 Vulnerable consumers and debt: Can social marketing assist?Linda Brennan, Zuleyka Zevallos and Wayne Binney Australasian marketing journal, 2011, vol. 19, issue 3, 203-211 Abstract: There has been an increase in consumers’ reliance on credit and rising consumer debt. The increase is especially problematic for those least able to afford debt of any kind – welfare recipients. This qualitative study reports on 120 Australian welfare recipients’ attitudes towards debt, their understanding about what constitutes acceptable debt and the debt-management strategies they adopt. The results of this research show that welfare recipients see debt as a way of life and as a means of survival in a society where a core value appears (to them) to be the acquisition of material wealth. Their status as income earners and therefore their capacity to service debt is less than others. Consequently, we could expect that their debt levels would be proportionally less; however, many participants in this research did not appear to understand the long term consequences of their level of debt. The paper concludes with a discussion as to how social marketing can be applied to potentially assist this vulnerable consumer group and the wider community. Keywords: Vulnerable consumers; Consumer credit; Debt management; Social marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:aumajo:v:19:y:2011:i:3:p:203-211 DOI: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2011.05.007 Access Statistics for this article Australasian marketing journal is currently edited by Roger Marshall More articles in Australasian marketing journal from Elsevier |
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