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Social marketers set out to undertake interventions that benefit society. However, at times, there can be inadvertent, unintended consequences of these interventions that can be seen as unethical. Such ethical issues can arise from the context, process, method and outcomes of interventions and often bring to the fore the “social fairness” of social marketing. Given that social marketing is aimed at societal benefit, the authors believe that the issue of social fairness is an important one in the context of ethical social marketing. With that in mind, the purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion of the application of a normative ethical framework, labelled the integrative justice model (IJM) (Santos and Laczniak, 2009), to social marketing. This amounts to a macro-social marketing ethical framework.

Conceptual broadening of a normative ethical framework.

The authors hold that the IJM provides several helpful normative guidelines for improving the “social fairness” of social marketing. As such, the presented normative framework of macro-social marketing ethics provides useful guidelines for future development of social marketing codes of ethics.

The macro-social marketing ethics framework provides practical guidelines for social marketers to assess ethical issues in social marketing.

The macro-social marketing ethics framework answers the call of Carter, Mayes, Eagle and Dahl (2017) for development of ethical frameworks for social marketers. It provides a reconciliation of multiple normative frameworks to give a set of guidelines for social marketers that are clear and non-contradictory.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This study aims to share the use of social marketing as pedagogy and provide a transformative social marketing pedagogy for social marketing educators. By this, the authors mean the same principles used by social marketers to improve the well-being of a person or group are used as a pedagogic tool to bolster students’ learning and understanding of social marketing. In the described course, students are asked to choose one area of their lives to try and change using concepts taught to them in class. They are then asked to reflect on their personal change journey and apply it to others in the form of a social marketing plan.

The authors share a conceptual journey using social marketing as pedagogy following the evolution of a marketing for behavioural change undergraduate course. Benchmark criteria for social marketing are used to discuss and conceptualise a transformative social marketing pedagogy. The authors take a reflexive approach to explore course development, motivations, assumptions and activities to expand on their approach.

Social marketing as pedagogy suggests that behaviour change is not just taught through course content but also embedded throughout the course as a learning tool and outcome. A social marketing course can encourage individual behaviour change by asking students to critically reflect on their own behaviour change journey to fully experience and understand the underpinnings and implications for social marketing. In this way, the authors adopt transformative learning as the outcome of social marketing AS pedagogy. The authors suggest through experiential learning, including active learning and reflexivity, students are able to change their frame of reference or how they interpret the world around them, in regard to complex social issues, which may encourage behaviour change.

As social marketers, the authors must reflect not only on what they teach students (Kelly, 2013) but also on how they teach them. Previous literature has not provided any unique pedagogy for how to teach social marketing. This article provides the first pedagogy for social marketing education – the Transformative social marketing pedagogy which views social marketing AS pedagogy. The authors present the value of experiential learning as a three-pronged approach incorporating Interpretive Experiences, Transformative Experiences and developing Praxis, which includes elements of feeding forward and authentic assessment. This approach provides a unique contribution to the area by providing a pedagogical approach that goes beyond mere knowledge acquisition to transformative learning.

This paper seeks to explore the functions of Christmas mythemes for children’s consumption culture development. In addition, the purpose of this study is to provide an insight on the development of Central European Children into customers and how mythemes are associated with the wishing behaviour.

Levi-Strauss’ (1955) structural analysis was used to uncover the mythemes of the Christmas story for Austrian children. These mythemes then informed a thematic analysis of 283 Austrian children’s Christmas letters. Campbell’s (1970) functions of myths were used to reflect on the findings.

The Christmas mythemes uncovered were found to encourage materialism by linking self-enhancement (good acquirement) with self-transcendent (good behaviour) values. The role of myths to relieve the tension between the incongruent values of collective/other-oriented and materialistic values is expanded upon. Such sanctification of selfish good acquisition is aided by the mythemes related especially to the Christkind and baby Jesus. Instead, marketers should use Christmas mythemes which emphasise family and collective/other-centred values.

By first uncovering the “mythemes” related to Christmas, the authors contribute to the academic understanding of Christmas, going beyond origin or single myth understandings and acknowledging the multifaceted components of Christmas. The second contribution is in exploring mytheme’s representation in children’s Christmas letters and reflecting on their functions. This differs from previous literature because it looks at one of the main cultural vehicles for Christmas socialisation and its intersection with the mythemes that feed children’s consumption culture formation. Through the authors’ presentation of a conceptual framework that links mytheme functions with proximal processes using a socioecological viewpoint, the authors demonstrate the guidance of mythemes in children’s development. The third contribution is a reflection on the potential ethical implications for children’s formation of their consumer culture based on the functions of the mythemes. Furthermore, the authors add to the existing body of research by investigating a Central European context.

