12. Broadening the Marketing Concept: Service to Humanity, or Privatization of the Public Good?

Is humanistic marketing possible? Can the marketing concept be suitably applied beyond commercial situations and to the public interest? Is marketing a universal tool, a technology, even a science geared to the work of identifying and satisfying human needs and therefore unyoked to culturally particular values or implicit theories of human needs and satisfactions? In 1969, Philip Kotler and Sidney Levy proposed that marketing's methods can and should be “broadened” to more than just commercial enterprises, but to schools, hospitals, museums, churches, universities, police departments,...

Is humanistic marketing possible? Can the marketing concept be suitably applied beyond commercial situations and to the public interest? Is marketing a universal tool, a technology, even a science geared to the work of identifying and satisfying human needs and therefore unyoked to culturally particular values or implicit theories of human needs and satisfactions? In 1969, Philip Kotler and Sidney Levy proposed that marketing's methods can and should be “broadened” to more than just commercial enterprises, but to schools, hospitals, museums, churches, universities, police departments, charities, libraries, labor unions, YMCAs, and even the defense department. Forty years later, this vision has been realized. The following chapter addresses the question once more in light of evidence drawn from the application of marketing to pharmaceutical industry, an industry with strong responsibilities to the public interest and where a marketing-driven culture has become the norm.