A marketing paradox
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MIP
25,7
VIEWPOINT
A marketing paradox
Mark E. Hill and John McGinnis
652
Received February 2007
Revised July 2007
Accepted August 2007
Department of Marketing, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair,
New Jersey, USA, and
Jane Cromartie
Department of Marketing, University of New Orleans, New Orleans,
Louisiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain and discuss a paradoxical tension in the practice of
marketing and the consequent dilemmas posed for practitioners in general and planners in particular.
Design/methodology/approach – A “Viewpoint” contribution, with implicit permission to “think
aloud.” Informed opinion and logical argument are in this case founded on but not exclusively derived
from the existing research-based marketing literature, plus selected transfer of principles from other
disciplines.
Findings – The paradox is that, by concentrating on the contribution of accepted theory and
principles to practice, in fact intellectual and conceptual progress might be hindered. A way out of this
dilemma is to shift the focus from marketing-as-content (doing) to marketing-as-questioning
(thinking). A new working definition emphasizes the value of this focus and the benefits of equal
participation in the process by both academics and practitioners.
Practical implications – A route map is offered for productive collaboration across the
much-discussed academic-practitioner gap, which should lead to mitigation of the constraining
(hindering) effect of the conventional wisdom and the way it is applied to strategy.
Originality/value – The paper presents a point of view, to stimulate lateral thinking and alternative
positions. It shifts the focus from “what” to “how” and “why” and exhorts academics and practitioners
to move in the same direction together.
Keywords Marketing, Marketing decision making, Marketing philosophy, Marketing management,
Thinking
Paper type Viewpoint
Marketing Intelligence & Planning
Vol. 25 No. 7, 2007
pp. 652-661
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-4503
DOI 10.1108/02634500710834142
The adolescence of marketing
Since, attaining recognition as a separate field of study early in the twentieth century,
marketing has developed an impressive body of literature, become a discipline, and
undergone substantial shifts in the focus of its knowledge acquisition. Wilkie and
Moore (2003) have identified “four eras of thought development” to date.
In Era I, Founding the Field, during the first two decades of the twentieth century,
marketing grew out of economics into a discipline in its own right when universities
began to offer new courses focusing on distribution and the operation of markets.
Era II, Formalizing the Field, lasting until 1950, was characterized by the development
of generally accepted principles and concepts, as well as an infrastructure of
associations and professional journals. In Era III, A Paradigm Shift, covering the
period from the 1950s to the 1980s, the young discipline moved towards a managerial
problem-solving perspective grounded in the behavioural sciences and quantitative
methods. In Era IV, the paradigm shift had become A Fragmentation of the
Mainstream. Marketing thought was now characterized by “reflection”; questioning of
the scientific assumptions and criteria associated with marketing knowledge had
opened the doors for a post-modern paradigm, and in the process set up both a paradox
and a dilemma for marketers.
The four “eras” describe a history little different from that of other fields of study
that have established themselves as unique disciplines with their own, distinct,
branches of learning or bodies of knowledge (Onions, 1995). Knowledge, in particular,
is defined by Webster’s Online Dictionary (www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm) as
consisting of general truths or laws, especially as obtained and tested through
scientific methods. Accordingly, the academic marketing community has sought the
respect conferred by recognition as a “science.” Some commentators argue that this
ambition has hints of an inferiority complex, dubbed “physics envy” by Tapp (2007).
Others have noted that an increasingly self-perpetuating scientific elite at the top of the
academic discipline may threaten that very status in the eyes of the wider community
(Svensson, 2005).
