Creating firm, customer, and societal value: Toward a theory of positive marketing

This article makes three conceptual advances toward a theory of positive marketing. First, the article distinguishes what constitutes positive marketing in contrast to other pro-social marketing concepts: cause, green, and social marketing. Positive marketing is defined as any marketing activity that creates value for the firm, its customers, and society. Second, the article elaborates on how positive marketing works using contemporary examples and practice theory. Positive marketing is shown to have two dominant forms from a practice theory perspective: material-meaning innovations and practice innovations. Third, the article explains why positive marketing occurs. Augmenting the multilevel pressure theory of corporate social innovation, two additional antecedents of positive marketing are theorized: activist executives and networked customers. The concluding discussion identifies strategies for organizational success, limitations of positive marketing, and avenues for future research.