Reigniting the fire: a contemporary research agenda for social, political and nonprofit marketing

Journal of Public AffairsJ. Public Affairs 7: 291–304 (2007)Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.269
Commentary

Reigniting the fire: a contemporaryresearch agenda for social, politicaland nonprofit marketingStephen Dann1*, Phil Harris2, Gillian Sullivan Mort3,Marie-Louise Fry4 and Wayne Binney5

1Australian National University, Australia

2University of Otago, New Zealand

3Griffith University, Australia

4University of Newcastle, Australia

5Victoria University, Australia

The paper reports on the core challenges faced by the nonprofit, political and social

marketing disciplinary areas and suggests a series of research agendas to develop theory

and practice to meet these challenges.

� S

*CoragemlianE-ma

Cop

ocial marketing’s research agenda involves the continued adaptation of the new

developments in commercial marketing, whilst building a base of social marketing

theory and best practice benchmarks that can be used to identify, clarify and classify

the boundaries of social marketing against social change techniques.

� N
onprofit marketing is pursuing the dual research agenda of developing the theory and
practice of social entrepreneurship whilst seeking deeper consumer-based research to

understand motivations for charitable behaviour and gift giving.

� P
olitical Marketing’s research agenda looks for an increase in the level of background
research, core data and market research to use as a basis for developing more advanced

theoretical and practical models. In addition, as political marketing is being transferred

internationally between a range of political and electoral systems, there is a need for

comparative research into both the relevance and effectiveness of these techniques to isolate

nation independent and nation dependent political marketing strategies and campaigns.

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

respondence to: Dr Stephen Dann, School of Man-ent, Marketing and International Business, Austra-

National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australiail: [email protected]

yright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

Commercial marketing is on the move, evol-ving and shifting to meet the needs of thebusiness sector, and integrating new thinkinginto the existing frameworks. The Americanmarketing association (AMA), representing thepeak body of academic and marketing practice

Journal of Public Affairs, August 2007

DOI: 10.1002/pa

292 Stephen Dann et al.

released a revision to the definition of market-ing in 2004, and undertook a second review ofthe definition in 2007. Social, political andnonprofit marketing, as applied disciplinaryareas need to adapt and adjust to the changesin commercial marketing thinking as well as inaddressing their own disciplinary issues.

This paper reports on the core challengesfaced by the nonprofit, political and socialmarketing disciplinary areas arising from theongoing changes in commercial marketingtheory and practice, and how these develop-ments are influencing the fields of social,political and nonprofit marketing. Presentedhere is a group of research agendas thatrepresent the culmination of a series of debatesin conference sessions, online mailing lists andacademy venues as to the challenges facingeach discipline, and the research required topush the respective disciplinary areas forwardinto the future.

Defining the parameters

Social marketing is perhaps the most easilydefined of the triumvirate. Coined in the 1970sas a response to the question of applyingcommercial marketing tools to the business ofsocial change, social marketing is mostrecently defined as ‘a process that appliesmarketing principles and techniques thatcreate, communicate and distribute value inorder to influence target audience behavioursthat benefit society (public health, safety, theenvironment and communities) as well as thetarget audience (Kotler and Lee, 2007).

One of the key points of the social market-ing, political marketing and nonprofit market-ing disciplines is their shared focus on thenontraditional application of commercial mar-keting into noncommercial fields. Nonprofitmarketing seeks to engage commercial tech-niques to provide for service delivery, ongoingorganizational existence and related beha-viours of benefit to the organization (Kotlerand Andreasen, 2007). Social marketing pro-vides a more complex exchange processwhich removes the direct flow of benefit


from customer to organization in preferencefor broader societal gain (Andreasen, 2006).Political marketing, at the far end of thespectrum, offers a trade of support for hope,where the voter performs a specific behaviourin exchange for the potential outcome of theirparty being elected and possibly delivering onthe electoral promises (Scammell, 1995;O’Cass, 2001; O’Shaughnessy, 2001; Baineset al., 2002). In contrast, at least socialmarketing and nonprofit marketing can occ-asionally rely on tangible goods and physicallyperformed services to deliver a level ofcertainty and tangibility to the process.

Within the context of these three fields, allface challenges when the commercial market-ing discipline changes focus or introduces newconceptual paradigms. Most recently, all threehave needed to assess the value and applica-bility of the services dominant logic introducedby Vargo and Lusch (2004). Similarly, theredefining of commercial marketing by theAMA in 2004 also presented an array ofchallenges for the sub discipline areas.

Challenges facing socialmarketing

The nature of social marketing is such that itoperates within the social and cultural con-straints of the society which it seeks toinfluence, yet even so, there are still severalglobal challenges facing the discipline. Threeof these challenges are highlighted below—the need to adjust, evolve and adapt to changesin commercial marketing; the need to seek andmaintain clarity of the term ‘social marketing’and the need to keep putting the consumerfirst in social marketing.

Challenge I: new dominant logics

and the new eras of marketing

Commercial marketing is undergoing a radicalself transformation brought about by thechanges in the definition of commercialmarketing in 2004 and 2007coinciding withthe work of Vargo and Lusch (2004) and Dev


DOI: 10.1002/pa

Reigniting the fire 293

and Schultz (2005). Marketing is moving fromthe goods-orientated exchange approach intothe services dominant logic and value creationparadigm. As social marketing has consistentlybeen seen as the transfer and application ofcommercial marketing, social marketing prac-titioners and academics need to adapt to keeppace with the evolution of the parentdiscipline (Jones and Rossiter, 2002).

As commercial marketing reinvents itself,there is a need for the interpretation, inclusionand possible exclusion of elements of con-temporary marketing thought and the examin-ation of how the new logics interact or alter thesocial marketing frameworks (Dann, 2005).