As marketing has matured and distinct subject areas within it have evolved,
boundaries have been further demarcated in ways similar to those in sciences it has
chosen to emulate. Predictably, it is now experiencing problems typical of maturing
disciplines. Challenges to its sustained development include the potentially negative
consequences of the fragmentation characterizing Era IV, as well as the increasingly
technical and academic nature of its literature. Concern has been expressed about
letting go of core concepts and theories felt to be central to the discipline’s identity and
established boundaries. Yet, those were established in the very different social,
economic and cultural conditions of a half-century ago, in an altogether less-global
marketing environment. As Wilkie and Moore (2003, p. 125) observe:
It is startling to realize just how many of these [concepts], now almost a half century old, are
still prominent in the field today: the marketing concept (McKitterick, 1957); market
segmentation as a managerial strategy (Smith, 1956); the marketing mix (Borden, 1964); the
4 P’s (McCarthy, 1960); brand image (Gardner and Levy, 1955); marketing management as
analysis, planning, and control (Kotler, 1967); the hierarchy of effects (Lavidge and Steiner,
1961); marketing myopia (Theodore Levitt, 1960); and the wheel of retailing (Hollander, 1960;
McNair, 1958).
One might add that Lavidge and Steiner’s seminal model was in fact a logical
development of one published 35 years earlier: the celebrated “AIDA” (Strong, 1925),
the inspiration for which was acknowledged to be the writing of E. St Elmo Lewis, in
the late nineteenth century. Yet, it remains a feature of training courses for salespeople
and advertising copywriters to this day.
Adulthood
As concerning as the antiquity of the core concepts is the question of their relevance to
contemporary practitioners. Wilkie and Moore (2003, p. 132) remark on “the takeover of
marketing’s body of thought by the academic community . . . the virtual disappearance
of practitioner representation in the leading journals.” Svensson and Wood (2007)
found none at all on the editorial boards or reviewing panels of three leading marketing
journals in the USA, the UK and New Zealand, over the period 2000-2006. An entire
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Special Issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning was devoted to this potentially
damaging “academic-practitioner divide” (Brennan, 2004) and another in the Journal of
Marketing Management (UK), will focus on “bridging the theory/practice divide”
(Dibb and Simkin, 2008). The worrying implication is that academics deal in theory
and neglect practice, while practitioners follow the conventional professional wisdom
and mistrust theorizing.
In fact, many leading marketing scholars have issued calls for some change in our
understanding of what marketing is, and whom it is best suited to serve. Fully 16 years
ago, Day (1992, p. 324) expressed his concern that, “Within academic circles, the
contribution of marketing, as an applied management discipline, to the development,
testing, and dissemination of strategy theories has been marginalized during the past
decade.” More recently, at a symposium convened to discuss the question Does
Marketing Need Reform?, topics addressed by respected participants included: the
reputation of marketing, or the lack thereof, among consumers and professionals
(Sisodia, 2004); how to bring about necessary reform (Sheth, 2004); the need to
challenge our “mental models” (Wind, 2004); the negative consequences of disciplinary
fragmentation (Wilkie, 2004); a change of focus from exchange to change (Lusch, 2004);
and the diminishing influence of marketing as a discipline (Varadarajan, 2004).
It seems odd that the very business discipline whose literature directs students and
practitioners alike to adopt the “outside-in” marketing concept in its strategic planning
should have become increasingly marginalized in practice by failing to respond to the
needs of its own “markets.”
Mid-life crisis
In 2004, the American Marketing Association (AMA) unveiled a new definition of
marketing at its Summer Educators’ Conference, following predecessors formulated in
1948, 1968 (unchanged) and 1985:
Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating
and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that
benefit the organization and its stakeholders.
The AMA’s Journal of Public Policy & Marketing later issued a “Call for papers”
(American Marketing Association, 2006, 2007) that would examine the implications of
the new definition for “the academic disciplines of marketing and society . . .
scholarship . . . education . . . future development . . . the relationship and impact of
these disciplines on other fields.”
Both, the new definition and the Call for Papers are discipline-focused, setting the
boundaries of marketing as an organizational function and an added-value
management process. Marketing is defined by its own professionals association as a
“thing,” in turn consisting of subsets of other “things.” The implicit assumption is that
principles and practice are best understood and evaluated through internal analysis of
existing knowledge and by those who have produced it. Rather than alleviating the
problems that have resulted from marketing’s past disciplinary focus, these efforts to
move forward perpetuate them.
