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This paper aims to provide guidance on how midstream social marketing can be used to understand and address wicked problems through adopting a collaborative systems integration approach conceptualised from a macromarketing perspective.

Rothschild’s motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) framework is applied in this study to understand veterinarians as midstream microactors in the macrosystem of wicked animal welfare issues. Focus group and individual interview data from veterinarians were analysed through the lens of the MOA framework to understand veterinarians’ as midstream microactors within a systems continuum.

The MOA of veterinarians to engage downstream targets – cat owners – in behaviour change are identified. Fresh insights reveal the challenges and barriers to simply focusing on veterinarians as the key microactor required to address the wicked problem of cat overpopulation. Challenges identified include the cost of sterilisation to both owners and veterinary practices, alongside vying beliefs about the capacity of individual veterinarians to persuade owners about the benefits of sterilisation to improve animal welfare. Additionally, insight into veterinarians’ perceptions of upstream strategies to address the problem – in terms of marketing, education and law – expose further complications on where regulation and law enforcement can be integrated in future social marketing strategies to address the cat overpopulation problem.

The application of the MOA framework improves understanding of the concept and practice of midstream social marketing. It provides a practical and strategic tool that social marketers can apply when approaching behaviour change that leverages midstream actors as part of the social change solution.

Research and theorisation in this paper demonstrates an alternative pathway to address wicked problems via a collaborative systems integration approach conceptualised from a macromarketing perspective. Effective long-term change relies on understanding and coordinating a broad macrosystem of interconnected actors along a downstream, midstream and upstream continuum. This starts by understanding the microactions of individual actors within the macrosystem.

This paper aims to highlight the importance of social marketing at the midstream (meso) level as a key component of a proposed model for co-creating public services. The model demonstrates how supportive relationships and conversations within and between service organisations, front-line service staff, social networks and clients are essential for the effective co-creation of health and welfare services and social marketing interventions.

This is a conceptual paper that uses network and services theory and a case study to show how the midstream social marketing approach and service co-creation can be applied in practice and how these concepts relate to upstream and downstream social marketing.

The case study demonstrates the powerful role of social networks, staff–client relationships and conversations in the co-creation of effective services and the improvement in communications, trust and understanding between service providers and the community.

The paper shows how service providers and social marketers can achieve co-created, customer-oriented services/interventions through the development of congruent, empathetic narratives, relationships and conversations. The case study demonstrates how this can be achieved in practice through staff training, the identification of “community communicators” and value-based targeting and communications.

The integration of conversations, relationships, values, services and midstream social marketing into a model for co-creation offers a valuable tool for social marketing and health/welfare service professionals.

The social marketing literature tends to focus on upstream marketing (policy) and downstream (individual behaviour change) and has a limited view on midstream (working with partners and community groups) social marketing. The paper proposes midstream social marketing should also include an understanding of how services and service employees influence and support individual behaviour change goals. The paper presents four key services marketing principles – derived from services theory and thinking – which the paper believes to be essential for implementing effective midstream social marketing.

This is a conceptual paper that uses service theory and case-examples to show how service thinking can be used as a midstream social marketing approach.

For effective uptake and impact of social marketing services amongst people and populations, social marketers need to design programs that consider the service experience, the service employee, service quality/customer value and the active role of the customer in value creation.

Services marketing is a well-established sub-discipline of marketing which, until recently, has not interacted with social marketing. The extension and application of services theory for social marketing can enrich and propel the social marketing discipline forward. Further research is recommended to evaluate how service principles can be applied in practice.

Given that social marketing services tend not to be accessed in sufficient numbers by the people who most need them, social marketers need to think beyond the technical, cognitive, and organisational-focused goals when designing social services.

This paper identifies key service theories that social marketers should understand and use and is thus a source of fresh ideas for theory and practice.

Alcohol availability is strongly related to excessive alcohol consumption. This study aims to examine social marketing’s response to concerns about retailers’ noncompliance with the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) law by proposing and evaluating a social marketing intervention directed at sellers in off-premise stores.

The study is based on a non-randomized quasi-experimental design, focusing on an evaluation of the implementation of the “18 rules!” intervention in four cities in Slovenia. Two waves of underage purchase attempts were conducted pre- and post-intervention in 24 off-premise businesses, following a mystery shopping protocol.