Research agenda I: adaptation and

adoption of the new dominant logic of

commercial marketing for social

marketing frameworks

Although some work has been conducted inexploring the compatibility of older socialmarketing frameworks and the AMA (2004)definition (Dann, 2005; Dann, 2006a, 2006b;Kotler and Lee, 2007) more research is neededto explore the junction of social marketing andconceptual domains such as services dominantlogic, relationship management, value forbenefit, stakeholder involvement and newparadigmatic frameworks such as SIVA pro-posed by Dev and Schultz (2005).

Challenge II: clarifying social

marketing in the social change

marketplace

Many social marketing programmes in fact donot identify that they have integrated socialmarketing principles (McDermott et al., 2005).In 2006, the term ‘social marketing’ was underthreat from commercial marketing groupJupiter Research’s 2006 efforts to misappropri-ate the 35-year-old discipline (Weinrech, 2006).

At the same, in the United Kingdom, theBritish Government launched the NationalSocial Marketing Centre and the NationalSocial Marketing Strategy for Health (http://


www.nsms.org.uk) as part of a whole ofgovernment initiative to use the social market-ing paradigm (French and Blair-Stevens, 2006).The meaning of marketing was subject to a briefalbeit enthusiastic debate on the internationalsocial marketing mailing list (Dann, 2006c,2007) and practitioners in the UK were treatedto a new British operational definition of socialmarketing through the National Social Market-ing Centre (French and Blair-Stevens, 2006).Developments in contemporary commercialand social marketing practice mean the debateon what is (and is not) social marketing needsto continue as commercial marketing changesand evolves (Smith, 2002). Online, the SocialMarketing Wikipedia (http://socialmarketing.wetpaint.com/) launched to provide an openenvironment for the dissemination of socialmarketing knowledge to a global audience.

Two issues arose from the commercialintrusion into the established domain, andthe debates surrounding the meaning of socialmarketing: are programme developers cogni-zant of social marketing? If so why are reportedoutcomes deficient in specific informationdefining their approach and specific infor-mation on what social marketing practices havebeen applied? The first refers to the integrationof social marketing across disciplines and theability for health practitioners to grasp hold ofsocial marketing as a legitimate domain. Thesecond refers to the industry ensuring sustain-ability by employing rigour in reporting out-comes. For social marketing to develop as adiscipline greater rigour needs to be given tothe reporting of principles and practicesguiding the social change programmes.

The positioning of social marketing as adownstream only activity further adds to theconfusion in terms of solving the socialproblem. Social marketing is at-risk if itcontinues to take a downstream approachwhere practitioners target ‘people’s bad beha-viour’ (Andreasen, 2006). An upstreamapproach suggests a relational paradigm thataddresses community, media, law, businessand social-service environments so that beha-vioural change can more easily take place on anindividual level. As a result individuals may


DOI: 10.1002/pa


more easily comprehend a value in changingbehaviour. Thus, an upstream strategy canaddress changes in ‘policies, laws, regulationsand the physical environments that canmarginalize or render worthless social market-ing strategy focused on motivating individualsto change their behaviour if there are toomany marketplace or environmental barriers’(Niblett, 2005; p. 14). Thus, a relationalperspective suggests creating a synergisticapproach to social change where the keyactors influencing change (i.e.: law, industry,policy makers etc.) co-operation rather thanacting individually.

Research agenda II: develop a set of

social marketing standards to increase

the visibility of what social marketing

is, and equally, what is not social

marketing

The success of social marketing as a disciplinearea depends on consensus on what is socialmarketing. Andreasen’s (2002) six bench-marks provide succinct identification as towhat is social marketing. Social advertising isclearly a component of the broader strategy ofbehavioural change. Social marketing is notsocial advertising, yet social advertising canclearly assist in achieving overall programmegoals. While public policy makers may viewsocial advertising as a measurable outcomewithin the short term, greater investmentneeds to be given to the long-term implicationsof social change. The UK Centre for SocialMarketing has been added to additional bench-mark variables. Investigation needs to considerensuring the comprehensiveness of bench-mark criteria across social marketing contexts.

Challenge III: developing social

marketing theory for social marketing

applications

Social marketing research focuses primarily onthe application of social marketing in solvingindividual ‘bad behaviours’. Theories andmodels of behavioural change are primarily


borrowed from health and psychology that inturn may account for the research emphasis onpublic health interventions. Development ofmodels and theory specific to social marketingis deficient. Rothschild’s (1999) MOA frame-work guides social change developers towardsthe appropriateness of situations when tointegrate legal, education or marketing activi-ties. The social marketing harm chain (Previteand Fry, 2006) offers a useful conceptualiz-ation of value perceptions of harm by thosehigh at-risk individuals. Donovan et al. (1995)model linking emotion sequences to positiveand negative motivational states assists inlinking relevant drive states within advertising.While other examples also exist, the key issueconcerns the focus of theory and modeldevelopment specific to social marketing.

Research agenda III: develop social

marketing specific theory

Social marketing is forging it way from infancytowards maturity. Inherent in the process ofmaturity is risk. Taking the step to identify keyissues where social marketing theory maydevelop is imperative for the future of thediscipline. The behaviours social marketingaddresses are becoming more complex. Con-sumers are becoming more informed andmarket savvy. The environment is dynamicallyaltering with technology making the greatestimpact. It may be that for social marketing tosurvive as a distinct entity moving towardsconsensus on theory development is of theessence. The discipline is replete with exper-imental studies, yet needs to redefine itself interms of a social marketing dominant logic.Developing social marketing theory acts todefine and validate the discipline relative to theareas theory is typically borrowed, that is,health and psychology.

