Towards a service-dominant approach to social marketing

Abstract

Over the last decade, social marketing has moved away from traditional marketing management approaches towards service-oriented theory, integrating concepts from other disciplines, to account for the distinctive nature of social change and develop an ecological perspective. This article extends prior literature by interrogating the applicability of service-dominant logic (SDL) to social marketing, with a particular emphasis on how a systems perspective can offer new ways to address challenges of social change. In so doing, it examines how the social marketing benchmarks can be extended through applying (and adapting) the principles, concepts and theories of SDL. The article provides critical reflection on the challenges of transferring service-dominant theory to social change contexts highlighting implications for practice and a future research agenda.