Social engineering and social marketing: why is one “good” and the other “bad”?

Abstract

Purpose– The aim of this article is to explore how social engineering and social marketing are connected, and how social marketing is a tool used to achieve adherence to social engineering.Design/methodology/approach– Through examination of contemporary and historical thinking around social marketing, we present a conceptual argument that social marketing is another tool of the social engineer, and that social engineering, through methods such as social marketing, is pervasive throughout all societies in positive ways.Findings– We develop a conceptual model of social engineering and social marketing, which goes beyond behaviour change to incorporate the essentials of society and the influencers of those essentials. In doing so, we show that social marketing influenced behaviour lies within the social engineering influenced laws, codes and norms of society, which in turn lie within the morals, values and beliefs of society.Originality/value– This article provides for the first time a conceptual grounding of social marketing within social engineering, enabling academics and practitioners to contextualise social marketing activities in a broader societal framework.