Search results

A relocalization movement, often referred to as neolocalism, is a foot with the aim of rekindling local and regional bonds between people and communities by intentionally and comprehensively crafting senses of place through various promotional strategies. Local-scale businesses often contribute to neolocal efforts through the integration of “place” with their brand development and marketing schemes. Together such efforts converge to form local consumption spaces that foster both economic vibrancy and social cohesion within and across communities. While sometimes recognized as a secondary benefit, environmental stewardship has yet to be fully developed as a neolocal construct and consistent trait of local consumption spaces. In this chapter, an extensive review of the intersection between the environmentalism, neolocalism, and eco-entrepreneurship literature is used to conceptually frame the notion of eco-consumption spaces. The insights generated lead to a proposed research agenda that includes recommendations pertaining to both empirical settings and methodological strategies.

This paper aims to describe a case study of a formative study for the development of a social marketing campaign for increased biowaste sorting. In following the social marketing principles, it provides insights for practitioners willing to implement behaviour change interventions.

The case study describes the scoping review, expert interviews, online survey and focus groups, which were integrated to comprehend the specificities of biowaste sorting in the South Suburbs of Athens. This mixed-method research design enabled a comprehensive understanding of biowaste sorting practices that would not have been attainable through a single method.

This study found that the “descriptive norm” and “perceived controllability” significantly influenced biowaste sorting. Differential challenges of at-home and out-of-home sorting were also identified. The demand for more information was also highlighted. The tailored intervention comprises of a mix of behavioural modelling, persuasive communication, education and enablement.

By concretely showcasing how the integration of multiple research methods through the application of social marketing principles can guide the design of a tailored behaviour change intervention, this paper offers an outline for informed decision-making and strategic planning in the realm of (environmental) behaviour change.

The study is positioned at the crossroads of transformative social marketing and social innovation literature through the lens of participatory design (PD). This exploratory study aims to explore how social enterprises in India engage economically marginalized people in transformative social marketing and innovation for sustainable development through PD.

The study includes a case study with a matched pairs analysis approach. The data analysis reports three themes depicting the role of PD in different stages of the social innovation process (codiscovery, codesign and scaling-up), the challenges faced in the process and the outcomes of the PD process.

The authors propose that social enterprises can act as sustainable development catalysts for more inclusive sustainable development through their proactive and creative uses of PD. Still, PD also has limitations for addressing the challenges stemming from marginalized contexts, which requires effective social marketing strategies to overcome.

The study contributes to the emerging dialogue on PD with marginalized users and widens the scope of studies on transformative social marketing and innovation. The findings also provide practical insights for PD practitioners on how designers can learn from diverse PD practices in the context of economically marginalized people.

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.

As brands progressively become instruments for consumers to advocate for social change, many feel pressure to engage in social purpose branding (SPB) through addressing social issues. In a rush to remain socially relevant, brands have approached SPB differently; some genuinely intend to advance the social issue, while some intend to capitalise on social movements to mobilise the brand. This paper aims to explain these differences by theoretically outlining various approaches to SPB.

This mixed method paper draws on theory, interviews with marketing practitioners, and practical exemplars to present a typology of SPB approaches. 

Using institutional logics theory, SPB is categorised into four approaches: social purpose-driving, social purpose-driven, social purpose-aligning and social purpose-washing.

The typological framework for SPB advances this domain to outline effective and ineffective ways for brands to engage with social issues. A detailed agenda for further research is provided to guide ongoing SPB research. 

The typology presented reduces complexity and helps marketers understand the different approaches to engaging with a social issue. Given the growing intertwinement of brands and social issues, this research is essential for brands seeking to advance a social issue and remain relevant.

This paper offers a novel conceptualisation of SPB by defining it, identifying a framework of its characteristics, and detailing four SPB approaches. 

Objectively evaluating the fairness of the algorithm, exploring in specific scenarios combined with scenario characteristics and constructing the algorithm fairness evaluation index system in specific scenarios.

This paper selects marketing scenarios, and in accordance with the idea of “theory construction-scene feature extraction-enterprise practice,” summarizes the definition and standard of fairness, combs the application link process of marketing algorithms and establishes the fairness evaluation index system of marketing equity allocation algorithms. Taking simulated marketing data as an example, the fairness performance of marketing algorithms in some feature areas is measured, and the effectiveness of the evaluation system proposed in this paper is verified.

The study reached the following conclusions: (1) Different fairness evaluation criteria have different emphases, and may produce different results. Therefore, different fairness definitions and standards should be selected in different fields according to the characteristics of the scene. (2) The fairness of the marketing equity distribution algorithm can be measured from three aspects: marketing coverage, marketing intensity and marketing frequency. Specifically, for the fairness of coverage, two standards of equal opportunity and different misjudgment rates are selected, and the standard of group fairness is selected for intensity and frequency. (3) For different characteristic fields, different degrees of fairness restrictions should be imposed, and the interpretation of their calculation results and the means of subsequent intervention should also be different according to the marketing objectives and industry characteristics.