Challenge IV: putting the consumer

first in social change

Social marketing is one method of socialchange, rather than the only method (Dann,


DOI: 10.1002/pa


2005, 2006a; NSMC, 2005; French andBlair-Stevens, 2006). The strength of thedisciplinary area is focused on the consumer,and the recognition of consumer self interest,competition and the need to offer superiorvalue (Rothschild, 1999; Maibach et al., 2002).Social marketing represents an approach thatfocuses on making a deal rather than forcingcompliance (Andreasen, 2006; Dann, 2006b).Recent work such as Farhangmehr and Silva(2006) on tobacco interventions, Drennanet al. (2006) on potential vulnerable consu-mers, Carruthers and Daellenbach (2006), Fry(2006), Kekeff and Webster (2006) amongstothers have contributed to the understandingof consumption of at-risk behaviours.

Further research into the consumer, and thedevelopment of consumer behaviour modelsfor social marketing can improve the strike rateof voluntary interventions without needing tostray into compulsion-based work.

Research agenda IV: aid consumer-

based interventions with supporting

research into innovation adoption,

social marketing product buyer

behaviour and consumer behaviour

towards uncertain future benefit

Social change success by the anti-smokinglobby presents a competing social changemodel of compulsion through behaviouralrestriction, price and distribution modificationrather than offering a superior alternativeproduct (Dann, 2006a). This represents aserious threat to the marketing element ofsocial marketing as the temptation to usemandated social product adoption throughcompulsion or legislative interventions (Hast-ings et al., 2000; Hastings and Donovan, 2002;Donovan and Henley, 2003) would negate thecore marketing requirement of voluntaryexchange (Vargo and Lusch, 2004).

The way forward

Demand for real-world application and imple-mentation of social marketing is high, and


brings with it the opportunity for successfuldemonstration of the discipline’s value todemocratic economies, along with the everpresent threat of the discipline’s tools andtechniques being implemented poorly (or notat all) under the guise of other names. Thesocial marketing academy needs to engageboth the commercial marketing academy andthe social marketing practitioner.

Changes in the conceptual landscape incommercial marketing require new directionsfor social marketing in the adaptation andadoption of the change. The social marketingacademy needs to actively engage the prac-titioners to defend the real-world reputation ofthe discipline, and to bring the innovation of theacademy to the world of social change. Socialmarketing as a discipline needs to move from abroadening of the discipline to a deepening ofthe discipline. Theory development andresearch focusing on social change is requiredto add a degree of specialization—the disci-pline requires a set of specific theories andmodels that sets it apart from related paradigms.

Nonprofit marketing—meetingthe challenges and going forward

Challenge 1: adopting the service

dominant logic

Marketing is an unfamiliar concept for manynonprofit organizations. As marketing’s originsare in the area of commercial transactions—the exchange of goods or services for aprofit—traditional challenges for nonprofitsrelate to adopting and adapting the techniquesof commercial marketing as the enabler ofefficient and effective transactions, while notcompromising the achievement of the socialpurpose for which the nonprofit was estab-lished (Eikenberry and Kluver, 2004).Recently, Vargo and Lusch (2004) havepromulgated a new marketing paradigm—service dominant logic. There are significantchallenges however, in moving from philoso-phical commitment to this new form of valuecreation to establishing theoretical frame-works to inform practice.


DOI: 10.1002/pa


Research agenda I: developing

theoretical and practical frameworks

for guiding the transition of the ideals

of a nonprofit cause into the

practicalities of a marketing exchange

In the era of service dominant logic (Vargoand Lusch, 2004) nonprofit marketing willbe challenged to embrace customer co-creation—a new form of value creation wherevalue is not created by the organization andexchanged with the customer but developedjointly with the customer. This will mean notonly the establishment of collaborative frame-works between organizations (Brown et al.,2006) but also between organizations and theirclients and donors. Many in nonprofit organ-izations may find this collaboration andco-creation approach to business and market-ing philosophically much more consistentwith goals and values or an organization estab-lished to achieve a social purpose. Beyondco-creation nonprofit marketing will also needto increasingly concentrate on the ability tounderstand the implications of service domi-nant logic for competing in services (Luschet al., 2007) particularly the challenge ofleveraging employees and of course volun-teers, an essential part of the workforce in thenonprofit domain.

Challenge 2: social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is an area of thenonprofit domain that has been receiving agreat upsurge of attention, which looks set tocontinue with the award in 2006 of the NobelPeace Prize to Dr M. Yunnus, a prominentsocial entrepreneur who founded the micro-credit organization, Grameen Bank (GrameenBank, 2006). Dees (1998) argues that similar toa profit firm, the purpose of which is to createsuperior value for its customer, the primarypurpose of social entrepreneurship is to createsuperior social value. He argues that a socialentrepreneur’s ability to attract resources(capital, labour, equipment, etc.) in a com-petitive marketplace is a good indication thatventure represents a more productive use of


these resources than the alternative it iscompeting against. Weerawardena and Sulli-van Mort (2006) conducted empirical researchand identified social entrepreneurship aspossessing the core attributes of entrepreneur-ship—proactiveness, innovativeness and risktaking—within a constrained optimizationframework bounded by the environment, thesocial mission and the need for organizationalsustainability. Others have provided concep-tualizations of social entrepreneurship thatprovide remarkably consistent insights tofuture researchers embarking on the develop-ment of psychometric measures enabling thetesting of relationships (Anderson et al., 2006;Harding, 2006; Mair and Marti, 2006; Nichollsand Cho, 2006).