The initial rate of retailers’ noncompliance with the MLDA law in off-premise establishments was high. After the social marketing intervention, an increase with compliance with the law was observed; the proportion of cashiers selling alcohol to minors after the intervention decreased from 96 to 67 per cent. Qualitative insight suggests an existence of retailers’ dilemma in complying with the MLDA.

A social marketing approach could contribute to a better understanding of the social working of the MLDA law.

A social marketing approach could complement the usual enforcement strategies and contribute to a better understanding of the social working of the MLDA law, and encourage deliberate retailers’ compliance with it while developing valuable exchanges among people and stakeholders.

The paper conceptualizes retailers’ dilemma in complying with the minimal legal drinking age law and offers social marketing response to it. Results of the study show that also solely non-coercive measures have the potential in increasing retailers’ compliance with regulations.

The paper aims to introduce social marketing (SM) as a tool to overcome the low cultural participation, a problem of the arts and culture sector that has worsened in the post-pandemic scenario.

The study uses a multidisciplinary literature review (SM, museum marketing, museology and cultural policy) to address the problem of museums and other cultural heritage institutions, at both the macro-level (prevailing cultural policies and antecedents, barriers and consequences to cultural participation) and micro-level (challenges faced by museums in the 21st century and marketing as a management instrument).

The downstream, midstream and upstream approaches can be used to design and implement SM interventions intended to address the problem of low cultural participation in museums. The three approaches should be considered holistically, with their synergetic and recursive effects.

Due to its introductory and conceptual nature, the study provides a comprehensive intervention framework to be used as a platform for future theoretical and empirical research. Further investigations may expand on the specificities of each approach (down, mid and upstream) and extend the framework to other nonprofit cultural institutions beyond museums, such as libraries and archives, cultural heritage sites and theater, music and dance companies.

The paper proposes a comprehensive SM intervention framework that integrates three interdependent approaches (downstream, midstream and upstream).

The paper provides a starting point for the holistic application of SM in the arts and culture sector. It also encourages researchers, cultural policymakers and cultural heritage professionals to investigate, design and implement SM programs that better understand, expand and diversify the audience and strengthen the legitimacy and relevance of cultural actors and activities to transform them into inclusive, accessible and sustainable institutions.

This paper aims to explore the potential contributions of the for-profit sector in integrating resources with social marketing organisations for value co-creation at the meso level (midstream) of the social marketing eco-system. The paper addresses calls for further theorisation and understanding of value co-creation beyond the micro level (downstream).

The paper draws from social marketing, value co-creation and eco-systems literature to present a conceptual model for meso-level value co-creation between social marketing and for-profit organisations.

The paper proposes four dimensions of resources which can be integrated: cognitive, labour, economic and network. Additionally, it is proposed that from these integrated resources, three co-creation outcomes can be achieved – co-learning, co-design and co-production – which lead to improved value propositions.

This paper offers a framework for strategic planning and evaluation regarding partnerships and collaborations with for-profit organisations, which potentially lead to greater value propositions being offered.

This paper furthers the theoretical discussions and understanding of value co-creation in social marketing at the meso level. The paper identifies a new actor – for-profits – as a potential collaborator for value co-creation with social marketing organisations and contributes new understanding about value co-creation at the meso level between social marketing and for-profit organisations. Further, the paper describes and reviews the potential contributions of for-profits to social marketing efforts.

The article aims to illuminate this issue by applying the cultural capital theory to the processes of health production and distribution. It questions social marketing’s role in addressing cultural resources as barriers to and/or facilitators of behavioural change. Social marketing is often criticized for its limited ability to enhance social goals and for aiding the reproduction of social inequalities.

The theoretical framework of this conceptual paper is based on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of human capital forms. It establishes an association between cultural capital and social marketing in solving social problems.

All social marketing interventions affect cultural resources that people might use in the field of health. The findings endorse the utilization of cultural capital as a strategic analytical tool in social marketing.

The article demonstrates how Bourdieu’s capital theory can be applied to help social marketers make important strategic decisions. In particular, it argues that using specific notions of embodied cultural capital and objectified cultural capital can inform decisions on adopting a downstream, midstream or upstream approach.

A relatively neglected concept in the social marketing field is introduced: cultural capital. It aims to contribute to the theoretical debate with regard to strategic social marketing orientations.

Responding to the call for an extension of social marketing scope and application, this paper aims to outline implementation of a multi-stream, multi-method formative research approach to understanding human trafficking in the global South context of Nigeria.

