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Conceptual advancement underpins the progress of social marketing and countermarketing research but has been neglected in recent years. This paper aims to describe a new integrative framework of social countermarketing (SCM) concepts, techniques and defining characteristics, based on research tracing the conceptual evolution of the field and contrasting commercial (profit-focused) and social (public good-focused) countermarketing.

This paper undertook searches of electronic databases to examine how socially oriented countermarketing has been characterised in the research literature. Search terms included “countermarketing”, “critical marketing”, “de-marketing” and “counter-advertising”. Broad inclusion criteria allowed consideration of reports, conference and media outputs, as well as peer-reviewed articles published since 1971. Selected marketing journals were searched individually.

After screening of 408 initial search results, 80 studies were retained and full papers retrieved. Main ideas, definitions, scope, concepts and terms used were mapped to identify the common and distinguishing features, as well as higher-order organising themes. This led to the development of a new conceptual framework for SCM comprising eight domains.

The integrative conceptual framework offers a foundation for future research and SCM practice.

This paper introduces a framework designed to advance the conceptual basis of SCM research and practice with particular reference to the field of public health and disease prevention.

Social countermarketing (SCM) aims at influencing existing socio-cultural norms, public policies or political decision-making. Existing empirical accounts of SCM give limited insights into their success. The authors analyze SCM strategies and their public resonance by studying the diagnostic and prognostic frames and responsibility attributions that are used in the debates.

The authors focus on two online SCM campaigns in the Netherlands that are targeted against over-feeding of chickens for consumption and the selling of low-priced meat. The authors conducted a quantitative content analysis (N = 3,902) of these debates on Twitter for a two-year period (July 2015 to June 2017).

The results show that citizens play an important role for the amplification of SCM campaigns. Diagnostic and prognostic frames about meat selling practices are among the most popular ones while the importance of mobilization messages differs per case. This can be explained by the proximity of these frames to citizens' daily life experiences.

The apparent willingness of citizens to both tweet and retweet calls for mobilization might give messages by environmental NGOs third-party endorsement. This strengthens their position and visibility in the debates, which are both of strategic value. The analysis of actor responsibility can identify reputational risks for companies in contested industries such as mass meat production.

The findings enhance professional understanding of designing campaign messages and refine SCM success in terms of resonance, since resonance indicates amplification and third-party endorsement.

Social marketing and government policy are intertwined. Despite this, policy analysis by social marketers is rare. This paper aims to address the dearth of policy analysis in social marketing and introduce and model a methodology grounded in Indigenous knowledge and from an Indigenous standpoint. In Australia, a minuscule number of First Nations people complete doctoral degrees. The most recent, major policy review, the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) Report, made a series of recommendations, with some drawn from countries that have successfully uplifted Indigenous doctoral candidates’ success. This paper “speaks back” to the ACOLA Report.

This paper subjects the ACOLA Report, implementation plans and evaluations to a detailed Indigenous Critical Discourse Analysis using Nakata’s Indigenous standpoint theory and Bacchi’s Foucauldian discourse analysis to trace why policy borrowing from other countries is challenging if other elements of the political, social and cultural landscape are fundamentally unsupportive of reforms.

This paper makes arguments about the effects produced by the way the “problem” of First Nations doctoral education has been represented in this suite of Australian policy documents and the ways in which changes could be made that would actually address the pressing need for First Nations doctoral success in Australia.

Conducting policy analysis benefits social marketers in many ways, helping to navigate policy complexities and advocate for meaningful policy reforms for a social cause. This paper aims to spark more social marketing policy analysis and introduces a methodology uncommon to social marketing.

This chapter fosters understanding of core U.S. gun culture and how it promotes its political ideology through visual means.

The research applies key visual theory concepts to investigate a selection of political representations made by gun rights advocates. The images analyzed include photographs, posters, and other ephemera posted on blogs and commercial websites located through informed keyword searches of Google Images.