Research agenda II: developing the

social entrepreneurship literature to

match the depth and breadth of the

social entrepreneurship practice

Moving forward researchers must developsound measurement of the social entrepre-neurship construct and the related issues ofmarket orientation, value and cross nationalverification (Mair et al., 2006; Mulgan, 2006;Sullivan Mort and Weerawardena, 2007).Market orientation provides a valuable inputin social entrepreneurial organizations, differ-entiating them from other social organizations.Nicholls and Cho (2006) have advanced thatmarket orientation is central to the socialentrepreneurship conceptualization. There isagreement that social entrepreneurship shouldlead to superior social value creation, but thereis little clarity in what constitutes social valueand then how this can be measured. Indeed, asYoung (2006) has identified social valueremains a fuzzy goal. There is much necessarywork to be done in conceptualizing socialvalue more clearly before the issue of researchon performance metrics (Mair et al., 2006),an allied research topics, can validly beundertaken. The issue of cross national study,application and validation of social entre-preneurial initiatives is worthy of research


DOI: 10.1002/pa


(Anderson et al., 2006; Mulgan, 2006).Research in this area would allow betterunderstanding of the effects of cultural con-texts on successes and failures in socialentrepreneurship, and also assist in under-standing the effects of local legal and govern-ment contexts on social value creation in anallied manner to that undertaken in inter-national business research.

Challenge 3: philanthropy, gift-giving

and fundraising

The area of philanthropy, gift-giving andfundraising is an important area for nonprofitsand one that distinguishes their operationquite markedly from for-profits. For-profitsgenerate the largest part of their revenue fromsales of products in the market with the marketgiving clear signals through this exchangemechanism. Nonprofits do not receive suchclear market signals and must negotiatethrough their own legitimacy and that of theircause with individuals, corporates, govern-ments at all levels and granting agencies.

Giving relates to both individual and cor-porate donors—fundraising is its intra-organizational parallel but implies more thesystems and priorities rather than simply thetype of revenue. In addition, giving involvesboth giving of money and giving of time—volunteering. Important work has already beenundertaken to map the extent and nature ofgiving (e.g. Bennett, 1998; Giving Australia,2005; Gittell and Tebaldi, 2006) and themotivations for giving (e.g. Schervish andHavens, 1997; Sargeant and Crissman, 2006;Sargeant et al., 2006). Singer, the prominentbio-ethicist, has recently defined a clear moralchallenge and identified explicit targets forindividual giving (Singer, 2006).

Research agenda III: exploring the

motivations and influences on

sustainable giving and ‘giving culture’

Further research is needed in understandingthe dimensions of sustainable giving and to


build a ‘giving’ culture. Many religious bodieshave enshrined the notion of giving—forexample in Christian denominations the con-struct of tithing is part of the religiouscommitment. With the de-secularization ofmany societies the concept of planned orcompulsory giving has come to be replaced formany with the notion that fulfilling taxationcommitments is all that is required or indeeddesirable. Research is needed on how non-profits can conceptualize, address and managea diverse and reliable set of revenue sources.The need for attention to the special role offundraising and professional fundraisers hasalso been acknowledged with the recentestablishment of an endowed chair in fundrais-ing at Indiana University, U.S.A. (IndianaUniversity, 2006) to provide research leader-ship in the area. The issue of ethics in thesolicitation of gifts and giving commitments byall types of nonprofit organizations and the useof ‘hard sell’ tactics that would be eschewed bythe best for-profit marketers has been can-vassed (Sullivan Mort, 2006). Further researchis needed in this special applied ethics fieldaddressing the contextual challenges of ‘theend justifies the means’ approaches, addressedin part by Bennett (2004) in his profile ofcharity advertising campaigns. Madden (2006)has also suggested that special attention mayneed to be focused on giving to special causes,geographically isolated organizations and verysmall, grassroots community organizations thathave very few funds and skills.

The way forward for nonprofitmarketing

Nonprofit marketing faces a number of chal-lenges as it moves forward. The first of these isto recognize and respond to the developmentsand progressions in marketing theory in thefoundation discipline. Thus nonprofit market-ing researchers must continue to grapple withthe theoretical advances impacting the disci-pline and to integrate them and adapt asnecessary in their application in nonprofitmarketing, as it has for example with the key


DOI: 10.1002/pa


construct of market orientation (Sargeant et al.,2002). Thus, it is essential then that nonprofitmarketers answer the theoretical and practicalresearch challenges posed by the influentialservice dominant logic paradigm (Vargo andLusch, 2004) in particular customer co-creationand leveraging of employees and volunteers.Nonprofit marketing also faces distinct chal-lenges in developing and advancing in whatmight called its own distinct areas of compe-tency. Thus the specific issues for socialentrepreneurship research and research inthe areas of philanthropy, gift giving andfundraising also require concentrated attention.

Political marketing—towards adeveloped 21st century researchagenda

‘Everyone sees what you appear to be: few

experience what you really are’.

MachiavelliAs we sit on the eve of the 2008 US

Presidential election, total campaign budgetsapproaching $4billion are being suggested asthe possible total spend which will be incurredthen on campaigning and advanced marketingmanagement. In addition the lobbying industryin the EU has now grown to a scale many timeslarger than that in total spend and nowencompasses public affairs work on sustain-ability, energy, water and mineral resourcesplus inevitably the allocation of major govern-ment and commercial contracts. The scale andincreasing application of political marketing inall aspects of campaigning and public affairsmeans that this area of research has becometruly global and a multi-complex industry isevolving rapidly and requires comparativelongitudinal research analysis at a number ofgovernmental levels for us to understand itsgrowing influence.

