Public Marketing: A Strategic Tool for Social Economy

Lately, social economy structures at European and national level have increased in number. The contribution of social economy at local economical development through jobs creation and solutions to social problems has been recognized at the European level making social economy a high interest research field. Concepts such as social entrepreneurship or social enterprise are often mistaken associated with the non-profit or non-governmental sector that has a considerable role in addressing social needs the public sector is not able to deal with, making imperious to clarify the differences and similarities between them. The social dimension of public sector and social economy gives the latter the posiblity to use marketing tools such as different forms of public marketing - positive marketing, social marketing, anti-marketing and de-marketing - to achieve its goals. Due to the diverse activities of social enterprises, managers might need to adapt classic marketing approaches to the specific institutional requirements. It is essential to understand how to make use of marketing instruments for achievement of institutional objectives, otherwhise they might have no impact. This paper approaches public marketing as a strategic tool for social economy structures emphasizing the main approach differences between classic marketing and public marketing in social economy in terms of marketing mix core elements.