‘Give It Up!’: A Macro-Social Marketing Approach to India's Clean Cooking Fuel Access

This paper examines how the Government of India (GOI) used macrosocial marketing (MSM) to address the issues of clean cooking fuel accessibility and affordability and structural inequalities in subsidy redistribution. It highlights a novel MSM application to address chrematistics in marketing systems. Two initiatives established by the GOI are examined. “Give It Up” encourages wealthier households to surrender liquid petroleum gas (LPG) subsidies, leaving these to poorer families, and Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) installs LPG connections for poor, rural women. The research explores how the GOI has addressed economic inefficiencies and structural inequalities, focusing on institutional norms and affordability, accessibility, awareness, and acceptability (the “4As”). The research expands the theoretical boundaries of MSM in relation to poverty and identifies its capacity to affect individual and systemic change through formal and informal institutional changes. Although new institutional norms were adopted, PMUY could not address the ongoing affordability of LPG, despite the changes to LPG subsidies

Evaluating Social Marketing Messages in New Zealand’s Like Minds Campaign and Its Effect on Stigma

Background: A key objective of government and social marketers is to remove the institutionalized stigma of mental illness, increasing mental health service uptake. While research has evaluated past campaigns based on changes in attitudes and beliefs, very little research has examined the communication messages used in social marketing campaigns. Focus of the Article: This impact evaluation research identifies the institutionalized cultural-moral norms incorporated into New Zealand’s Like Minds mental health advertisements and examines how attitudes and beliefs changed over time in response to these norms. Importance to the Social Marketing Field: This research offers a new approach to social marketing evaluation and demonstrates the importance of consistent incorporation of cultural-moral institutional norms in social marketing campaigns. Method: Using macro-social marketing theory, thematic analysis is used to identify the cultural-moral institutional norms in the Like Minds campaign advertisements over a 10-year period (2002–2012). Results: The Like Minds campaign was found to have multiple cultural-moral institutional norms, such as Mental illness as a villain, Personal responsibility, and Inherent human dignity, as well as utilizing two different institutionalization processes of Socialization and Identity Formation. However, these norms were inconsistently and sometimes contradictorily presented and as a result, not all changes in mental health stigma beliefs and attitudes show long term change. Rates for service uptake also had mixed results during the campaign duration, though overall an increase in uptake was found. Recommendations for Research and Practice: The research highlights the importance of understanding the underlying institutionalized cultural-moral norms presented in communications and aligning those with the overall objectives of a social marketing campaign. Limitations: Like Minds campaign phases 2 to 5 are analyzed, phase 1 was inaccessible for analysis and advertisements after 2012 are not analyzed

Lay Beliefs About the World Affect Preferences for Sustainable Hotel Offerings

Prior research has established that consumers with higher levels of biospheric values are more likely to engage in sustainable behaviors. Such findings assume that tourism practitioners should solely focus their marketing efforts on consumers with high levels of biospheric values. The present research reexamines such typical expectations by investigating how lay beliefs about the world elicited by advertising can encourage consumers with low levels of biospheric values to engage in sustainable behaviors. Results of two experimental studies show that, among consumers with low levels of biospheric values, those with a malleable (vs. fixed) lay belief about the world exhibit stronger preferences for sustainable hotels offerings because they are more hopeful that the sustainable efforts from the hotels can create a positive change. These findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating the role of lay beliefs on consumers’ sustainable behaviors and establishing the underlying mechanism. In addition, this research provides a novel insight about how tourism practitioners can appeal to unsustainable consumers, highlighting how the tourism industry can create positive behavior change toward consumers’ sustainable behaviors

Slogans With Negations’ Effect on Sustainable Luxury Brand

The integration of sustainability within luxury brands is of increasing concern to practitioners and academics alike. Thus, it is important to consider how brands can develop effective communication strategies to promote sustainable luxury brands, particularly among an increasingly skeptical consumer base. This research thus investigates the impact of advertising slogans with negations (vs. affirmations) in this regard. Three experimental studies show that advertising slogans with negations (vs. affirmations) increase brand trustworthiness (Studies 1 and 3) and favorable brand attitudes (Studies 1 and 2) among consumers with high levels of skepticism. Notably, this effect is driven by an increased cognitive flexibility (Study 3). The findings of this research can assist sustainable luxury brand managers in developing effective communication strategies to increase favorable consumer responses to sustainable luxury brands

No future, no kids–no kids, no future?: An exploration of motivations to remain childfree in times of climate change

Individuals around the world believe global climate change is a major threat, with media attention and polling suggesting young adults may decide to go childfree as a result. Yet, there is limited research on the link between environmental concern and reproductive attitudes. The purpose of this research was to explore how climate change-related concerns affect reproductive attitudes and motivations to remain childfree. Two studies were conducted: study 1 consisted of a content analysis of reader comments on articles discussing going childfree in response to climate change, and study 2 featured semi-structured interviews conducted in New Zealand and the USA. The impact of future children on the planet, in the context of overpopulation and overconsumption, was a major theme in both studies. Perspectives of doom and hope emerged simultaneously, indicating how climate anxiety influences reproductive attitudes. Study findings point at implications for public policy makers regarding this largely neglected perspective on climate change adaptation and mitigation and potential psychological and societal effects

