The past, present, and future of using social marketing to conserve biodiversity

Journal article

Since the establishment of social marketing as a discipline, it was clear that environmental sustainability would be part of its scope (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971). Yet, whereas the academic scope of the field was broadly defined, the origins of social marketing practice, which were heavily linked to the promotion of family planning, meant that the development of this practice-led field has been historically focused on public health. Since the beginning of the century, there have been important developments at the intersection of social marketing and environmental sustainability, particularly considering issues such as waste management, energy efficiency, or water conservation. One area that has had very limited attention in the social marketing literature has been biodiversity conservation, defined as the management of diversity of life on Earth with the aim of protecting species, ecosystems, and their interactions from excessive rates of extinction (Hunter & Gibbs, 2007). While this has often been constructed to be a topic that relates to wildlife as opposed to people, it is clear that all key threats to biodiversity are a result of human behavior and as such successful conservation strategies have to also be able to influence human decision-making (Schultz, 2011). It is thus unsurprising that conservationists are increasingly interested in social marketing (Veríssimo, 2013), and this issue of Social Marketing Quarterly aims to bring together these two fields to cross pollinate ideas and promote social marketing research in biodiversity conservation.

Authors: Veríssimo, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Social Marketing Quarterly
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 3-8
• Publication date: 2019-02-05
• DOI: 10.1177/1524500419825545
• EISSN: 1539-4093
• ISSN: 1524-5004
• Language: English