The increasing importance of public marketing: Explanations, applications and limits of marketing within public administration Andreas M. Kaplan * , Michael Haenlein Department of Marketing, ESCP-EAP European School of Management, 79 Avenue de la Re ´publique, F-75011 Paris, France KEYWORDS Public marketing; Public administration; Social marketing; Public management; Public sector; Not-for-profit marketing Summary Although the State and its permanent representation, public administration, account for nearly half of GDP in the European Union, there is a surprising decline in research dealing with this sector in the management and marketing literature over the last 10 years. The objective of our manuscript is to show how theoretical perspectives, which have emerged in both marketing and public administration over the past few dec- ades, have resulted in a visible and practically relevant convergence between these two disciplines that has previously only been discussed theoretically. We present the applica- tions and limits of public marketing within this framework for the four classical marketing instruments (product development/improvement, price, promotion and place) to show that public marketing (i.e., the application of marketing concepts and tools to public administration) is already a reality in a wide variety of countries. Finally, we report the results of five qualitative in-depth interviews which we conducted with public administra- tion agents from different sectors and countries. These interviews provide an empirical indication for our hypothesis that the historical evolution of the marketing discipline from a transaction- to a relationship-orientation as well as the trend towards ‘‘managerialism’’ in public administration, are likely to lead to an increasing importance of public marketing over the coming years. ª 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction According to the Statistical Office of the European Commu- nities (Eurostat) government expenditures accounted for roughly 46% of GDP in the European Union (EU-27) in 2007. 1 It seems therefore reasonable to say that the State and especially its permanent representation, public administra- tion, is an economic sector important enough to care about. 0263-2373/$ - see front matter ª 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.emj.2008.10.003 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 1 4923 2250; fax: +33 1 4923 2248. E-mail addresses: mail@andreaskaplan.eu (A.M. Kaplan), haenlein@escp-eap.net (M. Haenlein). 1 Percentage calculated as the average percentage of quarterly government expenditure on quarterly GDP for all four quarters in 2007. European Management Journal (2009) 27, 197– 212 journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emj