Sustainability worldviews of marketing academics: A segmentation analysis and implications for professional development

The epistemology of the business school has been argued to be a large barrier towards the integration of sustainability in education and research. This research aims to shed light on the fundamental marketing and consumption assumptions marketing academics hold. In an international online survey of 437 marketing academics, the research found four clusters of sustainability worldviews and key demographic differences (based upon sex and academic rank) in sustainability, consumption and marketing beliefs. This research provides a reflection of the disciplines’ theoretical and philosophical beliefs in relation to sustainability. Such reflection has implications for the future of sustainability within the marketing academy, as well as an understanding of the conceptualizations of sustainability graduates receive from their education. Based upon the findings, suggestions are provided about how to encourage sustainability research and teaching within marketing departments and how professional development activities in business schools should integrate sustainability content

Social marketing AS pedagogy

Purpose: This study aims to share the use of social marketing as pedagogy and provide a transformative social marketing pedagogy for social marketing educators. By this, the authors mean the same principles used by social marketers to improve the well-being of a person or group are used as a pedagogic tool to bolster students’ learning and understanding of social marketing. In the described course, students are asked to choose one area of their lives to try and change using concepts taught to them in class. They are then asked to reflect on their personal change journey and apply it to others in the form of a social marketing plan. Design/methodology/approach: The authors share a conceptual journey using social marketing as pedagogy following the evolution of a marketing for behavioural change undergraduate course. Benchmark criteria for social marketing are used to discuss and conceptualise a transformative social marketing pedagogy. The authors take a reflexive approach to explore course development, motivations, assumptions and activities to expand on their approach. Findings: Social marketing as pedagogy suggests that behaviour change is not just taught through course content but also embedded throughout the course as a learning tool and outcome. A social marketing course can encourage individual behaviour change by asking students to critically reflect on their own behaviour change journey to fully experience and understand the underpinnings and implications for social marketing. In this way, the authors adopt transformative learning as the outcome of social marketing AS pedagogy. The authors suggest through experiential learning, including active learning and reflexivity, students are able to change their frame of reference or how they interpret the world around them, in regard to complex social issues, which may encourage behaviour change. Originality/value: As social marketers, the authors must reflect not only on what they teach students (Kelly, 2013) but also on how they teach them. Previous literature has not provided any unique pedagogy for how to teach social marketing. This article provides the first pedagogy for social marketing education – the Transformative social marketing pedagogy which views social marketing AS pedagogy. The authors present the value of experiential learning as a three-pronged approach incorporating Interpretive Experiences, Transformative Experiences and developing Praxis, which includes elements of feeding forward and authentic assessment. This approach provides a unique contribution to the area by providing a pedagogical approach that goes beyond mere knowledge acquisition to transformative learning

The Role of Authentic (vs. Hubristic) Pride in Leveraging the Effectiveness of Cost Transparency

In the era of consumer distrust of corporations, transparency is becoming a must rather than an option. While prior research has explored why businesses should disclose their costs and how consumers may react to such cost transparency, it is still unclear how marketers can best communicate cost transparency. The present research offers a practical examination of how and when cost transparency is effective, specifically, by examining the moderating role of authentic and hubristic pride on the effectiveness of cost transparency. Across two experimental studies, the effectiveness of cost transparency is leveraged using authentic pride, whereas hubristic pride decreases it. Further, we empirically demonstrate the mediating role of moral elevation. Overall, the results demonstrate that marketing messages that elicit authentic pride can increase the effectiveness of cost transparency. Hence, the current research highlights how marketers and brands can effectively combine specific emotional appeals with cost transparency to obtain favorable consumer evaluations

Why do consumers become providers? Self-determination in the sharing economy

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore why and how sharing economy users switch from consumer (e.g. Airbnb guest) to provider (e.g. Airbnb host), and how this helps enrich self-determination theory. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted an exploratory study with users who had been consumers (i.e. Airbnb guests) and had switched to being providers (i.e. Airbnb hosts). Findings: Consumers switch to being providers across four phases: “catalysts”, “enablers”, “drivers” and “glue”. The authors identify various extrinsic and intrinsic motivations unique to the switch and map these against motivators postulated by self-determination theory. Research limitations/implications: The authors propose a four-phase process through which consumers become providers. The present study enriches self-determination theory by showing how users' psychosocial needs are addressed through a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are unique to the role switch. The authors further show how the importance of the three key psychosocial self-determination needs varies through the switch process, thus providing a more nuanced understanding of users' drive for self-determination. Practical implications: This study offers several recommendations to help sharing economy platforms improve their processes and communication to encourage a greater number of consumers to switch roles and become providers. These recommendations address two aspects: (1) encouraging consumers to switch roles and become providers (i.e. acquisition) and following this (2) encouraging providers to continue to perform that role (i.e. retention). Originality/value: Much research has investigated why users become consumers (e.g. Airbnb guests) or providers (e.g. Airbnb hosts) in the sharing economy. However, research to date has not fully embraced the two-sided nature of the sharing economy. Therefore, this is the first paper to explore why and how consumers switch roles and become providers in the sharing economy, and how this helps enrich self-determination theory