Page 11 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

4 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

the practice of social marketing. Rather, the set brings together in one
place a set of chapters that provide both complementary and competing
views that can be used to frame broad issues and facilitate study and
discussion.
A naïve view of the difference between social marketing and commer-
cial marketing is that the former is concerned with “doing good,” while
commercial marketing is concerned with making money. The contributors
to the set make it clear that this is a false dichotomy. Commercial market-
ing and businesses more generally do a great deal of good. They create
jobs, improve the quality of life through developing and making available
innovative products and services, and even save lives by making products
safer and by making lifesaving products and services available. The bene-
fits created by commercial marketing are not just economic. The availabil-
ity of good jobs is related to public health. People with good jobs are
healthier. Children in families where wage earners have good jobs are
healthier and perform better in school (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
2013). Many corporations invest in their communities and contribute to
social welfare through direct contributions and by encouraging volunteer-
ism among employees. Corporate social responsibility is taken seriously in
many organizations not because it contributes to the bottom line—which
it does—but because they have a stake in improving the quality of life and
creating sustainable businesses.
On the other hand, doing “good” is not always positive. One person’s
social problem may be another person’s constitutional right or religious
belief. This does not mean that there is not often widespread agreement
about the goals of many social marketing campaigns. But it is not difficult
to identify social interventions in the name of the common good that have
had terrible consequences. It is also naïve to attribute only altruistic mo-
tives to government agencies and not-for-profit organizations. Large sums
of money are now spent on social marketing programs, and social market-
ing programs can be avenues to significant political and social power. Both
commercial marketing and social marketing face ethical issues. Brenkert
(2002) argues that these ethical issues may be even greater for social mar-
keters because of the value judgments that are associated with the defini-
tion of constructs like “social problem” and “social welfare.” This set
addresses the significant social, ethical, legal, and regulatory issues that are
associated with social marketing.
This set is intended to be a starting place for exploring the rich literature
on social marketing. It brings together contributions from the many disci-
plines that inform social marketing theory and practice: marketing, eco-
nomics, psychology, sociology, political science, communication, and law.