Challenge I: turning political

marketing into political

marketing science

With the increasing levels of marketingmetrics, and the emphasis on marketing as


an investment rather than a cost, politicalmarketers need to adapt commercial market-ing measurement tools to the complexity ofthe political marketing environment. Research-ers have concurred that it is difficult toestablish how effective political marketing is(e.g. Kavanagh, 1995; Scammell, 1995). It isdifficult to differentiate the influence thatpolitical marketing has on voters from manyother general and specific factors whichinfluence electors in any election. Althoughthe work on consumer voter behaviour whichhas been championed by Newman has begunto be extended internationally addressingsome these questions with such works as(Cwalina et al., 2007).

Research agenda I: developing

background research and core

datasets to utilize for constructing

advanced insights into the political

marketing processes

Drawing on the work of Habermas (1984),Swanson and Mancini (1996) point out themore frequent use of technical and scientificexpertise in politics. The goal of the scienti-ficization process is electoral victory, notfinding useful policy alternatives. Intra-partycompetition and focus on individuals makecandidates assemble their own teams ofexperts (Agranoff, 1972; Sabato, 1981). Whilstthese areas are increasingly becoming thefocus of political marketing consultants,research into the core of political marketingto identify key influences is still required.

Challenge II: modernization

of political marketing

The evolution of electoral practices in differentparts of the world show convergence in spiteof great differences in the political cultures,histories and political institutions of thecountries concerned (Swanson and Mancini,1996). However, since many developments inmodern political campaigns first becameevident in the US, irrespective of the country


DOI: 10.1002/pa


of origin, the process of change in therelationship between political parties, mediaand voters has been termed Americanization(Cutlip, 1994; Kaid and Holtz-Bacha, 1995;Kavanagh, 1995; Scammell, 1995; Mancini andSwanson, 1996). Mancini and Swanson havesuggested that campaigns become more andmore Americanized as candidates, parties andmedia take their cues from the counterparts inthe U.S.A., Butler and Ranney (1992) identifieda range of practices such as the use ofcomputers, fax and direct mailing whichoriginated in the U.S.A. but which werequickly adopted widely outside it. Morerecently the web campaigning, fundraisingand blogging have all started in the US andbeen exported to other countries campaigns.Personal advocacy campaigns as propagatedby Karl Rove look as if they will be replicatedinternationally where appropriately in the nextcluster of major campaigns.

Research agenda II: identify nation

independent and nation dependent

political marketing strategies

and campaigns

The research agenda for political marketers atthe academic sphere is to test the applicabilityof the principles into the context of the localpolitical system. In commercial marketing,exporting expertise internationally is a recog-nized aspect of the globalization of thebusiness marketplace. International politicalmarketing principles should look to demon-strate the merit of the political principleswithin the domestic electoral system as a formof import/export of campaign skills and levelsof effectiveness rather than growing Americaninfluence.

Challenge III: political marketing,

lobbying and government

Although the debate on the definition andnature of political lobbying continues (Grant,1987 followed by a plethora of others),growing literature, on pressure groups, inter-


est groups and policy networks (Richardson,1993; Smith, 1993; Grant, 1995) offers usefulinsights and suggests tools to be used inpolitical marketing (Harris and Lock, 1996a).Harris et al. (1999) find a direct linkagebetween political marketing and interestlobbying, namely the need of political partiesto raise funds to ensure their existence in theelectoral market place. They claim that theneed to run expensive modern politicalmarketing campaigns forces political partiesto develop close links with business. However,this area is still largely under researched formany obvious reasons, such as the Cash forPeerages investigations around the Blair Gov-ernment throughout 2006–2007 and the lackof consistent international standards in publiclife legislation.

Research agenda III: need for

comparative research on the move of

government from owner to regulator

of services

There is also a lack of research in the area ofregulation and deregulation closely connectedwith the border between lobbying andpolitical marketing (Richardson, 1993, Harrisand Fleischer, 2005). Harris and Lock (1996)argue that governments cannot be treated as aneutral component in the exchange perspect-ive on political marketing. Governmentpoliticians play important roles in the processof exchange and governmental control is a keyobjective in political processes. Therefore theregulation of political marketing plays a moreimportant role in this type of exchange than inmainstream marketing settings. These issuesgain significance especially in the context ofgovernmental regulatory involvement in com-petitive business arenas and especially in suchareas as the deregulation of markets.

Challenge IV: shift from citizenship to

spectatorship: democratic deficit

Swanson and Mancini (1996) argue thatmodernization causes changes from direct


DOI: 10.1002/pa


involvement in election campaigns to specta-torship. Campaigns are conducted primarilythrough mass media and citizens participate inthem as a media audience. Increasing frag-mentation of modern societies makes it harderfor political leaders to know the concerns ofthe electorate. Declining membership inpolitical parties and the loss of long-standingsupport bases has altered the point of contactbetween political parties and the electorate. Asparties reconfigure to move from ideologicalbases, to market research-driven opinionbases, being in touch with the needs, moodsand interests of citizens is especially important(Swanson and Mancini, 1996) and was ruth-lessly applied by Karl Rove in the 2004 USPresidential campaign.

Research agenda IV: assessing new

ways to engage with the citizen and

response respective response rates

for different groups and individuals

within society

Because of the growth in number of groupscompeting for power, for example pressuregroups, parties, media, ‘political spectacle’ asdescribed by Edelman (1988) it does notconcentrate on solving real problems, but onrespecting the symbolic commitments andshowing competing desires and ambitions ofparties interested in the programmes. The factthat modern citizens delegate representingtheir interests to intermediary structuresmakes it easier for voters to relate tomedia-centred campaigns more as spectaclethan political action (Mancini and Swanson,1996).

