Rethinking Marketing for Palliative Care

Marketing is usually seen as a tool to manipulate people’s mind in order to sell them more things. As such, it exploits people decreasing their well-being. Based on this perspective, it may appear radically distant from palliative care. Starting from an analysis of this stereotype, we would like to discuss the implications of a different type of Marketing: a transformative one. We will build on the experience of Michele Corengia, as a PhD student in Marketing, and Chiara Caraffa, as director of Presenza Amica Onlus, in order to understand how an artistic, experiential, and transformative approach to marketing may contribute to palliative care. By the end of the conversation, we hope to show a possible area of cooperation between Marketing and Palliative Care.

Presenter Michele Corengia is an Italian PhD student at Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland). After graduating in Marketing Management at Bocconi University (Milan, Italy), he started his PhD in 2018, studying the role of Marketing in end-of-life. His research approach spans between ethnography and creative writing.

Co-presenter Chiara Caraffa is the General Director of Presenza Amica, an Italian NPO active in ensuring Palliative Care to suffering people and promoting awareness over life issues. She is part of the National Board of Directors of the umbrella organization called Italian Federation for Palliative Care and a member of the Steering Committee of the EAPC's Task Force on Volunteering. Enrolled in the Italian Red Cross, she has covered different directive roles, such as Commander of the Volunteer Nurses. She is an expert in the history of medicine and of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.