MKTG318 - Social Impact of Marketing

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

MKTG207 Marketing Toolkit OR MKTG100

Teaching organisation

150 hours over a twelve-week semester or equivalent study period

Unit rationale, description and aim

This unit focuses on the social impact of marketing strategy and tactics on a range of stakeholders within society. The unit provides an overview of what marketers must, could and should do before designing and implementing marketing strategies which impact on stakeholder and societal wellbeing. The ‘must do’ component of this unit focuses on the legal and regulatory environment that a marketer must abide by, the ‘could do’ component reflects on options available to marketers while the ‘should do’ component of this unit highlights the importance of ethics and values that extend beyond legal requirements. The unit also explores the practice of social marketing, that is the adoption of the marketing concept and adaption of marketing tools to influence changes in attitudes and behaviours. This unit aims to further develop critical thinking among students studying marketing and engages students in debating how marketing contributes positively or negatively to the common good. An awareness of these may lead to more socially responsible marketing practices and positive behavioural changes among future marketing practitioners and consumers. This unit aims to prepare students for marketing manager role for profitable and social enterprises, not-for-profit organisations, government agencies and media firms’ roles and assist them in developing skills and knowledge in designing, managing and implementing social marketing campaigns for positive change in behaviours.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Understand the key regulatory frameworks for consumer protection and their significance for and impact on marketers’ action, the common good, the society and environment (GA2, GA5)

LO2 - Research and use specific social marketing principles, concepts and techniques to analyse and plan how to address the social problems and develop an effective and creative solution for positive behavioural change (GA5, GA8)

LO3 - Think critically and reflect on trends that influence marketers’ decisions and actions to develop creative solutions for a social problem. (GA4, GA5)

LO4 - Critically examine the ethical dimensions of marketing in practice (GA3, GA5)

Graduate attributes

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

Content

Topics will include:

• Regulatory frameworks for consumer protection
• Principles of social marketing
• Models of social marketing
• Social marketing tools and tactics
• Societal influences on marketing practice
• Societal impact of marketing
• Application of ethics models in marketing
• Professional marketing codes of conduct

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

The learning and teaching strategy is based on student engagement in the learning process by participation in workshops or equivalent and practical activities designed to reinforce learning. Workshops and equivalent support students to actively participate in the construction and synthesis of knowledge both individually and in small groups. The learning strategy adopted in this unit can be described as constructivist or student-centred. Thus, students are expected to be active participants in their learning to enhance life-long learning experience. In this student-centred learning environment, the instructor’s role is to create the enabling learning environment and conditions to facilitate learning by guiding the student along with relevant learning tasks and a valid assessment regime. 

The rationale is to develop student critical thinking skills and prepare students for the current competitive business environment, where marketing is often held to account by stakeholders. A variety of learning materials (real-life examples, case studies from current issues relating to marketing theory and marketing practices, videos, lecture capture) will be used. Deep learning is likely to be fully realised if students are exposed to a variety of learning tasks.

Mode of delivery: This unit is offered in different modes to cater to the learning needs and preferences of a range of participants and maximise effective participation for isolated and/or marginalised groups.

Attendance Mode

In a weekly attendance mode, students will require face-to-face attendance in specific physical location/s. Students will have face-to-face interactions with lecturer(s) to further their achievement of the learning outcomes. This unit is structured with required upfront preparation before workshops, most students report that they spend an average of one hour preparing before the workshop and one or more hours after the workshop practicing and revising what was covered. The online learning platforms used in this unit provide multiple forms of preparatory and practice opportunities for you to prepare and revise.

Blended Mode

In a blended mode, students will require intermittent face-to-face attendance determined by the School. Students will have face-to-face interactions with lecturer(s) to further their achievement of the learning outcomes. This unit is structured with required upfront preparation before workshops. The online learning platforms used in this unit provide multiple forms of preparatory and practice opportunities for you to prepare and revise.

Online Mode

In an online mode, students engage in asynchronous learning and participate in the construction and synthesis of knowledge, while developing their knowledge. Students are required to participate in a series of online interactive workshops which include activities, knowledge checks, discussion and interactive sessions. This approach allows flexibility for students and facilitates learning and participation for students with a preference for virtual learning.

