Critical Social Marketing Symposium 2024

Reflections on Rights, Wrongs and Responsibilities: Critical Social Marketing and Marketing for Pro-Social Change

We would like to invite you to a hybrid, free event!

SAVE THE DATE: Wednesday 12 June 2024, 10.00-17.00 at University of York, UK (and online)

Host organisations: School for Business and Society, University of York & the University of Bristol Business School, Marketing and Consumption Group

Supporter Organisations: The European Social Marketing Association (ESMA) and Australian Association of Social Marketing

Chairs: Nadina Luca, Ariadne Kapetanaki and Fiona Spotswood

Organising Committee: Nadina Luca, Ariadne Kapetanaki, Fiona Spotswood, Thomas Anker, Ross Gordon and Nadia Zainuddin

Venue: Church Lane Building, School for Business and Society, University of York, UK

Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Jeff French, Professor Ross Gordon, Dr Nadia Zainuddin

About the Symposium

The CSM Symposium is an annual event designed to advance critical perspectives in social marketing and marketing for pro-social change. The event is designed to a) foster connections between researchers with shared interests to pursue collaborative projects and b) enrich and strengthen critical social marketing. The event is designed to be accessible to early career researchers; a welcoming, inclusive, and supportive space to share and discuss works in progress and innovative ideas.

The 2024 symposium will convene scholars exploring projects and ideas related to critical social marketing, marketing for pro-social change and impact-oriented marketing and consumption research. The symposium theme is “Reflections on Rights, Wrongs and Responsibilities: Critical Social Marketing and Marketing for Pro-Social Change”.

Call for Expressions of Interest

We are interested in bringing together researchers working in critical social marketing and related areas who have works in progress or more established research they would like to share for discussion. The symposium will be run in a dialogic way, with an emphasis on feedback, constructive comment, and probing questions to help attendees refine their thinking, forge connections and develop ideas. We are interested in receiving expressions of interest (EOIs) in any area of marketing and consumption research that relates to pro-social change, and that takes a critical, theoretically innovative or reflexive perspective. Below we revisit the remit of ‘Critical Social Marketing’, citing Gordon et al (2022, pp. 1045-1046):

“CSM involves critically analysing social marketing theories, concepts, discourses, and practice and/or examining the deleterious impact of commercial marketing activities on social marketing problems - to generate critique, conflict and change that facilitates emancipatory social good (Gordon, 2018). In social marketing, ‘social good’ refers to the inherent goal to improve personal and societal welfare (Andreasen, 1994). CSM scholarship seeks to question the normative values, ethics, morals, politics, theories, methods, principles, and practices of social marketing. There are many issues that could potentially fall within a CSM agenda, including but not limited to: critical reflexivity, power, subjectivity, ethics, morals, identity, race, ethnicity, gender, culture, colonisation, post-colonialism and decolonisation, critiques of commercial marketing, nonrepresentational theory and methods, consumer vulnerability, corporate social marketing, race and ethnicity, neoliberal capitalism, unintended consequences, and de-individualisation through bio-socio-material perspectives. These areas signpost bodies of literature and theoretical perspectives that help us think differently about the social problems that social marketing seeks to address, or to engage differently with the lived experiences of priority groups who are the focus of social marketing programmes”.

EOIs are welcome in any of the following areas, and more:

-????????? Theoretical innovations in social marketing drawing on critical social theory.

-????????? Constructive critique of social marketing theory, principles, research, policy and/or programmes.

-????????? Critical social marketing and critically informed consumption research with potential pro-social impact.

-????????? Navigating politics and policy agendas in and for social marketing.

-????????? Exploring and balancing rights and responsibilities, of individuals, cultures, institutions, and others.

-????????? Navigating partnerships in social marketing.

-????????? Methods for reflexive social marketing.

-????????? Intersectional perspectives in social marketing.

-????????? Decolonising social marketing.

-????????? Bringing under-represented voices into pro-social change.

-????????? and others…

Please send a maximum 500 words EOI setting out the research you plan to present. Accepted authors’ EOIs will be shared with delegates in advance of the symposium.

Email your EOI to: [email protected]

Deadline to submit your EOI: 5 May 2024

Symposium Format

The symposium will be organised around keynote presentations, workshops and a panel discussion. The detailed programme will be published in May. The provisional plan is:

-????????? Three keynotes in the morning (3X 20 minutes thought provoking presentations).

-????????? Mid-day workshops:

o?? Papers are grouped per themes emerging from the EOIs

o?? Groups pre-read the 500-word EOIs

o?? Groups discuss (rather than listen to presentations)

o?? Discussions will also reflect on publishing and impact options (e.g. grant applications)

o?? Groups are also tasked with presenting their ideas on ‘A future agenda for CSM’

o?? Attendees can take part in the workshops even if they did not submit an EOI?

-????????? Panel discussion in late afternoon after the workshops.

Practicalities:

-????????? Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

-????????? Dinner in the evening for those who can stay will be self-funded.

-????????? Hybrid event: Attendance will be in person and online.?