CORPORATE SOCIAL MARKETING - CSM AND CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION

The social and environmental management has influenced the development of marketing activities towards an integrated effort to offer benefits to consumers, profitability and society welfare. The attention to those issues has become a source of competitive advantage combined with the understanding that the consumption reduction could be replaced by lifestyle changes. The market modernizing way that causes reflective apathy and subjects individual and collective life is stimulating to discuss the effects of production and consumption process on the environment and social relations, the danger of dominant discourse and the power to encourage collective action. Clarifying the social approach in marketing and consumer behavior involves the reflection about discourse and practice of the actors in the exchange context of the new economic order. The paper shows a historical and conceptual review to understand Corporate Social Marketing - MSC and conscious consumption, under a critical perspective. The aim is to investigate those terms, identify its dimensions and relate them. Different views were considered on marketing initiatives in social field, emphasizing individual and collective responsibilities. The conscious behavior restrictions have been shown and the power to ask corporate and individual commitment. A research agenda was proposed for the understanding of the phenomena in terms of information gaps between institutions and related uncertainty.