Circular economy transition requires sustained changes in everyday consumption, yet household practices remain weakly connected to system-level change. This paper conceptualises circular consumer collectives as meso-level mechanisms that bridge this gap. Integrating systems theory and social practice theory, it identifies two functions: translation, which converts circular ambitions into actionable routines, and amplification, which aggregates individual actions into signals visible to institutions. These functions operate through three mechanisms: intrapersonal cultivation, which strengthens circular identity and competence; interpersonal scaffolding, which supports progression from observing to trying to teaching; and system signalling, which makes collective outcomes legible to firms, NGOs, and public authorities. Repair Cafe Wales provides an illustrative case of these mechanisms in practice. The framework also identifies potential failures, including exclusionary dynamics, volunteer and subsidy dependency, and rebound effects. It contributes to macromarketing by connecting individual behaviour change with broader provisioning-system transitions.
Food policy often assumes that increasing retail availability of nutritious foods will translate into healthier consumption. Nevertheless, physical presence does not necessarily lead to their incorporation into everyday diets, particularly among economically vulnerable populations. This article develops a provisioning-systems framework to explain this gap. Drawing on macromarketing perspectives on market-mediated inequality, it proposes effective access as an interpretive concept examining healthy food consumption as a socially structured capacity arising from the relationship between provisioning conditions and household capacities. The framework considers four dimensions: material availability, economic affordability, retail usability, and cultural desirability. It is examined through a convergent mixed-methods study across six districts of Paraguay, combining retail audits of 26 establishments, surveys of 432 consumers, price analyses of 338 products, and contextual field observations. Findings indicate that widespread availability can coexist with affordability constraints, heterogeneous retail pricing, uneven retail organization, and food practices that limit routine fruit and vegetable consumption.
Single-use plastics (SUPs) remain a major obstacle to a circular plastics economy. Interventions to reduce them have typically pursued either system-level (S-level) measures or individual-level (I-level) behaviour change campaigns, and participatory work has tended to engage consumers or stakeholders at only one of these levels. Building on macromarketing's systems perspective and on macro-social marketing, we develop the Theory-Individual-System-Intervention (TISI) framework, which specifies how marketing can use consumer insight, organised through the COM-B model, to coordinate change across the micro, meso and macro levels of the plastics marketing system. The framework distinguishes consumers’ market role at the I-level (purchase, use, return and refill) from their citizen role at the S-level (acceptance, perceived fairness, willingness to comply and collective support). We validate its four steps empirically with SUP milk packaging in New Zealand, drawing on 20 consumer interviews and a best-worst scaling survey of 400 consumers. Most barriers consumers reported were opportunity constraints rooted in the marketing system, and respondents preferred incentives and regulation to information-only approaches. The study offers macromarketing an operational account of how marketing can sequence consumer-informed action across levels, and offers practitioners a route to SUP reduction that does not place the burden on consumers alone.
Contemporary marketing systems are facing increasing ecological constraints, active stakeholder pressures, and increasing imperatives for institutional accountability. Despite this, the dominant market logics remain heavily focused on short-term performance and profit maximization, hindering their ability to maintain legitimacy and societal trust. This article constructs a macromarketing framework centered on virtue, redefining sustainable marketing as a strategic and ethical institution integrated into democratic systems. It is grounded in the normative foundations of prudence (phronesis), justice, and integrity, which are incorporated into the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) perspective, societal marketing theory, and Aristotelian virtue ethics to ensure institutional alignment between market activity and collective welfare. The model proposed posits a series of ideas that link sustainable marketing approach, ethical governance strategies, and system-level value generation to human flourishing (eudaimonia).
The rapid dissemination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across global markets presents a complex paradox for macromarketing: while AI has the potential to expand market access and efficiency, it may also reinforce inequality through algorithmic bias, data asymmetries, and digital exclusion. This article proposes that a tri-sector governance model integrating the capabilities of private sector, government, and civil society can help govern AI-mediated marketing systems in ways that safeguard consumer agency, reduce vulnerability, and promote social welfare. By moving beyond a purely market-driven approach, the tri-sector model delineates how Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR), proactive public policy, and social advocacy can co-create a post-human landscape that prioritizes human dignity and addresses wicked problems. The study concludes that market emancipation in the age of AI will not be a default outcome of technological progress and must be a deliberate achievement of tri-sector alignment. A key recommendation is that the governance of AI must include representation from all three sectors, and ultimately, as the technology approaches super-intelligence, representation of AI.
