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Respectful co-production is one of the principles of ethical Indigenous research. However, this participatory approach has yet to be thoroughly discussed in social marketing. This study aims to provide reflections and recommendations for respectful co-production of research with Indigenous people in social marketing.

This study draws upon case study reflections and lessons learned from a research program respectfully co-produced with members of the Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon called the Comando Matico. The authors focus on the challenges and strategies for respectful co-production during different stages of the research process, including consultation, fieldwork and co-authoring articles. The authors foreground how their Comando Matico co researchers infused the research process with Shipibo knowledge.

The authors reflect on three recommendations concerning 1) respectful co-production, 2) power dynamics and 3) facilitating co-authorship. Social marketers interested in respectful co production of research with Indigenous people may need to adopt a flexible and practical approach that considers the characteristics of the context and Indigenous co-researchers.

This study contributes to the discussion about the importance of respectful co-production of research with Indigenous people to ensure it accounts for their needs and wants.

In marketing and consumer research, the study of Indigenous ideas and rituals remains limited. The authors present an Indigenous-informed study of consumption rituals co-produced with members of the Shipibo–Konibo Indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon. Specifically, the authors worked with the Comando Matico, a group of Shipibos from Pucallpa, Peru. This study aims to investigate how Indigenous spiritual beliefs shape health-related consumption rituals by focusing on the experience of the Shipibos and their response to COVID-19.

Drawing upon the principles of Indigenous research, the authors co-produced this study with the Comando Matico. The authors collaboratively discussed the research project’s design, analysed and interpreted data and co-authored this study with members of the Comando Matico. This study uses discourse analyses. The corpus of discourse is speech and text produced by the Comando Matico in webinars and online interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. The full and active participation of the Comando Matico informed the discourse analysis by ensuring Indigenous knowledge, and worldviews were infused throughout the process.

The authors foreground how Indigenous spiritual beliefs act as a force that imbues the knowledge and practice of health, wellbeing and illness, and this process shapes the performance of rituals. In Indigenous contexts, multiple spirits coexist with consumers, who adhere to specific rituals to respond to and relate to these spirits. Indigenous consumption rituals involve the participation of non-human beings (called rao, ibo, yoshin and chaikoni by the Shipibos) and this aspect challenges the traditional notion of rituals and ritual elements in marketing.

The authors demonstrate how Indigenous spiritual beliefs shape consumption rituals in the context of health and draw attention to how the acknowledgement of alternative ontologies and epistemologies can help address dominant hierarchies of knowledge in marketing theory.

This study aims to mark the 50th anniversary of social marketing as an innovative social change discipline; this viewpoint reviews “epistemological diversity” within social marketing and calls for its incorporation in the expansion of the discipline.

Cognisant of the visible (e.g., gender, age, race) and invisible (e.g., epistemology, experience, socioeconomic status) dimensions of diversity, this viewpoint focuses on one invisible dimension of diversity – epistemology. Using secondary data, an epistemological review of social marketing is undertaken by selecting five aspects that serve as potential indicators: professional associations, global conferences, education and training, research and publication and practice. Several recommendations are made to expand epistemological diversity in social marketing.

The epistemological review of diversity within social marketing reveals disparities between the Global North and South. These disparities are due to varying opportunities for participation in associations, conferences, education and training, and research and publication. In addition, there exist “hidden” social change practitioners who implement programmes in the Global South that are consistent with social marketing practice, but continue to be unchronicled and unheralded.

For many years, social marketing scholars and practitioners have been working to expand the boundaries of the discipline, with a focus on theory and application. Although the authors acknowledge that diversity and equity are inherently central to this discipline, epistemological diversity, specifically as linked to the geographies of the Global South, has been largely overlooked. Our viewpoint nudges the social marketing community into including epistemological diversity in the ongoing discourse around broadening and deepening the discipline of social marketing.

Given the lack of understanding of social marketing success in theory and practice, this study aims to investigate how social marketing experts conceptualize success.

In this qualitative study, the authors conducted an open-ended online questionnaire with 48 worldwide social marketing experts, most with more than 20 years of experience in the field. The authors analyzed data using topic modeling, a machine-learning method that groups responses/terms into cluster topics based on similarities. Keywords in each topic served to generate themes for discussion.

While behavior change is mentioned as paramount to conceptualizing success, participants prefer to use more tangible and less complex forms to define/measure success, such as campaign recall uptick. In addition, lack of funding was considered an important factor in measuring success. This study provides a two-stage taxonomy to better understand success in social marketing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to conceptualize success in social marketing practice.

In this paper we (a pracademic, a practitioner, and an academic) aim to explore the academic/practitioner gap in social marketing and offer recommendations to close it, while amplifying existing examples of best practice from within the field. We also propose a research agenda to spur dialog and guide further investigations in this area. Insights from prior research, coupled with the co-authors’ experience and observations, indicate that a disconnect does exist between academia and practice within social marketing, though it is admittedly and unsurprisingly not uniform across contexts and disciplinary areas. Given social marketing’s identity as a practice-oriented field, there are many existing examples of academic/practitioner collaboration and the successful linkage of theory and practice that deserve to be amplified. However, the challenges associated with the very different systems and structures affecting both worlds mean the disconnect is problematic enough to warrant systematic change to ensure the two worlds are more aligned.

This paper (a pracademic, a practitioner and an academic) explores the academic/practitioner gap in social marketing and offer recommendations to close it, while amplifying existing examples of best practice from within the field. The authors also propose a research agenda to spur dialog and guide further investigations in this area.

The authors suggest five key reasons that focus should be placed upon closing the academic/practitioner gap in social marketing: demonstrating societal value by contributing to practice; embedding and developing theories in practice; adding to the social marketing literature; contributing to social marketing teaching; and communicating the value and effectiveness of social marketing. To close the gap, the authors propose specific recommendations within four broad areas: marketing the academia and practitioner collaboration offer; building ongoing relationships; creating collaborative partnerships; and changing the publishing model ensuring communications are accessible to all. They also suggest ways for social marketing associations and peak bodies to play a role.

The concept of a disconnect between academia and practice is by no means new; it has been a pervasive issue across disciplines for decades. However, this issue has not been the subject of much discussion within the social marketing literature. Recommendations outlined in this paper serve as a starting point for discussion. The authors also acknowledge that due to long standing “bright spots” in the field, numerous examples currently exist. They place an emphasis upon highlighting these examples while illuminating a path forward.