Page 13 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

6 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

include more macro-level applications related to social entrepreneurship
and community economic development, another link to marketing’s
broader concerns with economic development.
The contributors to these three volumes include preeminent scholars in
a variety of disciplines, accomplished professionals and managers, and
keen observers of the human condition. This set is intended as an aid for
learning, thinking, and discussion. It does not attempt to offer definitive
answers about how social marketing should be defined, what approaches
and theories are consistent with such a definition, or the philosophical and
ethical issues that arise in the context of efforts to persuade and exercise
social control over the thoughts and behavior of others. The set is intended
to be balanced, to challenge thinking, and to encourage creative new ideas.

Introduction to Volume I

Volume 1 provides a general introduction to social marketing, its historical
roots, and its philosophical groundings. The volume begins with a chapter
by one of the pioneers of social marketing, Alan Andreasen, who has
been at the center of work on social marketing since its beginnings as an
identified sub-discipline of marketing. In this chapter Andreasen explains
why the definition of a discipline is important and describes the evolution
of the definition of social marketing. Chapter 2 identifies important
questions about the boundaries of social marketing as a discipline and
raises philosophical and ethical issues that are the focus of later chapters
in Volume 1.
While social marketing is most often, but not always, identified as a
sub-discipline of marketing, many of the tools, techniques, and guiding
theories arguably have their origins in social psychology. Chapter 3 de-
scribes the social psychological roots of social marketing and the roles of
persuasion and attitude change in changing behavior. This chapter reviews
the significant and impressive body of empirical research and theoretical
work on attitude change. Few areas in marketing or social psychology
have been the object of so much attention, and it is appropriate that this
set include an early description of this body of work. Much of what is
considered social marketing theory and practice rests on the foundation of
attitude change.
Much of social marketing activity takes place in a political context.
Social marketing is an important tool for implementation of many govern-
ment policies, ranging from the prevention of disease to encouraging peo-
ple to participate in the census count. Chapter 4 addresses the political
context of social marketing. Its focus is on persuasion in a political