International Social Marketing Conference 2025

Keynote Speakers

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KEYNOTE: MARIA RACITI

Thriving in a VUCA World: Insights and Strategies for Social Marketers

In the age of disruption social marketers increasingly wrestle with the challenges posed by a VUCA world—characterised by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.  In this new, dynamic environment traditional social marketing mindsets and methods are becoming less effective. On the front lines, many social marketing scholars, practitioners, participants, and policymakers sense a distinct shift in the landscape, yet struggle to pinpoint exactly what has changed and what to do about it. This keynote will outline VUCA-related social marketing challenges and opportunities and how embracing concepts like ‘delicious ambiguity’ and First Nations knowledges and perspectives can help social marketing thrive in VUCA environments.

Biography

Maria RacitiProfessor Maria Raciti is a social marketer who is co-director of the UniSC Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre and co-leader of the education and economies theme in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures. Maria is an Australian Aboriginal woman with cultural connections to the Kalkadoon, Thaniquith and Bwgcolman peoples. She serves on several national and international committees and is regularly engaged as an expert advisor. Her research has produced impactful outcomes including informing national policy.

 

Panel 1

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Panel 2

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Workshops

WORKSHOP 1 WHAT IS SOCIAL MARKETING? 

PROFESSOR ROSS GORDON 

Ross GordonRoss Gordon is a Professor of Behaviour and Social Change at UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney. Ross is also the Director of Change for Good @ UTS – a Research Centre for Behaviour and Social Change for Social Good. He researches social issues and behaviour and social change, through a critical, reflexive, and multi-perspective lens. Ross currently serves on the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. He works on various behaviour and social change issues including gambling, non-communicable diseases, Covid-19, energy hardship and energy efficiency, climate action and environmental sustainability, alcohol, tobacco control, mental health, workplace bullying, and power and politics in the neoliberalism university. Ross has been a principal or named investigator on projects attracting over $8.9m in research funds. He has published over 120 academic journals, book chapters and conference papers and a leading book: Strategic Social Marketing: For Behaviour and Social Change published by SAGE. Ross also enjoys playing and watching football, and is a techno DJ.

X: @DrRossGordon

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=npZ4I3gAAAAJ&hl=en

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/professor-ross-gordon-38a25b4a

 

DR GAURI LAUD

Gauri LaudDr Gauri Laud is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia, Perth. She is also the Vice President of The Australian Association of Social Marketing. Dr. Laud has served as the Chief Investigator for the Care Work Archetype project – a TASCOSS, Workforce Coordination Project, a funded project of Skills Tasmania, showcasing her leadership and expertise in research. Her research focus spans systems thinking, consumer vulnerability, the integration of technology in services, and the value co-creation processes within service systems. Dr. Laud has successfully led multiple research projects in collaboration with industry and community organizations across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. An internationally recognized scholar in services marketing, Dr. Laud’s work is highly regarded in the field. Her research has been published in prestigious academic journals, including the Journal of Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Journal of Services Marketing, and Marketing Theory, among others.

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurilaud/

 

WORKSHOP 2 HOW TO CONVERT YOUR CONFERENCE PAPER INTO A JOURNAL ARTICLE? 

DR NADIA ZAINUDDIN, FOUNDING ASSOCIATE EDITOR JOURNAL OF SOCIAL IMPACT IN BUSINESS RESEARCH, PRESIDENT AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL MARKETING 

Nadia ZainuddinDr Nadia Zainuddin is a behaviour and social change researcher based at the University of Wollongong where she is the Marketing Discipline Research Leader, and President of the Australian Association of Social Marketing (AASM), as well as a Founding Associate Editor of the Journal of Social Impact in Business Research (JSIiBR).

Her research aims to understand the lived experiences of people, particularly those more likely to experience marginalisation and vulnerability, to inform programmes, interventions, and policy to improve well-being. These have included people with disabilities, and culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) groups. Conceptually, she is a specialist in value theory, and is a mixed methodologist, trained in both qualitative and quantitative research techniques.

Her work has received funding from a range of sources both nationally and internationally, including the Australian Research Council, Australian Marketing Institute, Transport for NSW, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, and the Scottish Universities Insight Institute. Nadia also sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Services Marketing and on the review panel of the Princess Alexandra Hospital Research Support Scheme, and is an ARC Detailed Assessor for Marketing.

 

DR KIM FEDDEMA, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL MARKETING, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Kim Federra

@stephenheathphotography

Dr Kim Feddema is an early career researcher and lecturer at Edith Cowan University, in Boorloo (Perth). She is a member of the executive committee of the AASM and a member of the Oxford Wildlife Trade Research Group. Her research examines how to induce pro-environmental behaviour change to improve conservation outcomes, primarily through the reduction of illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade. She applies techniques and theories from service-dominant logic, institutional theory and social marketing to understand the commodification of wildlife, the value of human–animal interactions, and community responses to behaviour change campaigns. Her work has been published across a number of conservation and marketing journals including Biological Conservation, Conservation Biology, Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Consumer Behaviour and the Journal of Service Research (forthcoming).

 

 

WORKSHOP 3 RESEARCH METHODS FOR SOCIAL MARKETING
JOAN YOUNG, PARTNER ALLIANCE STRATEGIC RESEARCH 

Joan YoungJoan is a leading strategic social marketer with over 30 years’ experience in social research and evaluation. She works with government and not for profit organisations to develop, refine and evaluate behaviour change programs, services and communications. Joan has dedicated her career to contributing to better social outcomes informed by best practice social marketing research and is a Fellow of The Research Society.

Career highlights are contributing to effective social marketing resulting in:

  • Increased self-reported witness reporting violence to the police by 19%, reduced self-reported violent behaviour of men towards their partner by 19% and a reduction in hospital admissions.
  • Reduced self-reported levels of child abuse and neglect by 6-15%.
  • Reduced road deaths and serious injury.
  • Increased self-reported levels of community members reaching out to stressed parents by 10%.
  • Increased applications from female fire fighters in the ACT by 500%.
  • Increased number of women working in the private sector in Saudi Arabia
  • Increased visitation to Australian War Memorial through Audience Segmentation

Joan regularly speaks at national and international conferences and has trained social marketing researchers in New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, South Africa and Australia. She is also highly skilled in evaluation and recently delivered evaluation training workshops for the Australian Evaluation Society to over 40 evaluators from New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific Islands and South-East Asia

 

KATHY BENSON, DIRECTOR, BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS AND RESEARCH, THE CABINET OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE PREMIER AND CABINET, QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT

Kathy BensonKathy is a behavioural insights researcher who is passionate about understanding the psychology of human decision-making, choices and actions.

With more than 30 years’ experience, Kathy is proficient in behavioural insights, applied research, workshop facilitation and program implementation; and her skills include optimising policy, program and service effectiveness, human-centred design, concept testing, and random controlled trials.

Kathy leads a multidisciplinary team that tests and applies insights from behavioural economics to improve policy outcomes and deliver better services to Queenslanders, and is responsible for delivering high level advice, managing a portfolio of projects, and fostering collaborative relationships across government, industry and the tertiary sector to deliver real change for the whole of Queensland.

Kathy has a M.Business from QUT, is a visiting Industry Lecturer in Applied Market Research at UQ, and currently sits on the Marketing Advisory Board of the Business, Economics and Law Faculty of the University of Queensland.

For enquiries contact us on ismc2025@canberra.edu.au.

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