The current socio-economic climate is marked by an increased focus on corporate responsibility and the role of business in society. In this climate, megamarketing – efforts to develop and sustain an industry or market by gaining the cooperation and support of various stakeholders and publics – is an increasingly relevant approach. Current research in megamarketing focuses on understanding how various industry actors and stakeholders establish the legitimacy of a given industry by accommodating prevailing regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive structures. In contrast, this paper examines megamarketing efforts that go beyond such attempts to establish legitimacy towards establishing an industry as a virtuous entity displaying qualities that surpass minimal accepted standards and ‘business-as-usual.’ Inspired by work on virtue ethics in organisational studies, we develop the concept of industry aura: a ‘halo’ of unique and authentic virtues that characterise an industry. We explore the development of industry aura by surveying the discursive megamarketing tactics through which microfinance has been established as a virtuous industry. We conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of 589 articles about microfinance appearing in five selected newspapers between 1986 and 2016. Our findings reveal three sets of megamarketing discursive tactics: 1) diagnostic framing and social mission framing, deployed to establish microfinance as a virtuous entity; 2) virtue anchoring and frame bridging, used to defend the industry’s aura in times of authenticity crisis; and 3) diagnostic and social-mission reframing aimed at recovering the tarnished aura of microfinance. Our paper enriches megamarketing research by charting relevant terrain that stretches beyond the established vectors of legitimacy theorizing and offers important implications for megamarketing practitioners.

当前的社会经济环境的特点是越来越关注企业责任和企业在社会中的作用。在这种环境下，大型营销——通过获得各种利益相关者和公众的合作和支持来发展和维持一个行业或市场的努力——是一种越来越重要的方法。当前对大型营销的研究侧重于了解各种行业参与者和利益相关者如何通过适应现行监管、规范和文化认知结构来建立特定行业的合法性。相比之下，本文考察了超大型营销的努力，这些努力超越了建立合法性的尝试，将一个行业建立为一个具有超越最低公认标准和“一切照旧”的品质的良性实体。' 受到组织研究中美德伦理学工作的启发，我们提出了行业光环的概念：一个行业特有的、真实的美德的“光环”。我们通过调查小额信贷已成为一个良性行业的话语性大营销策略来探索行业光环的发展。我们对 1986 年至 2016 年间出现在五家选定报纸上的 589 篇有关小额信贷的文章进行了定性和定量分析。我们的研究结果揭示了三套大型营销话语策略：1）诊断框架和社会使命框架，用于将小额信贷建立为一个良性实体；2）美德锚定和框架架桥，用于在真实性危机时期捍卫行业光环；3) 旨在恢复小额信贷黯淡光环的诊断和社会使命重构。我们的论文通过绘制超出合法性理论的既定载体的相关领域来丰富大型营销研究，并为大型营销从业者提供重要启示。