Ethical dimensions of social marketing and social change

The fact that social marketing and related fields such as health promotion have significant ethical dimensions (Eagle, Dahl, & Low, 2017; Rossi & Yudell, 2012; Tengland, 2016) may surprise many, given the aim to improve the lives of individuals, communities and society as a whole. At their broadest, ethical issues start with who has a mandate to determine what behaviour is deemed to be problematic, what action should be taken and whether interventions that may restrict individual freedoms are justified (Eagle & Dahl, 2015; Lefebvre, 2011; Polonsky, 2017). More specific issues arise in relation to targeting decisions, especially in regard to which sectors of a population should be the primary focus of activity and whether excluding some sectors is discriminatory (Eagle et al., 2013; Peattie, Peattie, & Newcombe, 2016), together with issued relating to equity (Langford & Panter-Brick, 2013) Also problematic is the issue of whether strategies may result in unintended outcomes such as anxiety or distress, stigmatising individuals or groups, creating, or unfairly blaming individuals whose desired actions may be hampered by wider social or environmental issues (Bombak, 2014; Byers & Gilmer, 2018; Carter, Mayes, Eagle, & Dahl, 2017; Cherrier & Gurrieri, 2014; Coleman & Hatley Major, 2014). In this chapter, we examine several of these issues in detail, analysing how they are impacted by decisions taken at a macro level and discussing potential strategies to minimise negative impacts