The way forward forpolitical marketing

Political Marketing has emerged as a major areaof research, which has begun to reflect thegrowing internationalism and professionalismof political campaigning. Research is moresubstantive and work has begun to focus on


the segmentation of voters, strategy, buyer/consumer behaviour, ethnic campaigning andexchange processes in national and inter-national political lobbying. It is also beginningto access cutting edge political and societalcampaigning for instance the work of Baineset al. (2007) on terrorist appeals and young UKMuslims. Political marketing looks at manydifficult and sometimes supposedly murkyareas of the body politic and society, butinterestingly it is beginning to suggest someanswers to questions that have been previouslyleft unanswered.

Conclusion

Social, political and nonprofit marketing eachoccupy a unique position in the broadermarketing paradigm. As applied sub disciplinesinside an applied discipline there is a tempta-tion to focus on practitioner issues, marketresearch on project-by-project basis, and for goa focus on the contribution to the broadermarketing practice. As the areas which requirethe greatest understanding of commercialmarketing through the constant need toreinvent and reapply the core frameworksand theories, social, nonprofit and politicalmarketing have the opportunity to reconnectwith commercial marketing and contributetheory and practice back to the parentdiscipline.

The development of unique frameworks foreach applied discipline area is a key to thefuture of the marketing discipline. Whilsttraditionally the commercial marketing frame-works are imported into the nonprofit,political and social marketing fields, theopportunity is arising to export methods andtechniques developed in these areas back tocommercial marketing. Political marketing isexploring the existence of universal andsystem specific marketing campaign strategy,social marketing is in search of distinctbehaviour change theory, and nonprofit islooking to expand the understanding of socialentrepreneurship. All of these areas havematching commercial applications that can


DOI: 10.1002/pa


be bolstered by the knowledge and insight ofthe three sub-disciplines.

Further, the three areas also need additionaldepth and breadth of research into consumer-based interventions within their fields, withstudies required to assist understandingmotives and drives for the adoption ofproducts with uncertain benefits, indirectbenefits and/or direct costs to the consumer.Specifically, nonprofit marketing seeks tounderstand gift giving, political marketingrequires more consumer voter behaviourstudies and social marketing seeks behaviourproduct adoption research.

Finally, this paper is a call to action forresearchers, supervisors, students and prac-titioners. The challenges identified in this workare just that—a challenge. Rewards of newtheory, greater insight, superior campaignperformance, elected office, or effective socialchange await those willing to apply themselvesto the tasks of exploring these areas ofmarketing.

References

Agranoff R. (ed.). 1972. The New Style in Election

Campaigns. Holbrook Press: Boston.

American Marketing Association. 2004. ‘‘Defi-

nition’’ Marketing News, September 15, 2004.

Anderson RB, Dana LP, Dana TE. 2006. Indigenous

land rights, entrepreneurship, and economic

development in Canada: ‘‘opting-in’’ to the glo-

bal economy. Journal of World Business 41(1):

45–55.

Andreasen AR. 2002. Marketing social marketing in

the social change marketplace. Journal of Public

Policy and Marketing 21(1): 3.

Andreasen AR. 2006. Social Marketing in the 21st

Century. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Baines P, Harris P, Lewis B. 2002. The political

marketing planning process: improving image

and message in strategic target areas. Marketing

Intelligence & Planning 20(1): 6–14.

Baines P, O’Shaughnessy NJ, Moloney K, Richards

B, Butlers S, Gill M. 2007. Muslim Voices: The

British Muslim Response to Islamist Video-

Polemic: An Exploratory Study. Proceedings of


the 4th International Political Marketing Con-

ference, Sinaia, Romania, 19–21st April.

Bennett R. 1998. Corporate philanthropy in

France, Germany and the UK International com-

parisons of commercial orientation towards com-

pany giving in European nations. International

Marketing Review 15(6): 458–478.

Bennett R. 2004. Measuring the quality of relation-

ship marketing activities of nonprofit organis-

ations. In Nonprofit Marketing: Perspectives

and Advances, Sullivan Mort G (ed.). Proceed-

ings of the Inaugural Australasian Nonprofit

Marketing Conference, Australian National Uni-

versity: Canberra ACT; pp. 58–63. 23–24 Sep-

tember 2004, ISBN 0-646-43940-5.

Brown D, White J, Leibbrandt L. 2006. Collabora-

tive partnerships for nursing faculties and health

service providers: what can nursing learn from

business literature? Journal of Nursing Manage-

ment 14: 170–179.

Butler D, Ranney A. 1992. Electioneering: A

Comparative Study of Continuity and Change.

Clarendon Press: Oxford.

Carruthers J, Daellenbach K. 2006. Lessons Learnt:

A Case Study of a Social Marketing Project. 3rd

Australasian Nonprofit and Social Marketing

Conference, 10–11 August, Newcastle.

Cutlip S. 1994. The Unseen Power. Public Relations:

A history. Lawrence Erlbaum: New Jersey.

Cwalina W, Falkowski A, Newman B. 2007. A Cross-

Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior. Haworth

Press: New York.

Dann S. 2005. Social change marketing in the age of

direct benefit marketing—where to from here?

Social Change in the 21st Century, QUT Carsel-

dine, 28 October 2005.

Dann S. 2006a. Social Marketing in the Age of

Direct Benefit and Upstream Marketing. 3rd Aus-

tralasian Non-profit and Social Marketing Con-

ference, 10–11 August, 2006.

Dann S. 2006b. Exploring the Cross Compatibility

of the Andreasen (1995) Definition of Social

Marketing and the AMA (2004) Definition of

Commercial Marketing. PHILICA.COM Article

number 62.

Dann S. 2006c. Reaffirming the Neutrality of

the Social Marketing Tool Kit: Social Marketing

as a Hammer, and Social Marketers as Hired

Guns. 3rd Australasian Non-profit and Social

Marketing Conference, 10–11 August, 2006.


