Critical social marketing: towards emancipation?

In this article we present our editorial, as well as offering a critical review and research agenda, for the special issue of the Journal of Marketing Management on ‘Critical Social Marketing: Towards Emancipation’. We first assess the complex and challenging global social, economic and political context, and the various ‘wicked problems’ facing behaviour and social change for social good. We then review the existing landscape of critical social marketing (CSM) scholarship to identify key contributions as well as gaps in knowledge. The excellent manuscript contributions to this special issue are then introduced, summarising the key contributions to CSM knowledge made by the authors of each. We then introduced our CSM research agenda, focusing on six key areas that emanate from the contributions to this special issue and as well as our own reflections: 1. CSM’s relationship with other ‘marketing and society’ sub-disciplines, 2. Power and politics in social marketing, 3. The changing nature of vulnerability, 4. Context-specific intersectionalities, 5. Bio-socio-material understandings of social problems and social change, and 6. Teaching CSM. We also present research propositions and research questions for CSM scholarship to explore for each. Finally, we provide some conclusions on the future for CSM theory, research, scholarship, and practice, and offer acknowledgements to all who contributed towards this special issue.