to luxury-fashion marketing activities, and how those harms might be addressed. Our analysis identifies a number of harms occurring throughout the luxury-fashion supply chain. The paper concludes by urging luxury-fashion businesses to sustain their success through ‘deep’ corporate social responsibility (CSR), adding voice to the developing conversation that seeks to change the scope of the critique of marketing practice beyond the economic and competitive advantages that CSR delivers.     

Marketing Novel Fruit Products: Evidence for Diverging Marketing Effects Across Different Products and Different Countries

The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of four different marketing claims and price information on consumers’ product choices for novel fruits and novel fruit products, using a choice experiment. In total, 1,652 people in Greece (n = 400), the Netherlands (n = 419), Poland (n = 423), and Spain (n = 410) participated in the study. The marketing claims entailed (1) information about scientific findings concerning health benefits, (2) social norm information, (3) information about the products’ naturalness, and (4) information about the products’ time-until-expiration. The results showed that all four marketing claims and price information influenced consumer choice, but the effect of naturalness depended on the specific novel fruit product being advertised, and the effect of time-until-expiration depended on both country and fruit product. These results suggest that marketing communications should be tailored to different national markets and to specific fruit products.     

Framing social marketing as a system of interaction: A neo-institutional approach to alcohol abstinence

Abstract

We employ Giddens’ structuration theory to gain insights into the interaction between upstream/midstream and downstream social marketing perspectives. This is conducted through thirteen phenomenological interviews with informants who stand outside of the practice of alcohol consumption through their voluntary engagement in one month of sobriety. Our study identifies the ‘modalities’ located at the intersection between individual actions and the institutions of alcohol. By identifying these ‘modalities’, we conceptualise social marketing in interaction, which incorporates the institutional orders of domination, signification and legitimation, and the individual actions of power, communication and sanction. Specific domains of interventions are identified, namely marketplace offerings and promotional techniques, social grouping and positional status and rituals and traditions, through which social marketers can enact social change.     

Marketing,violence and social cohesion: first steps to a conceptual approach to the understanding of the normalising role of marketing

ABSTRACT

This paper answers a call for contributions ‘dedicated to revealing how markets and marketing make violence culturally acceptable and socially normalised’. Such an investigation has to involve some in-depth conceptualisation with respect to the meanings of both marketing and violence. The market is an institution related to other institutions which altogether are – as in all societies – trying to cope with violence. Today our societies are based on both markets and democracy, but those institutions tend to be mutually contradictory. When marketing tends to replace politics and to almost religiously convert citizens into consumers it is social cohesion that is at stake. This paper aims at contributing to a deeper understanding of social/historical trends. As it highlights the importance of ideas (representations and motivations) and their links with changing institutions, it might help researchers and marketers to a broader understanding of their role and towards a more conscious social behaviour.     

Does the host match the content? A taxonomical update on online consumption communities

Abstract

This article proposes a taxonomy of online consumption communities in order to address this rather ambiguously conceptualised research field. Specifically, intercommunity differences are investigated with regard to how content focus (brand vs activity) and its congruency with the type of host (doubled vs mixed) affect consumers’ posting behaviour. Based on an online survey (n = 888), a series of regressions of various benefits on posting behaviour supports the usability of the proposed taxonomy. In particular, social benefits had the strongest effect on consumers’ posting behaviour across all communities, while the effects of functional, altruistic and sharing benefits varied in significance and direction of influence when accounting for the different community characteristics. These findings help marketing managers to design online communities and motivate consumers to contribute.     

Reducing household water consumption: a social marketing approach

Abstract

There is increasing pressure for society to move towards more sustainable use of its resources, and calls in the literature have been made to reassess marketing’s role in achieving such goals. This research examines how key behavioural factors influence household water use, in the context of a social marketing programme to reduce household water consumption. A model of the key drivers of household water consumption is developed and tested using a sample of 909 households in a regional city in Australia. The findings from this study support the model developed and show that in the absence of price as a rationing mechanism, the social marketing programme significantly reduces household water consumption.     

Relevant for Whom? An Essay to Celebrate JBBM’s 21st Anniversary,in Favor of Paying Greater Attention to the Needs of Students and Practitioners and Less to the Interests of Peers

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To argue that useful research into business-to-business marketing must have practical relevance and that this may call for alternative methodologies to the positivistic “scientific” model favored by leading marketing journals; to suggest that citation by academic peers as measured by impact factors is only one of several criteria relevant to the assessment of academic papers; and to propose a less formulaic presentation of research to make it more accessible to students and practitioners.

Methodology/approach: Informed comment as a participant observer based on extensive experience as an academic administrator (Head of Department, Dean and Deputy Principal), Past Chairman of the Scottish Business Education Council, Past President of the Academy of Marketing, Past Chairman and Trustee Chartered Institute of Marketing, Founding Editor of 3 academic marketing journals and author of more than 50 books and 150 articles and papers.

Findings: Academic research in marketing has become distorted as a result of an excessive emphasis upon journal impact factors reported in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), which relate to only a limited selection of published research into the subject of marketing. Not only that, but the research reported largely conforms to a positivistic model that is less appropriate for social and behavioral sciences than for the pure sciences that it seeks to imitate. Nonetheless, publication in journals included in the SSCI counts for more in decisions for academic appointment and preferment than do other publications that may be demonstrated to have equal or greater impact on the audiences for which they are intended. It is argued that this imbalance should be redressed with greater attention given to instrumental knowledge and its impact on practice.

Research implications: The author’s purpose is not to disparage or call into question the quality of academic research published in the top journals, rather it is to draw attention to the distinction proposed by Shankar that recognizes the existence of an external audience and the distinction between instrumental and reflexive knowledge.

Practical implications: It is recommended that academic peer review be continued for academic papers, which would be identified as such, but that other kinds of contribution such as thought pieces, case studies, commentaries, reports, and so on be published subject to appropriate editorial review.

Originality/value/contribution: A point of view with growing support.