The prospects for marketing strategy and the marketing discipline in Era V: is the prognosis promising or problematic?

ABSTRACT

I thank professors Bernard Jaworski, Brian Jones, Eric Shaw, and Rajan Varadarajan for commenting on my article on ‘Advancing Marketing Strategy in the Marketing Discipline and Beyond’ and for suggesting ways to advance marketing strategy and the overall discipline in marketing’s future ‘Era V’. This note responds to some of their queries, critiques, and recommendations related to the past, present, and future of marketing strategy and the marketing discipline.     

Avoiding academic irrelevance in the marketing discipline: the promise of the history of marketing thought

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a commentary on Hunt’s ‘Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: From promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment, (to promise?)’. We focus on three issues: (1) the historical origins of marketing strategy, (2) resource-advantage theory as a general theory of competition and/or a general theory of marketing and (3) the current state and future promise of doctoral training in the history of marketing thought.     

Advances in strategic marketing and the advancement of the marketing discipline: the promise of theory

ABSTRACT

Hunt (2018, Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: From promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment, (to promise?). Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 16–51. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2017.1326973) provides a synthesis and critical review of over 100 years of marketing literature organised into four eras. In his prognosis of the outlook for Era V, Hunt notes that there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for both the marketing discipline, broadly, and the field of strategic marketing, specifically. However, he also draws attention to the concerns voiced by a number of marketing scholars regarding the current state of the field and the future outlook for the field. Hunt argues that the prospects for the marketing discipline and the field of strategic marketing are closely intertwined, and that the health of the latter contributes significantly to that of the former. Against this backdrop, this commentary focuses on the promise of theory for advances in strategic marketing and the advancement of the marketing discipline.     

Commentary: advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond

ABSTRACT

Shelby Hunt provides an insightful, precise essay on the nature and contribution of the field of marketing across five distinct periods and concludes with a discussion of the potential for the field of marketing, both within marketing and across allied fields of management. This ‘promise’ of marketing’s academic future is followed by a discussion of the key factors likely to play a significant role in lessening the contribution of the field. The purpose of this commentary is to focus on Hunt’s key question regarding Era V: Is the future of the marketing discipline promising or problematic? As such, this commentary addresses four issues: (1) the ‘promising’ assets that the discipline has in play; (2) the slide towards academic irrelevance and, thus, the ‘problem’; (3) Hunt’s observations on how the slide might be reversed; and (4) my viewpoint on what can be done to reverse the slide.     

What do we mean by sustainability marketing?

ABSTRACT

Sustainability in marketing has gained some traction over the years, yet we still remain uncertain about exactly what ‘sustainability marketing’ means. Utilising the Scopus database, a discourse analysis was conducted on nearly 200 published journal articles. The analysis categorises multiple sustainability views and outlines three conceptualisations of sustainability marketing: Auxiliary Sustainability Marketing (which focusses on the production of sustainable products), Reformative Sustainability Marketing (which extends the auxiliary approach through the promotion of sustainable lifestyles and behavioural changes) and Transformative Sustainability Marketing (which further extends the auxiliary and reformative approaches through the need for transformation of current institutions and norms, and critical reflection). This paper then discusses how these three conceptualisations might be used by scholars and practitioners to interpret and implement sustainability marketing going forward.     

Adapting a book to make a film: how strategy is adapted through professional practices of marketing middle managers

Abstract

For an organisation to be competitive its strategy must be highly responsive to both environmental challenges and customers continuously shifting demands. Yet many organisations treat strategy making as an exclusively top management concern, even though the top management team is often remote from the daily interactions and communications taking place at the organisation, market, and customer interface. We challenge the assumption that strategy making ‘belongs’ to top managers and argue that marketing middle managers, possessing expert market and customer knowledge and insights, adapt top manager’s strategy to shifting customer demands in a changing environment. We explore this argument by adopting a strategy-as-practice perspective and analysing marketing middle manager’s practices across three case companies operating in a dynamic retail environment. Our research enables two key contributions. Our primary confirmation is to demonstrate that marketers are not passive implementers, but active adapters of top management strategy through three critical practices of sensing, challenging, and transmitting. We use the novel analogy of how adapting a book to make a film involves minor changes to the story line and characters to suit the new medium and to illustrate the strategically relevant and influential role marketing plays in adapting the strategy developed by the top management team for implementation. By demonstrating the value of the strategic practices of functional middle managers we also contribute to the growing debate of the need for greater inclusion and transparency in strategy making.     

The impact of internal,external, and competitor factors on marketing strategy performance

ABSTRACT

Strategy formulation is commonly understood as the match between a firm’s internal resources and skills and its external environment. Marketing strategy performance is the function of a dynamic, interactive process incorporating internal firm resources, external environmental factors, and competitive actions. The study aims to assess the impact of competitor actions on marketing strategy performance. We develop a model that accommodates the effects of 29 variables (comprising internal marketing strategy variables, external environmental factors and competitors’ marketing mix variables) on business performance. We empirically test the model using simultaneous equation modelling of time-series data on UK car manufacturers collected from publically available resources and annual reports. The results show that external factors, in particular competitors’ marketing mix elements, have a greater influence on a company’s business performance than internal (marketing and non-marketing) strategy variables. Implications for marketing theory and management are discussed.     