If marketing maintains its inward focus on the existing body of knowledge, it risks
further marginalization in its application. The decades-old classic, “Marketing myopia”
(Levitt, 1960) cautioned managers against the risk implicit in narrowly focusing their
attention on products made, rather than the needs fulfilled by those products – that,
ultimately, the value and success of the provider can be made only by the actual and
potential users, not by its own cost accountants. Likewise, we need to beware of
myopia about marketing. The very essence of its status as a distinct business
discipline has been its managerial focus on markets as the source of the information
and insight necessary for effective decision making, on continuously striving to
understand change in the market place, to be ready to offer new responses to new
situations. It is difficult to see how a new definition of marketing that continues to
emphasise the “what” enshrined in the received wisdom could encourage marketing
academics to address the “why” and “how” questions to which marketing practitioners
need answers if they are to respond creatively to the evolving markets of the future.
The grown-up marketing discipline finds itself in an interesting situation with
respect to strategic planning and operational control. On the one hand, it has built a
framework for strategic action on such foundations as segmentation and positioning,
and on a willingness to let outside forces shape internal planning. On the other, it has
treated that framework almost as a body of laws. We argue that its very commitment
to the continuous validation of the existing body of knowledge may in fact be
misdirecting the academic community. Marketing theorists would do well to read the
introduction to the seminal text on “grounded theory” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), in
which two young sociological researchers explain how they rebelled against a
convention that their sole role was to validate and perhaps refine the “grand theory”
promulgated by the founding fathers of the discipline. But where had that which they
were to work with sprung from? Exactly. We refer to the marketing manifestation of
this inertia in the system as the “contributing , hindering paradox, henceforth
referred to as, simply, the C , H paradox.”
The paradox: by contributing, we hinder
For at least half a century, the marketing discipline’s resolute focus on the
Contributing , element of this dichotomy has diverted attention from the equally
important , Hindering aspect. This is understandable, for it seems paradoxical that
theoretical progress could be hindered by adding to the body of knowledge: “a sense of
familiarity or acquaintance, apprehending truth or fact, the range of one’s information
or understanding” as Webster’s Online Dictionary (www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm)
defines it. However:
. . . it must be recognized that . . . it is ignorance that gives rise to inquiry that produces
knowledge, which, in turn, discloses new areas of ignorance. This is the paradox of
knowledge: As knowledge increases so does ignorance, and ignorance may increase more
than its related knowledge (Loevinger, 1995).
This paradoxical condition creates a dilemma for marketing or any other discipline
per se. According to Webster’s Online Dictionary, a discipline is “a subject that is
taught; a field of study; training that corrects, moulds . . . a rule or system of rules
governing conduct or activity.” Marketing has its subject and its field, and
has produced its professional rules. It also has its accumulated knowledge The
dilemma is that the very structuring of that body of knowledge is limiting, restricting,
static, demarcating, and value-laden. The body itself is more than 50-years old. Thus,
the more the discipline seeks to establish its credentials by reference to codified
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knowledge, the more entrenched its theories, concepts, models and plans become.
Furthermore, the more technical and academic marketing-as-content becomes, the less
useful, relevant and adaptable it is for the practitioners it strives to help.
Does this mean that marketing scholars should contribute to the development of the
discipline by, paradoxically, reducing the number of conceptual contributions?
Obviously not. The issue is that familiarity with the received wisdom predisposes us to
accept it exactly because it is endorsed by practice, and therefore not to question it.
Thus, familiarity itself is a hindering factor, as “questioning stops and the door to
thinking closes” (Hill et al., 2007). The normative practices of researchers, teachers and
practitioners reinforce this closed loop of cause and effect.