ACU Online

This unit uses an active learning approach to support students in the exploration of knowledge essential to the discipline. Students are provided with choice and variety in how they learn. Students are encouraged to contribute to asynchronous weekly discussions. Active learning opportunities provide students with opportunities to practice and apply their learning in situations similar to their future professions. Activities encourage students to bring their own examples to demonstrate understanding, application and engage constructively with their peers. Students receive regular and timely feedback on their learning, which includes information on their progress.

Assessment strategy and rationale

In order to pass this unit, students are required to demonstrate mastery of all learning outcomes and achieve an aggregate mark of at least 50%. Marking of each assessment task will be in accordance with rubrics specifically developed to measure student level of achievement of the learning outcomes for each assessment item.

Assessments are used primarily to facilitate the learning process. ACU adopts a constructivist approach to learning which seeks alignment between the fundamental purpose of each unit, the LOs, teaching and learning strategy, assessment and the learning environment. Active learning of students is encouraged, and the focus is on deep learning as opposed to surface or rote learning.

The first assessment helps students understand the key regulatory frameworks for consumer protection. It also enables students to research and use specific social marketing principles, concepts and techniques to analyse and plan how to address the social problems. Assessment 2 is designed to determine the extent to which students understand and appreciate the rudiments of social marketing through combination of engagement in the unit via discussion board questions, responses to postings and evidence of successful engagement in online asynchronous activities. Finally, the third assessment, an e-portfolio, helps students understand and articulate the leading-edge trends related to ethics and social marketing plan to address the social marketing problem..

A range of assessment procedures will be used to meet the unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes consistent with University assessment requirements. Such procedures may include, but are not limited to: reports, examinations, student presentations or case studies.

The research paper and industry reports are intended to expose students to a range of secondary data sources from which they can access, identify and analyse a body of regulations and statutes relating to a particular product category. This will give students an appreciation of the formal constraints imposed by government and industry bodies on marketer activities. The major paper is intended to raise student awareness of, and knowledge about, social marketing issues covered in the course, that are generally perceived as having a negative social impact. These impacts are often researched, and there is often a debate about their precise nature. Awareness of these debates, and ability to review them increases student’s awareness of social impacts, and ability to think critically about them. The final assessment is intended to provide students with an opportunity to overview what they have learnt from the unit, and to demonstrate their overall competency in achieving the Learning Outcomes through a presentation.

Academic integrity is addressed through focused content in assessment including the specification of issues to be addressed which will vary year on year whilst retaining alignment with the unit objectives.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

DeBate, R. and Gatto, A., 2021. An Application of Social Marketing Theory to develop a social marketing campaign to address mental health literacy and help-seeking behavior among male college students. Health Behavior Research, 4(2), p.7.

Lee, N. R., & Kotler, P. (2019). Social marketing: behavior change for social good. SAGE Publications.

Wendel, S. (2020). Designing for behavior change: Applying psychology and behavioral economics. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".

Gringarten, H., & Fernández-Calienes, R. (Eds.). (2019). Ethical Branding and Marketing: Cases and Lessons. Routledge.

Laczniak, G. R., & Murphy, P. E. (2019). The role of normative marketing ethics. Journal of Business Research, 95, 401-407.

Farrukh, M., Raza, A., Meng, F., Wu, Y. and Gu, Z., 2021. Shaping social marketing research: a retrospective of the journal of social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing.

Fine, C., & Rush, E. (2018). “Why does all the girls have to buy pink stuff?” The ethics and science of the gendered toy marketing debate. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(4), 769-784.

Lahtinen, V., Dietrich, T. and Rundle-Thiele, S., 2020. Long live the marketing mix. Testing the effectiveness of the commercial marketing mix in a social marketing context. Journal of Social Marketing.

Izaguirre, J. C. (2020). Making consumer protection regulation more customer-centric. Working Paper. Washington, DC: CGAP.

Meese, J., Jagasia, P., & Arvanitakis, J. (2019). Citizen or consumer? Contrasting Australia and Europe's data protection policies. Internet Policy Review, 8(2), 1-16.

COVID-19-Consumer Law Research Group. (2020). Consumer Law and Policy Relating to Change of Circumstances Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of consumer policy, 1.

Wilkie, W. Moore, E. (2012) ‘Expanding our understanding of marketing in society’ Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol 40, p 53-73

Independent consumer and competition commission (ICCC):

https://www.consumersinternational.org/members/members/independent-consumer-and-competition-commission-iccc/

Journals

Journal of Business Ethics

Journal of Consumer Research

European Journal of Marketing

Journal of Consumer Affairs

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