Introductory Comments to the Special Section on Public Policy and Marketing in the Face of Catastrophe

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing has long served as an open letter among academics, government officials, and managers on issues of public policy and the marketplace. Traditionally, this discussion has focused on important questions about fair competition, consumer product safety, truth in advertising, and the regulation of specific markets (e.g., tobacco, pharmaceuticals), among other important issues, many of which also appear in the current issue. Most articles wrestle with cases in which the role of public policy is to ensure the orderly function of markets and marketing systems and balance the benefits of free markets between consumers and firms. However, what is the role of public policy in or through the marketplace when marketing and social systems collapse because of either human or natural causes? Both natural disasters and wars leave governments, markets, and people’s lives in ruin. In these cases, the parameters of discussion between marketing and public policy change from the orderly function of market systems to the creation of new realities for the victims of catastrophe. This special section expands the discussion of marketing and public policy to include questions that arise from the circumstances and consequences of human and natural devastation. Two specific questions were raised in the call for papers: (1) What can marketing offer to the catastrophe policy planning and response process? and (2) How do natural or human-made catastrophes change how we think about marketing scholarship? The articles and essays that follow offer an excellent beginning to this conversation. Baker, Hunt, and Rittenburg’s “Consumer Vulnerability as a Shared Experience: Tornado Recovery Process in Wright, Wyoming” examines the effects of a devastating tornado on a small, isolated community. Through an ongoing series of focus groups, in-depth interviews, and analysis of policy response, an improved understanding of community vulnerability emerges. Baker, Hunt, and Rittenburg bring a consumer vulnerability perspective to the consumption of disaster relief and articulate how vulnerability affects both communities and individuals. “Weathering the Storm: A Social Marketing Perspective on Disaster Preparedness and Response with Lessons from Hurricane Katrina,” by Guion, Scammon, and Borders, asks why marketing has played such a minor role in both the development of disaster policy and the understanding of its consequences. Anyone who watched the tragedy of New Orleans unfold in the wake of Hurricane Katrina recognized the need for improved communications, logistics, and distribution—traditional strengths of marketing theory and practice. Marketing’s limited role in both policy development and analysis reflects the notion that the dominant models of disaster preparation and response focus on the needs and requirements of responders, not victims. Using information readily available in the popular press, Guion, Scammon, and Borders first apply the traditional four-phase model of emergency management to Hurricane Katrina and then ask how the management process could be improved if the process were built on principles of social marketing. The result is a host of future research questions that open up the possibilities for marketing to contribute to victim-centered emergency planning. In “Risk, Trade, Recovery, and the Consideration of Real Options,” Manfredo and Schultz consider the role of marketing in reconstruction in the wake of catastrophes. Reconstruction demands substantial investment by governments, humanitarian organizations, and the international donor community, and the needs always exceed the resources available to people. Given this constraint, how should recovery funds be spent? Manfredo and Schultz draw on experiences in war-torn regions of the world to demonstrate the important role of markets and marketing systems in recovery and development; they argue that the same tools and techniques used to manage investment portfolios can be applied to make choices in recovery assistance. They apply a real options framework to examine the financial feasibility of trading with recovering economies, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. In “No Pets Left Behind,” Leonard and Scammon consider the implications of the recently enacted Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act. With the passage of the PETS Act, the rights of animals in disasters are better articulated than those of the sick, the poor, and the elderly. Leonard and Scammon ask what this reveals about the role of pets in society, and they consider the role of marketing in implementing these new standards. Finally, Klein and Huang’s “After All Is Lost: Meeting the Material Needs of Adolescent Disaster Survivors” reports on extensive interviews with teens whose families and lives were torn apart by the Asian tsunami of 2004. The unique needs of teenagers are magnified in such cases, as is the importance of possessions to their sense of identity.