Towards a framework for critical social marketing: what is to be done for emancipation?

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we aim to theoretically advance critical social marketing (CSM). Our purpose is to advance a guiding ethos for the disparate corpus of CSM scholarship and encourage social marketers to become more critically informed in their research and practice. We introduce a critically reflexive, decolonising, intersectional, and trauma-informed CSM framework for social marketing theory, research, and practice towards emancipatory behaviour and social change. Our framework is applied in the context of the social problem of child labour. We then discuss and offer conclusions of the implications of our CSM framework, provide suggestions for a future research agenda that challenges scholars to engage in critically informed research and practice in social marketing.