Motivating communities to shop locally : implications of ethical behavior marketing for independent businesses

Local independent businesses are critical to the economic health and quality of life of communities. This thesis examines whether marketing can motivate people to consciously and reliably support local independent businesses in their community. The first chapter provides an introduction to the problem, explains why marketing can be a solution, and describes how one emerging type of organization - the Independent Business Association - is currently engaged in this process. Chapter 2 reviews the literature on social marketing to develop a framework for analyzing marketing campaigns, and the literature on ethical consumerism to recognize trends and identify characteristics of the typical ethical consumer. Chapter 3 uses a social marketing framework to examine four ethically-motivated organizations who market products to consumers: SERRV, Ten Thousand Villages, TransFair USA, and CISA. Each case study discusses the organization's marketing goals, strategies (positioning and target markets), and tactics (product, price, place, and promotion). Chapter 4 provides recommendations to Independent Business Associations for creating marketing campaigns that encourage community support for local independent businesses, and makes conclusions based on the research.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Kilmer-Neel, Erin B. (Erin Blythe), 1970-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Karl Seidman.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17699

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/17699