First of all, the fairness sensitivity of different feature fields is different, but this paper does not classify the importance of feature fields. In the future, we can build a classification table of sensitive attributes according to the importance of sensitive attributes to give different evaluation and protection priorities. Second, in this paper, only one set of marketing data simulation data is selected to measure the overall algorithm fairness, after which multiple sets of marketing campaigns can be measured and compared to reflect the long-term performance of marketing algorithm fairness. Third, this paper does not continue to explore interventions and measures to improve algorithmic fairness. Different feature fields should be subject to different degrees of fairness constraints, and therefore their subsequent interventions should be different, which needs to be continued to be explored in future research.

This paper combines the specific features of marketing scenarios and selects appropriate fairness evaluation criteria to build an index system for fairness evaluation of marketing algorithms, which provides a reference for assessing and managing the fairness of marketing algorithms.

Algorithm governance and algorithmic fairness are very important issues in the era of artificial intelligence, and the construction of the algorithmic fairness evaluation index system in marketing scenarios in this paper lays a safe foundation for the application of AI algorithms and technologies in marketing scenarios, provides tools and means of algorithm governance and empowers the promotion of safe, efficient and orderly development of algorithms.

In this paper, firstly, the standards of fairness are comprehensively sorted out, and the difference between different standards and evaluation focuses is clarified, and secondly, focusing on the marketing scenario, combined with its characteristics, key fairness evaluation links are put forward, and different standards are innovatively selected to evaluate the fairness in the process of applying marketing algorithms and to build the corresponding index system, which forms the systematic fairness evaluation tool of marketing algorithms.

Social commerce (SC) is a new genre in electronic commerce (e-commerce) that has great potential. This study proposes a new research framework to address deficiencies in existing social commerce research frameworks (e.g. the information model).

In the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 technologies and new social commerce (s-commerce) models, the authors believe that there is an immediate need for a new research framework. The authors analysed the progress of the s-commerce paradigm between 2003 and 2023 by applying longitudinal science mapping. The authors then developed a research framework based on the themes in the strategic diagrams and evolution map.

From 2003 to 2010, studies on s-commerce mainly focused on social networking sites, virtual communities, social shopping and analytic approaches. From 2011 to 2015, it shifted to s-commerce, consumer behaviour, Web 2.0, artificial intelligence, social technologies, online shopping, user studies, data gathering methods, applications, service-based social commerce constructs, e-commerce and cognitive factors. Social commerce remained the primary research paradigm from 2017 to 2023.

The SC framework may be analogous to popular research frameworks such as technology-organisation-environment (T-O-E) and stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R). Based on this SC framework, researchers may gain a better understanding by determining the factors of the social, commercial, technological and behavioural dimensions.

The authors redefined s-commerce and developed an SC framework. Practical guidelines for the SC framework and an exemplary research model are presented. Overall, this study offers a new research agenda for the extant understanding of s-commerce, with the SC framework as the next frontier of the theoretical advancements and applications of s-commerce.

This paper aims to provide insights into the potential of digital technologies-based innovations for more inclusive healthcare by alleviating the affordability, accessibility and availability barriers to utilization of healthcare services. Also, it aims to provide insights into the potential of digital technologies-based innovations for more inclusive services, broadly.

A conceptual framework is inductively developed by analyzing real-world examples of digital technologies-based innovations for more inclusive healthcare through the lenses of economics of information in digital form and certain characteristics of services.

Concurrent implementation of digital technologies-based healthcare innovations with innovations and/or modifications in service processes can enable greater inclusivity by alleviating the affordability, accessibility and availability barriers to utilization of healthcare services.

Issues relating to inequities in healthcare, as a social problem, are the focus of research at multiple levels (e.g. global, national, regional and local) in several academic disciplines. In relation to the scope of the problems and challenges pertaining to providing quality healthcare to the unserved and underserved segments of society, worldwide, the contribution of the proposed framework to practice is modest. However, by highlighting the promise and potential of digital technologies-based innovations as solutions for alleviating barriers to affordability, accessibility and availability of healthcare services during various stages (prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and post-treatment follow-up) with illustrative vignettes and developing a framework, the article offers insights for future research. For instance, in reference to mission-driven social enterprises that operate in the product-market space for inclusive innovations under resource constraints, a resourcefulness-based view of the social enterprise constitutes a potential avenue for theory development and research.

Given the conceptual nature of the article, the implications for practice are limited to cognitive implications. Action implications (instrumental implications or implications for practice) are outside of the scope of the article.

Innovations that are economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially impactful is one of the important issues of our times.

The proposed framework provides insights into the potential of digital technologies-based innovations for more inclusive healthcare by alleviating the affordability, accessibility and availability barriers in the context of emerging and less developed country markets and base of the pyramid segments of society in these markets.

This study investigated the impact of octomodal mental imagery (OMI) on brand experience and authenticity in advocating sustainable development and responding to the lack of brand experience and customers’ growing demand for authentic brands.

Based on quantitative research and convenience sampling, data for the study were collected from 480 marketing students in Tehran, Iran. The research model is tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results showed that all the sensory attributes of OMI positively influenced consumers’ brand experience. Among the structural attributes of OMI, only spatial mental imagery positively influenced consumers’ brand experience, while autonomy and kinesthetic mental imagery did not have a significant effect. This study also found that consumers’ brand experience positively influenced brand authenticity, while social presence positively moderated the relationship.

This study provides branding managers and scholars with a new reference point and scientific data support for companies to implement brand strategies and marketing models, which helps brands maintain sustainable development in a competitive business environment.