The challenge for marketing scholars is not to the paradox and its resulting
dilemma, but rather to recognise and understand it, so as to be able to develop
strategies or means to work around its consequences. To seek a solution would be to
deny the paradox. Recognizing its inevitable existence, on the other hand, presents an
opportunity to re-think marketing. This might perhaps entail moving for
marketing-as-content toward marketing-as-questioning (Hill et al., 2007). By
improving our understanding of the , Hindering elements of the C , H paradox,
we become aware of the value of marketing thinking and its questioning advance,
among academics and practitioners in concert, as the impetus for a challenge to the
authoritarian power of current theories, concepts, models, and planning frameworks.
Recalling the studies by Wilkie and Moore (2003) and Svensson and Wood (2007), it is
vital to the success – and relevance – of this new paradigm that the practitioner’s
voice be heard in the marketing literature.
It is the dynamic tension inherent in the C , H paradox that will motivate the
questioning of current marketing thinking. This tension can never be fully resolved; it
is a continuous means to an end. Accordingly, we must now turn our attention towards
the re-defining of marketing in such a way as to address this state of affairs.
Moving forward: re-thinking “marketing”
The C , H paradox and its associated dilemma highlight the disciplinary problem.
The status quo is clearly not an option. Simply changing the ingredients of
marketing-as-content would leave the root problem intact, set up unnecessary
boundaries between marketing and other disciplines, and remove principles further
and further from practice in a continuously changing marketplace. At the extreme and
of the linear change continuum, the pursuit of scientific respectability (Tapp, 2007)
would exacerbate the problem. It is not just a matter of thinking more, but thinking
differently.
If marketing scholars do take the view that marketing is about thinking as much as
about explaining or doing, they will at the same time be recognizing its paradoxical
position by shifting the focus towards questioning, driven by an understanding of the
ignorance associated with knowledge where there is no closure per se (Bell, 2006).
This is by no means to suggest that the current body of marketing knowledge
cannot, or even should not, provide the momentary footings for the questioning
approach that we advocate, but they should be temporary. The emphasis needs to shift
from inventory, application and confirmation to discovery – of what lies beyond the
received wisdom. It has to be on Donald Rumsfeld’s notorious “unknown unknowns”
(Slate.com, 2006).
In a Special Issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning, “Thinking Allowed”
we defined marketing as “a way of thinking [which] involves a particular type of
questioning . . . an active, cognitive engagement centring on out-thinking the
competition (strategically) through the means of marketing . . . ” (Hill et al., 2007).
Elsewhere, we had already suggested (Hill and McGinnis, 2007, p. 13) that this kind of
thinking might involve the generation of alternatives (creative thinking), the
evaluation of alternatives (critical thinking), or the valuation of outcomes (reflective
thinking). We identified the common thread as the marketer’s curiosity, a crucial driver
of the process. When the curiosity evaporates and the questioning stops, we asserted,
so does the thinking.
What distinguishes this view of “marketing” is that emphasis is shifted from “what
is” to “what may be,” toward the appropriation of appropriate available information
and intelligence, and its extension to the particular purposes at hand. The value of
current knowledge is not as an end in itself, but as a means. The advance is the
opportunity for new syntheses to be developed in real time. In other words, the body of
marketing knowledge is useful only to the extent that it is used to develop new
understanding. Its value resides only in its use as the fuel for the combustion of
productive questioning advance of marketing. From this perspective, the focus of
marketing should be on the way its knowledge is being used to move beyond itself,
which involves the questioning advance of marketing. The next question, then, is: how
can we participate in the process?
A route map
In moving forward, we will not necessarily be making progress in the modernist sense,
toward a universal, general theory of marketing. If that were the goal, questioning and
thinking could eventually cease, but they must not. Their necessary role in the
advancement of knowledge in the physical sciences is powerfully summed up by
Loevinger (1995):
Scientists have long assumed that humanity will overcome its ignorance of the universe
through accumulating knowledge. However, they have also become aware that the more
knowledge is acquired, more is left unexplained or unknown. Thus, advances in the fields of
biology, astronomy, quantum physics and medicine seem to uncover more areas for study.
