Marketing or Social Marketing: Is There an Identity Crisis?

Abstract

The challenge is to understand what marketing is: is it a business activity or is it ultimately all about managing the social order and influencing the behavioural changes in the societies. The chapter gives a conceptual understanding of social marketing from multiple perspectives, analyzes key issues and challenges in social marketing which makes it different from traditional marketing, and identifies certain areas in social marketing where further research is required. Because of its uniqueness, the extended marketing mix becomes very important in social marketing and social objectives can be achieved through creating experiences to offer solutions, which, in turn, influence behaviour.