Ann-Marie Kennedy

Macro‐social marketing and social engineering: a systems approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how macro‐social marketing and social engineering can be integrated and to illustrate their use by governments as part of a positive social engineering intervention with examples from the Canadian anti‐smoking campaign.Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that uses the case of the Canadian anti‐smoking campaign to show that macro‐social marketing, as part of a wider systems approach, is a positive social engineering intervention.Findings – The use of macro‐social marketing by governments is most effective when it is coupled with other interventions such as regulations, legislation, taxation, community mobilization, research, funding and education. When a government takes a systems approach to societal change, such as with the Canadian anti‐smoking campaign, this is positive use of social engineering.Research limitations/implications – The social marketer can understand their role within the system and appreciate that they are potentially p...

Macro-social Marketing

This article provides the theoretical underpinnings for the concept of macro-social marketing. Macro-social marketing seeks to use social marketing techniques in a holistic way to effect systemic change, as opposed to individual level change. The article provides the conceptual roots of the concept derived from systems theory and institutional theory. It starts by explaining what types of macromarketing issues – dubbed here wicked problems – can be approached using macro-social marketing. Systems theory is then used to explain the interconnectedness of wicked problems throughout the social and cultural systems, as well as the material environment and marketing system (Dixon 1984). Subsequent sections apply institutional theory to explain how systemic change can be brought about through the use of macro-social marketing, and discuss change at a broader conceptual level, as well as how this process then trickles down to individual organizations within the marketing system.

Hyper Norms: Searching for a Global Code of Conduct

As organizations continue to increase their level of operations across international borders, their ethical conduct becomes a greater social concern. A global code of ethics allows organizations to...As organizations continue to increase their level of operations across international borders, their ethical conduct becomes a greater social concern. A global code of ethics allows organizations to follow one code for all countries rather than creating and administering multiple separate codes. Currently, there are several thoughtful global codes of ethics developed by different stakeholders. This paper provides an analysis of some of the major global codes of ethics available to multinational corporations. Their shared norms are identified and synthesized into three Hyper Norms that can both aid marketing organizations in formulating their core principles and be applied to research dealing with macromarketing systems.

Uncovering wicked problem’s system structure: seeing the forest for the trees

Purpose This paper aims to use systems thinking, systems theory and Camillus’ framework for responding to wicked problems to provide social marketers with a theoretically based framework for approaching strategy formation for wicked problems. The paper treats fast fashion as an illustrative case and takes a step back from implementation to provide a framework for analysing and gaining understanding of wicked problem system structure for social marketers to then plan more effective interventions. The proposed approach is intended as a theory-based tool for social marketing practitioners to uncover system structure and analyse the wicked problems they face. Design/methodology/approach Following Layton, this work provides theoretically based guidelines for analysing the black box of how to develop and refine strategy as first proposed in Camillus’ (2008) framework for responding to wicked issues. Findings The prescription thus developed for approaching wicked problems’ system structure revolves around identifying the individuals, groups or entities that make up the system involved in the wicked problem, and then determining which social mechanisms most clearly drive each entity and which outcomes motivate these social mechanisms, before determining which role the entities play as either incumbent, challenger or governance and which social narratives drive each role’s participation in the wicked problem. Originality/value This paper shows that using systems thinking can help social marketers to gain big picture thinking and develop strategy for responding to complex issues, while considering the consequences of interventions.

The history of New Zealand shop trading hours

Purpose – This historical narrative aims to analyse the changes in shop trading hour laws in New Zealand, to explore the reasons behind the acceptance of Sunday trading. It compares New Zealands experience with the USA and the UK.Design/methodology/approach – A historical methodology was used in this paper. Historical methods used to collect the data which form this historical narrative include document analysis, literature reviews and in‐depth interviews.Findings – The narrative uncovers that New Zealand more closely mirrors the experience of the UK with Sunday trading laws, however, less emphasis on religious aspects of the law may have contributed to New Zealands acceptance of the law before the UK.Research limitations/implications – The historical narrative focuses on New Zealand with a less in‐depth discussion of the USA and the UK. Further historical narratives into these other countries would allow for a deeper comparison between countries.Originality/value – Sunday trading is seen as out of the ...

