Editorial

Citation

Rundle-Thiele, S. and McAuley, A. (2011), "Editorial", Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jsocm.2011.51101aaa.002

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Social Marketing, Volume 1, Issue 1

About the EditorsSharyn Rundle-Thiele’s research interest centres on behaviour change. Current projects focus on maintaining and building loyalty and reducing alcohol consumption where her research focuses on understanding knowledge and drinking behaviours to understand how marketing programs can be implemented to reduce how much alcohol people are drinking. Sharyn Rundle-Thiele has published more than 30 papers in international journals and has presented her research work at more than 50 national and international conferences. She currently serves on Editorial review boards for Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Marketing Education, and European Retail Review and is co-editor of Emerald’s newest journal, the Journal of Social Marketing. Her research has been widely cited and she has received two awards.

Andrew McAuley is currently the Head of the Department of Marketing at Griffith Business School, Brisbane, Australia and Vice President of the UK Academy of Marketing. Previously he was Head of Marketing at Stirling University in Scotland. His research interests have focused for some time on marketing management issues within the smaller enterprise and in particular on the craft enterprise. More broadly his interest in SMEs is in relation to the marketing/entrepreneurship interface. His interest in social marketing stems from his work to locate an Institute for Social Marketing at Stirling University and in working with the co-editor of this journal to create a Social Marketing at Griffith group of researchers.

It is a bold undertaking to launch a journal in an era when research quality is of paramount consideration to authors. Many academics refuse to submit to a journal that is not yet ranked in the fear their research may fail to achieve impact. Further, university management practices are thwarting attempts for new journals to succeed or for lowly ranked journals to improve with initiatives that provide monetary incentives to individual academics based on journal rankings and consequently actively discourage researchers from disseminating their work more rapidly. As argued by Michael Baker in his most recent Journal of Customer Behaviour editorial (Vol. 9, No. 3), suitably qualified reviewers consider the merits of a paper irrespective of journal rank as the judging criteria for a top journal can be identical to the lowest ranked journal. Today’s environment works against launching a new journal, and it would appear that the academic community has lost sight of what is really important in the creation and dissemination of knowledge in a world dominated by rankings and league tables. As social marketers, we are used to working in an environment that is fundamentally imbalanced and we could not let the research quality agenda that is being pursued by many governments deter us from launching the Journal of Social Marketing. The Journal of Social Marketing will publish high-quality research that will assist researchers to have impact.

A key quality for any journal is its Editorial Advisory Board. Our Editorial Advisory Board comprises leaders in the social marketing field who were willing to work to grow the discipline. Many of the Editorial Advisory Board members have worked in the social marketing field for years and even decades and their work has already contributed to making our world a better place. Our Editorial Board team is eminently qualified to judge the quality of submissions to the journal. Papers submitted to the journal have been subjected to a rigorous review process. Submissions to the Journal of Social Marketing are desk reviewed first by one of the co-editors to ensure that the research has merit and is consistent with the journal’s aims. At this point some papers are desk rejected and others are forwarded for triple blind review. Triple blind review allows multiple perspectives (e.g. method expertise and topic expertise) to be gained and we have found that this has helped authors to further improve the quality of research submitted. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of this process in our first volume.

As Editors, we were fortunate to secure the support of Emerald in launching this journal. Researchers publishing in the Journal of Social Marketing will have their work disseminated widely. In 2010, over 300,000 marketing papers were downloaded from the Emerald database, which equates to one paper every ten seconds. Emerald has an audience of 15 million users from 1,600 institutions around the globe.

We have journal ranks firmly in our sights and will submit journal ranking applications as soon as sufficient data is at hand. Our aim is to be a high-quality journal. Our initial statistics certainly suggest, we have launched in a position of strength. At the time of going to press for Volume 1, Issue 1, we had received 106 journal submissions. Of the 91 submissions where the review process is complete, our acceptance rate is 8.8 percent and our review turnaround has averaged 35 days. This rejection rate equals or is lower than reported rejection rates for leading journals in the marketing field. As we go to press with Issue 1, we are moving towards filling Issue 3 of Volumes 1 and 2, such is the level of interest the journal has created.

As marketing educators and researchers, we know that marketing works. For those that need to be persuaded, consider the following examples. Over a century ago, Gillette published a photo of a woman with her shaved underarm exposed for all to see. Sales of razors took off and women have been shaving ever since. In 2008, a photograph of Angelina Jolie in a white night dress with her newly born twins was published in a women’s magazine. The white night dress sold out within 24 h. Marketing is often criticised for its role in stimulating excessive and often unnecessary consumption and the consequent social issues that arise. The global financial crisis has taught us that sustainable models are required for business practice. As people who shape the minds and hence influence future business leaders, marketing and business academics need to be socially minded. The marketing discipline has much to offer to the social arena. Indeed, many mainstream marketing academics are increasingly engaging in social marketing projects.

Social marketing involves using marketing tools and tactics to achieve social goals. In some cases (e.g. alcohol and tobacco), social marketers seek to actively reduce or even stop consumption while in other cases marketing is used to encourage behaviours (e.g. exercising more, volunteering, or changing eating habits). While the underlying marketing process and environmental issues remain the same, social marketing faces unique challenges. Brand, product, and service marketers may be more fortunate. Their job is to create, communicate, and deliver a product that is new, improved, bigger, or better often with a substantial marketing budget. In contrast, social marketers are typically faced with a scenario where they are marketing an alternative that is less appealing to people (e.g. drink less cf go out and have fun drinking tonight; sweat and work hard cf relaxing on the sofa watching TV; eat an apple a day cf eating a chocolate bar; drinking a can of soft drink or a hamburger) with a budget that is 1/100th the size of their competitors. It is these very challenges that distinguish social marketing from its parent discipline, namely marketing.

Our inaugural issue brings the opinions and ideas of various leaders in the social marketing field from across the globe. Submitting authors were asked to provide their thoughts on social marketing. We would specifically like to thank Gerard Hastings, Nancy Lee, Walter Wymer, Robert Donovan, Craig Lefebvre, Janet Hoek, and Sandra Jones for their willingness to share their thoughts for the opening issue of the Journal of Social Marketing. Together, these authors highlight many of the key issues that social marketers face today. You will find some ideas very thought provoking. We look forward to continued debate and watching how these challenges are overcome in future.

We would like to thank Emily, Richard, Zoe, our Editorial Board Members, submitting authors and ad hoc reviewers for their support. Without your backing, our inaugural volume would not have been possible. We look forward to your continued support.

Sharyn Rundle-Thiele, Andrew McAuley