DOI: 10.1002/pa


Dann S. 2007. Reaffirming the Neutrality of the

Social Marketing Tool Kit: Social Marketing as a

Hammer, and Social Marketers as Hired Guns.

Social Market Quarterly 13(1): 54–62.

Dees JG. 1998. The Meaning of Social Entrepre-

neurship. www.gpnnet.com/perspective/social_

entrepreneurship.htm [Visited 21 June, 2001].

Dev S, Schultz D. 2005. Simply siva. Marketing

Management 14(2): 36–42.

Donovan R, Henley N. 2003. Social Marketing:

Principles and Practice. IP Communications:

East-Hawthorn.

Donovan RJ, Henley N, Jalleh G, Slater C. 1995.

Road Safety Advertising: An Empirical Study and

Literature Review. Research report for the Fed-

eral Office of Road Safety, Donovan Research,

Perth, Canberra, Australia.

Drennan J, Previte J, Sullivan-Mort G. 2006.

Exploring M-Consumers’ Transitioning Between

Vulnerability and Responsibility: An M-Gambling

Consumption Study. 3rd Australasian Nonprofit

and Social Marketing Conference, 10–11 August

2006, Newcastle.

Edelman M. 1988. Constructing the Political Spec-

tacle. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Eikenberry AM, Kluver JD. 2004. The market-

ization of the nonprofit sector: civil society at

risk. Public Administration Review 64(2):

132–140.

Farhangmehr M, Silva C. 2006. Themes to Convey

in Antismoking Messages for Adolescents: An

Experimental Study in Portuguese Context. 3rd

Australasian Nonprofit and Social Marketing

Conference, 10–11 August 2006, Newcastle.

French J, Blair-Stevens C. 2006. From snake oil

salesmen to trusted policy advisors: the develop-

ment of a strategic approach to the application of

social marketing in England. Social Marketing

Quarterly 12(3): 29–40.

Fry M. 2006. Anti-Drink Driving Advertising: Young

Adult Perspective. 3rd Australasian Nonprofit

and Social Marketing Conference, 10–11 August

2006, Newcastle.

Gittell R, Tebaldi E. 2006. Charitable giving: factors

influencing giving in US states. Nonprofit and

Voluntary Sector Quarterly 35(4): 721–736.

Giving Australia. 2005. Australian Government

Department of Family and Community Services

The Prime Minister’s Community Business Part-

nerships. http://www.partnerships.gov.au/pdf/


givingaustraliareport.pdf [Accessed 10 Novem-

ber, 2006].

Grameen Bank. 2006. Grameen Bank—Banking on

the Poor. http://www.rdc.com.au/grameen/

home.html [Accessed 23 December, 2006].

Grant W. 1987. Business and Politics in Britain.

Macmillan Education: London.

Grant W. 1995. Pressure Groups, Politics and

Democracy in Britain. Harvester Wheatsheaf:

Hemel Hempstead.

Habermas J. 1984. The Theory of Communicative

Action I: Reason and the Rationalisation of

Society. Beacon Press: Boston, MA.

Harding R. 2006. Social Entrepreneurship

Monitor. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor

2005. London Business School: London; http://

www.gemconsortium.org/download/

1168007763984/Gem%20Soc%20Ent%20web

pdf [Accessed 22 December, 2006].

Harris P, Fleischer C. 2005. The Handbook of

Public Affairs. Sage Publication Ltd.: London.

Harris P, Lock A. 1996. Political marketing: More

questions than answers. Proceedings of the

M.E.G. Conference, University of Strathclyde.

Harris P, Lock A. 1996a. Political marketing—vive

la difference! European Journal of Marketing

30(10/11): 21–31.

Harris P, Gardner H, Vetter N. 1999. Goods over

God. Lobbying and political marketing: a case

study of the campaign by the Shopping Hours

Reform Council that changed Sunday

Trading Laws in the UK. In Handbook of

Political Marketing, Newman B (ed.). Sage:

Thousand Oaks.

Hastings G, Donovan R. 2002. International initiat-

ives: introduction and overview. Social Market-

ing Quarterly 8(1): 3–5.

Hastings G, MacFayden L, Anderson S. 2000.

Whose behavior is it anyway? Social Marketing

Quarterly 6(2): 46–58.

Indiana University. 2006. Bob Hartsook creates

nation’s first endowed chair in fundraising at

Indiana University. http://newsinfo.iu.edu/

news/page/normal/4207.html [Accessed 23

May, 2007].

Jones SC, Rossiter JR. 2002. The applicability of

commercial advertising theory to social market-

ing: Two case studies of current Australian social

marketing campaigns. Social Marketing Quar-

terly 8(1): 6–18.


DOI: 10.1002/pa


Kaid L, Holtz-Bacha C. 1995. Political Advertising

in Western Democracies. Sage: Thousands Oaks.

Kavanagh D. 1995. Election Campaigning: The

New Marketing of Politics. Blackwell: Oxford.

Kekeff M, Webster C. 2006. Risk Taking Online:

Music Downloading and Values of Young Adults.

3rd Australasian Nonprofit and Social Market-

ing Conference, 10–11 August 2006, Newcastle.

Kotler P, Andreasen A. 2007. Strategic Marketing

for Non-Profit Organizations, 7th edn. Prentice

Hall: New York.

Kotler P, Lee N. 2007. Social Marketing: Improv-

ing the Quality of Life, 3rd edn. Sage Publi-

cations: San Francisco.

Lusch RF, Vargo SL, O’Brien M. 2007. Competing

through service: insights from service-dominant

logic. Journal of Retailing 83(1): 5–18.

