Ethics in Social Marketing: in search of pronesis

Concerns regarding the lack of codes of ethics (CoE) for Social Marketing and related fields such as health promotion have been made for over a decade (Sindall, 2002). The establishment of professional associations for Social Marketing (e.g. the Australian Association of Social Marketers (AASM), the International Social Marketing Association (iSMA), the European Association of Social Marketers (ESMA)) has seen increased focus on the issue (French, 2013). CoE are often regarded as a fundamental characteristic of a profession (Sha, 2011). In order to encourage debate, we review what can be realistically achieved with CoE and how they should be developed, communicated and enforced.