Better Marketing for a Better World

This Better Marketing for a Better World special issue of the Journal of Marketing is motivated by the gap that remains between what is studied in our field and what is possible. We believe that we still know too little about marketing’s role in improving -- or harming -- our world. Unless we broaden the set of outcomes we study and change how we interpret marketing’s role, marketing scholars risk becoming detached from many of the most important challenges facing the world today -- challenges to which marketing can contribute both positively and negatively (Kotler and Levy 1969), such as persistent poverty, inequity, illiteracy, insecurity, disease, climate change, pollution, and human trafficking, among many others.