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What We Did
Macro-social marketing seeks to use social marketing techniques in a holistic way to effect systemic change, as opposed to individual level change. This word starts by explaining what types of macromarketing issues – dubbed here wicked problems – can be approached using macro-social marketing. The use of macro-social marketing by governments is most effective when it is coupled with other interventions such as regulations, legislation, taxation, community mobilization, research, funding and education. When a government takes a systems approach to societal change, such as with the Canadian anti-smoking campaign, this is positive use of social engineering. The social marketer can understand their role within the system and appreciate that they are potentially part of precipitating circumstances that make society susceptible to change. Social marketers further have a role in creating societal motivation to change, as well as promoting social flexibility, creating desirable images of change, attitudinal change and developing individual’s skills, which contribute to macro-level change. This work explains how systemic change can be brought about through the use of macro-social marketing.
Who Was Involved
Dr Sommer Kapitan, AUT; Associate Professor Sean Sands, Swinburne; Dr Neha Bajaj, RMIT; Angelina Bakonyi; Dr Joya Kemper, University of Auckland.
Why It Matters
Social marketers need to understand the structural and environmental factors contributing to the problem behaviour/wicked problem and focus on the implementers and controllers of society-wide strategic interventions. Eliminating all factors which enable problem behaviors creates an environmental context where it is easy for consumers to change behavior and maintain that change. The value of this work is in extending the literature on macro-social marketing by governments and identifying the broader strategy they may be undertaking across the micro, mezzo and macro levels concurrently. It is also in showing how marketers may use this information.
Learn More
- Kennedy, A. (2016). Macro-social Marketing. Journal of Macromarketing, 36(3), 354-365.
- Kennedy, A., Kapitan, S., Bajaj, N., Bakonyi, A., Sands, S. (2017) Uncovering wicked problem’s system structure: seeing the forest for the trees, Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 7 (1).
- Kennedy, A., Kapitan, S., Bajaj, N., Bakonyi, A. and Sands, S. (2017), Fast Fashion, a Wicked Problem for Macro-Social Marketing, in Hastings, G. and Domegan, C. (eds) Social Marketing, Rebels with a Cause, 3ed, Routledge, UK
- Kennedy, A-M. (2019). Macro-social marketing insights: Systems thinking for wicked problems. Routledge: New York, NY.
- Kennedy, A. (2017) Macro-Social Marketing Research: Philosophy, Methodology and Methods. Journal of Macromarketing, Vol. 37, (4), p347-355.
- Kennedy, A., Kemper, J. and Parsons, A. (2018) Upstream Social Marketing Strategy. Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 8 (3), p258-279.