The authors do not claim that the following represents the views of any one tribe but instead the culmination of the academic literature written on the topic. Marketing’s current Western dominant social paradigm (DSP) is said to perpetuate “green”, yet unsustainable practices. The DSP does not support strictly pro-environmental practices and its proposed alternative, the new environmental paradigm (NEP), lacks in-depth conceptualisation, especially concerning business and marketing activities. However, the two paradigms contrast so much that a shift from one to the other is vehemently argued against and conceptually rife with problems. This paper aims to expand upon the merits of the NEP using indigenous people’s environmental philosophies [1] – as examples of historically supported and successful sustainable philosophies. It conceptualises a Relational view to provide a more practical alternative to the DSP and includes propositions for marketing implementation of this perspective.

By explicating both the DSP and NEP and reflecting on each through an indigenous Māori view, this paper provides propositions for a broadened paradigm that supports sustainability and its application for sustainable marketing.

The implications of this research are in the area of paradigm development and in providing an alternative paradigm to that of the DSP. This paper is the first to fully explicate parts of the NEP and considers a solution to the problems of changing the current DSP so drastically by broadening the NEP using a Relational worldview.

The propositions and examples provided in this work give practical application of the newly presented paradigm for marketers influenced by indigenous belief systems.

This paper is the first to explicate parts of the NEP and broaden its reach by integrating a Relational worldview as an alternative to drastically changing the current DSP. It does so by proposing that marketers embrace a middle ground that is influenced by indigenous belief systems.

Although the concept of transformative gamification is mentioned in previous research, no research has provided a theoretically based explanation of how gamification can lead to transformative change. This paper aims to provide the explanation for the first time by combining storytelling elements with cognitive behavioural therapy logic and incorporating these into a framework to show the process of transformative behaviour change through gamification. The proposed framework not only furthers the theoretical understanding of transformative gamification services but also provides practical insight into design and implication of such services.

This paper is based on critical analysis and synthesis of literature from different fields of research such as transformative service research (TSR), gamification, game studies, social marketing, storytelling and journalism. Ergo, several propositions based on the extensive literature review are proposed and aggregated in a conceptual framework.

This paper argues that apart from game mechanics that are often considered as an inseparable aspect of gamification services, immersive storytelling and a mechanism to encourage reflection are the pivotal components of transformative gamification services. In addition, this paper suggests that although reflection and immersive storytelling are often considered as opposite sides of the spectrum, they can have a synergistic effect once they work in tandem in gamification services.

This paper proposes a novel framework and an operational definition for transformative gamification services. It contributes to TSR, gamification and health promotion research through differentiating this concept from similar concepts, such as mHealth, propelling gamification to a more meaningful and user-centric version and providing service researchers with a practical guide to make use of gamification as a tool to serve TSR.

In response to the special issue call for papers on international sources for advertising and marketing history, this paper aims to provide information, this paper provides information on two prominent New Zealand archives: Archives New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL).

Archives New Zealand and the ATL were chosen as they are the two largest archives in New Zealand, and both have different but complementary roles – one for the preservation of government records and the other for the preservation of private collections. The history of each is provided as well as a discussion of relevant materials for marketing historians. This is followed by a discussion of the limitations of the archives with regards to their colonial contexts and potential for ignoring the “other” over the years.

Archives New Zealand houses official government documents and thus occupational registrations, licences, trademarks, patents and copyright records are held, along with unique product design registration files and the complete history of health promotion in New Zealand. The ATL houses personal and thus biographically useful photographs, society records and minutes, personal letters and diaries, photos and glass plate negatives, portraits and paintings, architectural works and music.

For researchers pursuing historical research in marketing, the archival documents offered by government archives and donated private collections from throughout the world provide invaluable resources. This paper also provides a discussion of the colonial focus on record-keeping and potential bias stemming from colonial structures of government and lack of representation of marginalised groups.

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.

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.

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.

This article provides for the first time a conceptual grounding of social marketing within social engineering, enabling academics and practitioners to contextualise social marketing activities in a broader societal framework.