Madden K. 2006. Giving and identity: why affluent

Australians give—or don’t—to community

causes. Australian Journal of Social Issues

41(4): 453–476.

Maibach E, Rothschild M, Novelli w. 2002. Social

marketing. In Health Behaviour and health

education, 3rd edn, Glanz K, Rimner B, Lesis

FM (eds). Jossey-Bass: San Francisco; 431–461.

Mair J, Marti I. 2006. Social entrepreneurship

research: a source of explanation, prediction

and delight. Journal of World Business 41(1):

36–44.

Mair J, Robinson J, Hockerts K. (eds). 2006. Social

Entrepreneurship. Basingstoke, Palgrave Mac-

millan: U.K. and New York.

McDermott L, Stead M, Hastings G. 2005. What is

and what is not social marketing: the challenge of

reviewing the evidence. Journal of Marketing

Management 21(5–6): 545–553.

Mulgan G. 2006. Cultivating the other invisible

hand of social entrepreneurship: comparative

advantage, public policy and future research

directions. In Social Entrepreneurship: New

Models of Sustainable Social Change, Nicholls

A (ed.). Oxford University Press: Oxford; 74–96.

Niblett GR. 2005. Stretching the limits of social

marketing partnerships, upstream and down-

stream: setting the context for the 10th inno-

vations in social marketing conference. Social

Marketing Quarterly 11(3–4): 9–15.

Nicholls A, Cho AH. 2006. Social entrepreneur-

ship: the structuration of a field. In Social Entre-

preneurship: New Models of Sustainable Social


Change, Nicholls A (ed.). Oxford University

Press: Oxford; 99–118.

National Social Marketing Centre for Excellence.

2005. Social Marketing Pocket Guide First Edi-

tion. http://www.nsms.org.uk/images/CoreFiles/

NSMC_SOCIAL_MARKETING_POCKET_GUIDE_

Dec2005.pdf

O’Cass A. 2001. Political Marketing: an investi-

gation of the political marketing concept and

political marketing orientation in Australian

Politics. European Journal of Marketing 35:

9/10.

O’Shaughnessy N. 2001. The marketing of political

marketing. European Journal of Marketing

35(9/10): 1047–1057.

Previte J, Fry ML. 2006. Conceptualising the Harm

Chain in Social Marketing Strategy: A Drink-Drive

Application.Australian&NewZealandMarketing

Academy Conference, Brisbane, 4–6 December.

Richardson J. 1993. Pressure groups. OUP:

Oxford.

Rothschild M. 1999. Carrots, Sticks, and Promises:

a conceptual framework for the management of

public health and social issues behavior. Journal

of Marketing 63: 24–37.

Sabato L. 1981. The Rise of Political Consult-

ants—New Ways of Winning Elections. Basic

Books: New York.

Sargeant A, Crissman K. 2006. Corporate giving in

Australia: An analysis of motives and barriers.

Australian Journal of Social Issues 41(4):

477–492.

Sargeant A, Wymer W, Hilton T. 2006. Marketing

bequest club membership: an exploratory study

of legacy pledgers. Nonprofit and Voluntary

Sector Quarterly 35(3): 384–404.

Sargeant A, Foreman S, Liao M-N. 2002. Oper-

ationalizing the marketing concept in the non-

profit sector. International Journal of Nonprofit

and Voluntary Sector Marketing 10(2): 41–54.

Scammell M. 1995. Designer politics: How Elec-

tions Are Won. Macmillan: London.

Schervish PG, Havens JJ. 1997. Social participation

and charitable giving: a multivariate analysis.

Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary

and Nonprofit Organizations 8(3): 235–260.

Singer P. 2006. What Should a Billionaire Give

and What Should You? The New York Times,

17 December, 2006 http://www.nytimes.

com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?ex¼


DOI: 10.1002/pa


1179979200& en¼420fce646abd00de& ei¼5070

[Accessed 23 May, 2007].

Smith MJ. 1993. Pressure, Power and Policy: State

Autonomy and Policy Networks in Britain and

the United States. Harvester Wheatsheaf: Hemel

Hempstead.

Smith WA. 2002. Systems of social change: toward

a modern synthesis. Social Marketing Quarterly

8: 2–4.

Sullivan Mort GM. 2006. Chuggers and Other Issues:

Challenges in Nonprofit Marketing. Special Closing

Session Panel, 3rd Australasian Nonprofit and

Social Marketing Conference, Newcastle, 2006.

Sullivan Mort GM, Weerawardena J. 2007. Social

entrepreneurship: advancing research and main-

taining relevance. In A Companion of Nonprofit

Marketing, Sargeant A, Wymer W (eds). Rou-

tledge; In press


Swanson DL, Mancini P (eds). 1996. Politics, media

and modern democracy. Praeger: Wesport, CT.

Vargo S, Lusch R. 2004. Evolving to a new

dominant logic for marketing. Journal of Mar-

keting 68(1): 1–17.

Weerawardena J, Sullivan Mort GM. 2006. Inves-

tigating social entrepreneurship; a multidimen-

sional model. Journal of World Business 41(1):

21–35.

Weinrech N. 2006. Social Marketing vs. ‘‘Social Market-

ing’’ Smackdown. http://www.social-marketing.

com/blog/2006/09/social-marketing-vs-social-

marketing.html

Young R. 2006. For what it is worth: social value

and the future of social entrepreneurship. In

Social Entrepreneurship: New Models of Sus-

tainable Social Change, Nicholls A (ed.). Oxford

University Press: Oxford.


DOI: 10.1002/pa

Documents

Reigniting the fire: a contemporary research agenda for social, political and nonprofit marketing