Conceptualisations of the consumer in marketing thought

Purpose – This paper seeks to gain an understanding of how different consumer conceptualisations in marketing may lead to negative outcomes. Every profession has its grand vision. The guiding vision for most marketing professionals is customer orientation. Of course, reality is more complex and nuanced than a single unified vision. Organisations tout their consumer-centric marketing decisions, in that they use consumer research to make operational decisions about products, prices, distribution and the like. However, marketers’ treatment of consumers is often far from the customer’s best interests. It is proposed that by understanding the different conceptualisations of the consumer over time, we can explore their implications for putting authentic consumer-centric marketing into practise. Design/methodology/approach – A thematic analysis of marketing thought as reflected in the marketing literature. Findings – This review of the history of marketing thought bears out a diversity of opinions concerning the...

Social engineering and social marketing: why is one “good” and the other “bad”?

Purpose – The aim of this article is to explore how social engineering and social marketing are connected, and how social marketing is a tool used to achieve adherence to social engineering. Design/methodology/approach – Through examination of contemporary and historical thinking around social marketing, we present a conceptual argument that social marketing is another tool of the social engineer, and that social engineering, through methods such as social marketing, is pervasive throughout all societies in positive ways. Findings – We develop a conceptual model of social engineering and social marketing, which goes beyond behaviour change to incorporate the essentials of society and the influencers of those essentials. In doing so, we show that social marketing influenced behaviour lies within the social engineering influenced laws, codes and norms of society, which in turn lie within the morals, values and beliefs of society. Originality/value – This article provides for the first time a conceptual grou...

Macro-Social Marketing Research: Philosophy, Methodology and Methods

Macro-social marketing is the use of social marketing – up, mid and downstream – to affect holistic systemic change (Kennedy 2016). Presently, fragmented views within macro-social marketing threaten to divide the field. Much of this fragmentation is due to a confusion between systems thinking and systems theory, the basis for macro-social marketing. This article presents an explanation of the key facets of systems literature, a macro-social marketing philosophy and a macro-social marketing methodology to show the benefits of combining systems thinking and systems theory, thus alleviating conflict within the field.

Gift exchange: benefits sought by the recipient

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the recipient side of gift exchange by establishing the combination/level of gift benefits preferred by the recipient. It investigates the association between these benefits and the nature of the relationship between the gift giver and recipient.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 250 people were surveyed about a recent gift receipt experience. Levels of symbolic, experiential, and functional benefits sought from the gift were established. Canonical correlation was used to analyse the interrelationships of relational variables (relationship type, strength, and length) and the preferred gift benefits.Findings – People prefer gifts with a greater symbolic meaning (see with lower levels of functional and experiential benefits) from people close to them. People who have not known each other for long, but have a strong emotional connection, prefer gifts that are primarily functional. It shows that benefit associations are significant to gift recipients...

Upstream social marketing strategy

This paper aims to provide guidelines for upstream social marketing strategy on to whom, how and when social marketers can undertake upstream social marketing.,This article is a conceptual piece using academic literature to justify and conceptualise an approach to communicating with and influencing upstream actors.,Specifically, it looks at the characteristics of policymakers targeted, then targeting methods, with a special focus on the use of media advocacy. Finally, a process of government decision-making is presented to explain message timing and content.,Specific criteria to judge time of decision-making and implementation guidelines are provided for social marketers.,In the case of complex social problems, such as obesity and environmental degradation, structural change is needed to provide people with the ability to change (Andreasen, 2006). Strategic social marketing has identified upstream social marketing as a method to influence structural change through policymakers (French and Gordon, 2015); however, literature in the area tends to be descriptive and there are no clear guidelines to its implementation (Dibb, 2014). This article seeks to provide those guidelines.