A more appropriate attitude would be to regard science as a search for answers to problems,
which would continuously generate new problems.
Why should that not apply equally to our own applied social science?
The direction of any questioning is not always forward; we can return to previous
questioning, detour along the way, and spring off in new directions all together.
Forward is not the only way to discovery, and backward is not necessarily a retreat.
This flexibility is one of the appealing characteristics of marketing. There is always
something new and different to be understood, another way to understand, and hence
to compete. The corollary that the goal is never fully realized is a value in itself; the
process is dynamic.
One way to initiate the process is to stand back, and view the familiar from a
different vantage point, from which new and different paths or avenues may branch
out. Questioning is directional, affecting what is seen and considered, and in turn
affecting our understanding of situations. There is strategic value in recognizing it as a
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resource for developing new directions for market analysis, marketing intelligence,
and marketing planning.
Another useful approach would be to begin with practitioners. How do they picture
the necessary thinking and questioning, from their performance-led perspective? What
about questioning by consumers (the questions they ask in navigating the
marketplace), rather than of them (the questions asked by market researchers)?
What kinds of thinking are affecting the social responsibility of the practice of
marketing today? Is the questioning shifting direction, to set the stage for tomorrow?
How are today’s questions affecting public policy with respect to marketing? How does
global thinking affect local questioning, and vice versa? How are technological changes
affecting what we ask? Academics have much to learn from marketing planners about
sophisticated developments on their side of the academic-practitioner divide. For
example, marketing consultancies and advertising agencies have begun to track on the
internet every global cultural phenomenon that looks to be new and next. This
“cool-hunting” was concisely defined and explained by one such consultant in a Special
Issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning (Southgate, 2003).
Another key feature of questioning is that it has a centring role in establishing the
footings. As Gelven (2000, p. 3) put it:
We begin in the middle because we are in the middle; we are askers far more profoundly than
we are knowers or sceptics. Knowledge and ignorance, however, do not, when combined,
somehow tell us about asking; it is the other way around: only as askers can we make sense of
knowledge or ignorance.
To put it another way, we must ask the necessary questions of the prevailing
knowledge, despite its the privileged position in the discipline. In so doing, our
emphasis will shift from observation and verification (a Utopian goal) to participation
in the creation of applicable knowledge.
To facilitate that ambition, we need to understand the forces that could potentially
thwart it. Those “obstacles to marketing thinking” are the subject of our previous
paper in Marketing Intelligence & Planning (Hill et al., 2007). Apart from sheer inertia
and the power of the status quo, as in many other disciplines, we argued that the key
obstacles are familiarity with the accepted principles, a static orientation, and the
existence of implicit norms. Other observers might include forced choice from within
limited sets of alternatives, constraints imposed by the nature of the questions asked,
and starting from the wrong standpoint.
Practitioners would certainly add time-poverty to the list. Southgate (2006)
identifies this as one of two reasons for not reading the academic marketing journals,
and not forging links with the business school community (the other is the comparative
inaccessibility of journals and the all-too-ready accessibility of popularizing
textbooks). He says:
Time is nearly always scarce. Even when it is not, the belief that it is scarce is almost
universal amongst practitioners . . . [those] who look to academic sources are taking a gamble
with their scarcest resource: time.
The inescapable conclusion is that the impetus to bridge the academic-practitioner
divide is more likely to be provided by the more pragmatic kind of business-school
academic than by time-pressured practitioners themselves.
What next?
Are there certain attitudes, behaviours, and activities that those practising or teaching
marketing can embrace, to enhance marketing practice? We say yes.