Core gun culture in the U.S. aggressively promotes its libertarian and right-wing ideology through tactics of interpellation, intertextuality, and exhibitionism, often in tandem with humor, sarcasm, paranoia, and sex appeals.

Although the findings are preliminary, visual theories and methodologies present a promising direction for further consumer research on American gun culture.

U.S. gun culture produces levels of gun violence that far exceed those in other developed countries. Knowledge of how the core gun culture represents itself visually may deliver insights for mitigating this social problem.

Relatively little consumer culture research has addressed U.S. gun culture and visual theories have not been fully deployed.

The discussion about firearms in the United States often involves a contentious confrontation between two polarized groups: gun owners and those that might increase regulation of guns. The former group often uses rights-based arguments, including the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, while the latter assesses problems related to gun violence from a collectivist perspective, focusing on the health, social, and policy implications of firearm ownership. The National Rifle Association (NRA) adds to the mix through communicating and lobbying activities.

The chapter uses qualitative data and interpretive methods to gain an in-depth insight into the values of the gun culture and the role of the NRA in this community. Data used are from nine depth interviews with gun owners and field notes derived from participant observation in addition to examination of email communications sent by the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Three significant values espoused by members of the culture – self-sufficiency, safety, and privacy – are based on the individualist perspective and this perspective is reinforced by public narrative provided by the NRA.

A limitation is the geographic limitation on data collection, although it is expected that rural gun culture does not vary significantly throughout the United States. The study has implications for a more nuanced understanding of the gun debate in the United States by suggesting how the narrative is structured by lobbying groups such as the NRA.

This chapter provides insight into the U.S. gun culture that has not been previously addressed through a consumer culture theory lens.

Challenges the emerging exchange paradigm of marketing, by critically examining the current extension of marketing thought on the subject. Suggests that the concept of exchange when applied to many managerial problems associated with social or non‐business marketing. Concludes that the concept of marketing as a process of “matching” — aligning the relationships between organizations and/or individuals — may provide a more coherent framework for any extended concept of the marketing function and marketing‐oriented management.

The concept of marketing is essentially that of matching supply and demand. Gordon Foxall explores marketing's domain and provides some pointers for both commercial and non‐commercial managers.

Critical social marketing can play a vital role in countering the consequences of behaviours toxified by commercial marketing. This paper aims to hypothesise that auto sector brand activities may be associated with riskier driving.

In this paper, the authors hypothesised that auto sector brand activities may be associated with riskier driving. UK collision data was examined, focusing on collisions that occurred because of an “injudicious action” (risky or aggressive driving manoeuvres) and analysing this data set by comparing the incidence of vehicle brands involved.

After allowing for other effects, a gradient graph illustrated differing associations between vehicle brands and collision rates.

A discussion was offered, adopting the position that if such a problem exists the solutions cannot be left to the sector itself, and that socially responsible interventions may be required. A number of social marketing strategies are proposed including regulatory support, “Truth Campaign” style exposure of commercial damage, and counter-marketing that promotes safe driver behaviour.

This work provides valuable empirical support to the concerns raised by previous workers about the possible effects of automotive sector advertising on driving behaviour. The paper offers a concise discussion of ways forward, concluding with the novel possibility of regulating individual brands as an alternative to sector-wide regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of branding in public health campaigns.

The paper reviews public health campaigns, and their goals and objectives vis‐à‐vis the current health market conditions. The imperatives for branding public health campaigns are enumerated. The paper then discusses salient features of branding that can be applied to health campaigns before drawing on an exemplar to illustrate how branding can be effectively harnessed in the realm of public health campaign theorizing and praxis.

Given the clutter of campaigns and their messages in a saturated health consumer market, uptake and sustained use of health campaigns needs alternative pathways to keep consumers interested and gainfully engaged with the products being offered. Branding, as a communicative strategy, can meet this need.

As the fundamental goal of a public health campaign is to induce and sustain health behavior among the public, efforts must be kept up to theorize about improved modes of delivering campaign products to consumers. This paper takes the initial steps in that direction.