CONCEPT OF SOCIALLY ETHICAL MARKETING: ORIGIN AND MODERN FUNDAMENTALS

Abstract

The article analyses the socially ethical marketing concept as one of the main approaches for doing business presented in the Ukrainian-language scientific and educational literature on marketing. Its appearance was the result of presenting new expectations of consumers and society to marketing practice, the latter's departure from narrow commercial goals, and the expansion of the traditional concept of marketing in the direction of embracing societally significant tasks and influences, initiated in 1969-1972. Regarding the weak differentiation of adjacent concepts and fields of marketing, which arose alongside it and are oriented towards the achievement of societal (social and environmental) goals, as well as the diversity of both Ukrainian and English terms that denote them, there is a need to analyse the modern essence of such concepts. This constitutes the subject of the research aimed at the arrangement of knowledge and the set of concepts in marketing. It is revealed that the essence of socially ethical marketing, which is named in English as "societal marketing", is reflected more accurately by the term "marketing that is oriented towards society." Based on a comparison of English-language and Ukrainian-language terminology, considering the peculiarities of knowledge transfer in marketing and based on the latest research in marketing theory and international trends in responsible business development, conclusions are drawn regarding the place of socially ethical marketing within the space of related concepts and directions of pro-societal marketing. The origins of societal marketing and social marketing are examined, the connection between societal marketing, sustainable marketing, and socially responsible marketing is investigated. It is shown that reputation, being an indicator of the company's ethics and the sum of its efforts, is a connecting link between corporate social responsibility and the company's marketing activities, which makes corporate social responsibility to be considered as a marketing theme, and the marketers' engagement in it as a necessity. Further use of the term "socially ethical marketing" in the Ukrainian-language scientific terminology is concluded to be acceptable providing proper considerations of the modern concepts of societal marketing, sustainable marketing, and socially responsible marketing which are closely integrated with the ideas of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development are made.