The present demand for Humanistic Marketing, as going beyond and synthesizing previous concepts of integrity marketing and sustainabilitymarketing, may be representative for the current state of management theory at large. Why do scholars aim to distinguish some forms of marketing as ‘humanistic’ (or, by inclusion, as integrity or sustainability oriented)? Can marketing-as-usual no longer service human interests adequately? For, although conventional marketing clearly fulfils its instrumental function of nudging people toward consumption, doubt has arisen as to its merits. While business tools are ordinarily appreciated in proportion to their (increasing) functionality, marketing-as-usual, instead, appears to lose approval when meeting its professed goals.