Data were collected using a multi-method, multi-stream research design. The study used alternative methods allowing a critical perspective to be taken.

Contradictions between upstream discourses and the lived experiences of trafficked individuals emerged. Specifically, moral and rational agency ideology, which conflates human trafficking with prostitution, unintentionally promotes human trafficking and underrepresents other forms of trafficking was evident. Experiences of socioeconomic oppression, traditional practices and an aspirational culture fuels positive attitudes towards human trafficking. The lived experience of human trafficking survivors while varied was underpinned by the common theme of job seeking. Participants perceived human traffickers as benevolent users rather than oppressors, and their rescue as oppressive and disempowering.

Application of a multi-stream approach is limited by research context, sample size, time and cost constraints. Future research extending the multi-stream research approach to other research contexts and groups is recommended.

Multi-stream formative research design assisted to yield wider insights, which informed the design of a multilevel pilot intervention to combat human trafficking in Nigeria.

Extending understanding beyond individual, myopic approaches that have dominated social marketing formative research.

Social marketing has been applied to alcohol education, changing adolescents’ knowledge, attitudes and intentions toward binge drinking for the better. However, there remains limited research in the social marketing literature examining multi-stream models considering social-contextual factors and individual differences in the applied context of adolescent drinking.

A multi-group structural equation model approach was applied to analyze cross-sectional self-report data from 2,234 (mean age = 15.3 years, 48.7 per cent female) Australian adolescents. Based on the theory of planned behavior, the role of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control in adolescents’ binge drinking intentions were examined. Potential moderating effects of peer and parent drinking behaviors and drinking status were tested.

The model explained 47.3 per cent variance in intentions for drinkers and 31.6 per cent for non-drinkers. Subjective norms were more strongly related to intentions than attitudes. Peer and parent behavior modified those associations, and drinking status further moderated interaction effects. Under conditions of favorable norms and attitudes, family and friends’ behavior fuels adolescents’ binge drinking intentions. Conversely, exposure to modeling of non-drinking peers and parents can bolster negative binge drinking beliefs.

Social marketing programs seeking to change adolescent drinking culture should include peers and parents whose drinking behavior modified associations between attitudes, norms and intentions to binge drink.

This study investigated how social-contextual factors (midstream) and drinking status influence relationships between adolescents’ attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control (downstream factors) and their intentions to binge drink. These moderating effects have not previously been examined within the theory of planned behavior framework, and limited previous research has examined multi-stream models.

Accomplishing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is imperative for societies to meet their grand challenges. Achieving these goals by 2030 requires sustainability change agents with a can-do-attitude. This study aims to show how institutions of higher education can become partners for social marketing in bringing forward such change agents.

Taking a case study approach, this paper examines a master’s programme to identify factors relevant to educating sustainability change agents that can serve as a basis for a social marketing planning primer to foster the SDGs.

This study presents the social marketing discipline with a viable option for supporting the achievement of the SDGs through higher education. Its contributions are twofold. First, it is shown that when interdisciplinarity and a project-based approach are conceptualized and organized to create a motivating and meaningful learning environment with the SDGs as guiding principles, students, as sustainability change agents, can increase awareness and have the potential to generate impacts regarding the SDGs at the individual, organizational and institutional levels. Second, based on this, the paper provides guidance to social marketers regarding the planning of a campaign targeting higher education institutions. The authors argue that the aim of this campaign should be to promote the implementation of the SDGs as guiding principles above all, as this can facilitate the process of students becoming sustainability change agents who help achieve the goals in a timely manner.

Whilst single case studies are usually limited in drawing generalizations, the present study offers a starting point for investigating the role of universities as a target group for social marketing in fostering further sustainable development. Building on its findings, future research could test the proposed social marketing planning primer and evaluate the impact on the SDGs at a larger scale than only one university.

It is proposed to use the findings of the study to model a social marketing campaign aimed at universities to motivate them to help develop sustainability change agents in all disciplines by integrating the SDGs as guiding principles for study programmes.

Students’ impacts range from leading peers to buy sustainable products and consume less to influencing a company to adopt sustainable packaging, thereby contributing to social change.

This study is among the first to examine the possible effect of a study programme on the SDGs at different societal levels by taking the perspectives of multiple stakeholders into account and combining the theory of higher education with sustainability and social marketing.