On the marketing implications of place narratives

Abstract

Acknowledging that ‘locals’ are recognised as an important (yet neglected) dimension of place marketing and following critiques of places as ‘products’, the purpose of this paper is to give voice to ‘local people’. Drawing on local narratives of Santorini, Greece, we call attention to places as culturally significant and discursively produced and consumed. Local narratives provide multiple meanings constructed around the diverse and contested experiences of living and making a living in a place. Our analysis employs the metaphors of ‘harsh beauty’, ‘service business’ and ‘home’ to capture these perspectives. The paper has implications for the development of generative metaphors of ‘place’ and ‘local’ within place marketing and contributes to the dialogue over the continued relevance of our discipline to the public sphere.     

Systems-thinking social marketing: conceptual extensions and empirical investigations

ABSTRACT

Systems thinking dominated the 2015 World Social Marketing conference with the premise that a more holistic approach takes into account all the issues at play for effective change. Augmenting the broadening social marketing literature, we contend that systems-thinking social marketing enhances the field’s conventional behavioural change with concepts of scale, causation, and iterative co-creating change processes for complex health and environmental problems. The results of our empirical Sea for Society study, a sustainable European marine ecosystem examination of what the barriers to change are and how they are interrelated, find systems-thinking social marketing offers the potential to strategically and critically reinforce, not replace, behavioural change campaigns. With systems-thinking social marketing, a coherent theory of change becomes a possibility. Orchestrating social change may become a reality.     

Social marketing: thoughts from an empathetic outsider

ABSTRACT

Social marketing holds great hope for promoting well-being and social good. Yet, as a ‘master’s tools’ strategy it must be deployed carefully and critically to ensure campaigns are not co-opted by the individualising and issue shaping forces of mainstream marketing. Moreover, social marketing strategies should go beyond promoting better and healthier choices for individuals, and be deployed to encourage critical thinking, political engagement and social action.     

From Public Education to Social Marketing: The Evolution of the Canadian Heritage Anti-Racism Social Marketing Program

SUMMARY

Over recent years, whilst there has been increasing acceptance of the existence and role of marketing in the political arena, there has also been much discussion as to the applicability of its concepts and models. This paper focuses upon issues surrounding definition of the ‘product’ and the ‘marketing mix.’ It examines the varying definitions of the political ‘product’ and, from the perspective of elector as ‘consumer,’ offers its own. In addition it suggests that political marketers should follow the lead of their counterparts in the fields of service and social marketing and modify the marketing mix to suit the political environment in which they function. Finally, based upon existing definitions of the political ‘product’ and the criticisms of the current marketing mix frameworks, initial suggestions are made for the provision of a new political marketing mix.     

Marketing (as) Rhetoric: paradigms,provocations, and perspectives

ABSTRACT

In this collection of short, invited essays on the topic of marketing (as) rhetoric we deal with a variety of issues that demonstrate the centrality of rhetoric and rhetorical considerations to the pursuit of marketing scholarship, research and practice. Stephen Brown examines the enduring rhetorical power of the 4Ps; Chris Hackley argues for the critical power of rhetorical orientations in marketing scholarship but cautions us on the need to work harder in conceptually connecting rhetorical theory and modern marketing frameworks; Shelby Hunt explains how rhetorical processes are incorporated in his inductive realist model of theory generation, using one of his most successful publications as an illustration; Charles Marsh demonstrates what Isocrates’ broad rhetorical project has to teach us about the importance of reputation cultivation in modern marketing; Nicholas O’Shaughnessy uses an analysis of Trump’s discourse to argue that political marketing as it is currently conceived is ill-equipped to engage effectively with the rhetorical force of Trump’s ‘unmarketing’; Barbara Phillips uses Vygotsky’s work on imagination to investigate the important of pleasure and play in advertising rhetoric; and finally, David Tonks, who in many ways started it all, reiterates the need for marketers to recognise the strength of the relationship between marketing and persuasion.     

Historical research in marketing theory and practice: a review essay

Abstract

This paper reviews 30 years of interdisciplinary scholarship that deals with marketing history or the history of marketing thought. We have ranged across the humanities and social sciences to review the very best scholarship that these domains have produced which speaks to issues likely to concern the readers of the Journal of Marketing Management (JMM). These domains include: the history of marketing management, history of market research, history of market segmentation, product management history, retailing and channels history, promotion history, advertising history, the history of marketing thought, and marketing and the management of subjectivity, among others. Given obvious page limitations we have nevertheless tried to appeal to the paradigmatic span of the readers of the JMM. With this in mind, we have critically reviewed material that will be of interest to managerially oriented academics, as well as those who subscribe to consumer culture theoretics and critical marketing studies.     

Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: from promise,to neglect,to prominence,to fragment (to promise?)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to advance the field of strategic marketing within the marketing discipline, which will in turn, the author argues, contribute to enhancing the discipline’s impact beyond the narrow confines of its own journals. Towards this goal, certain aspects of the history of marketing strategy need to be reviewed. However, though this article draws extensively on historical sources, it is not a history of marketing strategy. Rather, this article uses historical materials and arguments concerning the four ‘Eras’ of marketing thought to advance five major claims: the area of strategic marketing (1) had significant promise when the marketing academic discipline was founded in Era I (1900–1920), (2) was neglected in Era II (1920–1950), (3) rose to prominence in Era III (1950–1980), (4) has become a ‘fragment’ in Era IV (1980–present) and (5) has prospects that are both promising and problematic in the future ‘Era V’. Finally, a tentative prognosis for strategic marketing and the marketing discipline is suggested.     

The Impact of Social Marketing on Social Engineering in Economic Restructuring

SUMMARY

Social Marketing is a rapidly growing marketing sub-discipline based on the premise that bringing successful commercial marketing technologies to bear on problems of individual and social welfare can generate positive outcomes. This paper gives an overview of recent developments in Social Marketing in a global context and discusses the relationship of these developments to those in commercial, not-for-profit or third sector and public sector marketing, and public relations. The paper then relates the global context back to developments in Australasian and Asian nations, with particular reference to social engineering during economic restructuring.     

Marketing orientation and activities in the arts-marketing context: Introducing a Visual Artists’ Marketing Trajectory model

Abstract

Answering the call by Fillis, this paper aims to build an ‘arts-marketing orientation’ model by exploring the parallel relationship that exists between the Product Life Cycle (PLC) and the notion of the ‘career trajectory’ (as it applies to visual artists). In so doing, this paper provides a finer-grained understanding of the marketing orientation and activities of visual artists as they progress through their career. Qualitative analysis of the data (and the subsequent development of the Visual Artists’ Marketing Trajectory model) suggests that the marketing orientation and activities undertaken by visual artists deviates significantly from the assumptions underpinning traditional marketing theory. Unlike customer orientation (central to traditional marketing theories), this research suggests that in the arts-marketing context, the marketing orientation and activities of visual artists change according to the career trajectory stage in question.     

A brand so bad it’s good: The paradoxical place marketing of Belfast

Abstract

According to O’Driscoll (2008), paradox characterises marketing in the ‘after modern’ epoch. This is certainly true of place marketing, which is often described as a paradox-rich domain (Dinnie, 2011). Drawing upon the results of a novel, culture-based research procedure, this paper describes the paradoxical outcomes of an urban branding exercise in Belfast, one of the world’s most infamous cities. Albeit dismissed by local worthies as a futile attempt to ‘put lipstick on a gorilla’, this paper argues that Belfast’s branding is not only far from futile but a perversely paradoxical form of marketing that’s so bad it’s good.     

A Study on Ethically Problematic Selling Methods in China with a Broaden Concept of Gray-marketing

This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit problematic ethics in an exchange and the associated hypotheses are developed and tested. The findings show that, first, the respondents have different ethical evaluations of different marketing practices used in personal selling such as giving and accepting gifts, buying and accepting meals, and offering and accepting kickbacks. Some of these practices may not be considered unethical. Second, in terms of ethical assessment, gray-marketing practiced by buying agents is more unacceptable than when practiced by sales agents. Third, a person’s ethical evaluation of gray-marketing behavior, empathy for gray-marketing, and belief that gray-marketing has serious consequences, significantly affects his inclination to use gray-marketing. This paper concludes with a discussion of some possible applications of our research findings. Both authors contributed equally to this work. Guijun Zhuang (Ph.D., City University of Hong Kong) is a professor of marketing in the School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, the People’s Republic of China. His current research interests include marketing channel behaviors, relationship marketing, and consumer choice. He has published in European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, and many leading marketing and management journals in China. Alex S.L. Tsang (Ph.D., City University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor at the Department of Marketing, Hong Kong Baptist University. His research currently focuses on cross-cultural consumer behavior, marketing in China, and marketing communication. He has published in Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, and Business Horizons, among others.     

Beyond matrices and black-box algorithms: setting marketing priorities with Marketing Strategy Conferences

With this paper, we introduce Marketing Strategy Conferences to set strategic marketing priorities effectively and allocate marketing-related resources accordingly. The system is based on managerial preference modelling with a decision model (analytical side) and communication-enhancing strategy conferencing (interactive side). After a review of alternative resource allocation frameworks, as rule-of-thumb approaches, matrix-based analyses, statistical analyses and management science models, we analyse existing analytical, behavioural and organisational impediments to effective marketing resource allocation. Addressing some of these impediments, this paper outlines two Marketing Strategy Conference cases, which we carried out for a pharmaceutical company, Schering Argentina.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Two decades of the Journal of Marketing Channels: Impacting the present and directing the future of marketing channel research

Abstract

We, the Publisher of Journal of Marketing Channels, have retracted the following article:

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Zemanek Jr., J. E., Taylor, E. C., Tran, T. P., & Loomis, D. C. (2019). Two decades of the Journal of Marketing Channels: Impacting the present and directing the future of marketing channel research. Journal of Marketing Channels. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/1046669X.2019.1647914

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This article has been retracted as it was published in error by the publisher whilst still in the peer review process. The authors have been notified of the retraction.

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We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions.

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The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted.”