Socially Responsible (Macro-Social) Marketing

Abstract

In Laczniak and Shultz’s (2021) article explicating Socially Responsible Marketing (SRM), they provide the argument for marketers (and their organizations) to act to benefit society. Organizations should actively seek, when given the opportunity, to increase positive social outcomes through addressing wicked problems. Those objectives are shared by social marketers and macro-social marketers ( Kennedy 2016). The authors state that SRM is most important for commercial marketers as social marketers inherently incorporate social values into their work. However, this does not take into account ethical issues ( Kennedy and Santos 2019; Eagle 2009) and the increasing controversy surrounding behavior change. We argue that SRM is both necessary and applicable to social marketers within a macro-social marketing context. We first explain the need for such an approach in social marketing. Next, we discuss ethical approaches to social marketing in order to establish the appropriateness of distributive justice and any additional ethical approaches. Finally, we apply each guiding element (Corporate Citizenship, Stakeholder Orientation, and Social and Ecological Sustainability) to the context of macro-social marketing, with a brief statement on the applicability of constructive engagement and the necessity for future research in that area.