Raising consciousness
Theories, concepts, models, and planning frameworks must be recognized for what
they truly are: the products of marketing thought, not marketing thinking. They are
the starting points for marketing thinking, and invaluable as such, but are neither
solutions nor ends. The new streams of marketing thought that questioning can extract
from them not only facilitate real progress in the discipline, but also accommodate the
C , H paradox/dilemma.
Increasing inclusiveness
The thought processes that a marketing academic follows in pursuit of the answer to a
hypothetical strategic problem is neither necessarily any better nor any worse than
those followed by a marketing practitioner faced by a practical problem. Indeed, it is
intuitively logical that multiple starting points will enhance the quality of the solution,
because more paths are explored and more time is allocated to constructive thinking.
Thus, the view of marketing advocated here can increase the inclusiveness of the
discipline. Closing of the academic-practitioner communication gap, via professional
associations, journals and professional seminars, should be a key priority for anyone
with a stake in the future of our discipline.
Perhaps, astute marketers already grasp all this, instinctively. Let us hope so. And
may those colleagues proselytise effectively to others who have not yet strayed from
the status quo.
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Corresponding author
Mark E. Hill can be contacted at: hillm@mail.montclair.edu; stratageml@earthlink.net
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A marketing
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www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-4503.htm
MIP
25,7
VIEWPOINT
A marketing paradox
Mark E. Hill and John McGinnis
652
Received February 2007
Revised July 2007
Accepted August 2007
Department of Marketing, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair,
New Jersey, USA, and
Jane Cromartie
Department of Marketing, University of New Orleans, New Orleans,
Louisiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain and discuss a paradoxical tension in the practice of
marketing and the consequent dilemmas posed for practitioners in general and planners in particular.
Design/methodology/approach – A “Viewpoint” contribution, with implicit permission to “think
aloud.” Informed opinion and logical argument are in this case founded on but not exclusively derived
from the existing research-based marketing literature, plus selected transfer of principles from other
disciplines.
Findings – The paradox is that, by concentrating on the contribution of accepted theory and
principles to practice, in fact intellectual and conceptual progress might be hindered. A way out of this
dilemma is to shift the focus from marketing-as-content (doing) to marketing-as-questioning
(thinking). A new working definition emphasizes the value of this focus and the benefits of equal
participation in the process by both academics and practitioners.
Practical implications – A route map is offered for productive collaboration across the
much-discussed academic-practitioner gap, which should lead to mitigation of the constraining
(hindering) effect of the conventional wisdom and the way it is applied to strategy.
Originality/value – The paper presents a point of view, to stimulate lateral thinking and alternative
positions. It shifts the focus from “what” to “how” and “why” and exhorts academics and practitioners
to move in the same direction together.
Keywords Marketing, Marketing decision making, Marketing philosophy, Marketing management,
Thinking
Paper type Viewpoint
Marketing Intelligence & Planning
Vol. 25 No. 7, 2007
pp. 652-661
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-4503
DOI 10.1108/02634500710834142
The adolescence of marketing
Since, attaining recognition as a separate field of study early in the twentieth century,
marketing has developed an impressive body of literature, become a discipline, and
undergone substantial shifts in the focus of its knowledge acquisition. Wilkie and
Moore (2003) have identified “four eras of thought development” to date.
In Era I, Founding the Field, during the first two decades of the twentieth century,
marketing grew out of economics into a discipline in its own right when universities
began to offer new courses focusing on distribution and the operation of markets.
Era II, Formalizing the Field, lasting until 1950, was characterized by the development
of generally accepted principles and concepts, as well as an infrastructure of
associations and professional journals. In Era III, A Paradigm Shift, covering the
period from the 1950s to the 1980s, the young discipline moved towards a managerial
problem-solving perspective grounded in the behavioural sciences and quantitative
methods. In Era IV, the paradigm shift had become A Fragmentation of the
Mainstream. Marketing thought was now characterized by “reflection”; questioning of
the scientific assumptions and criteria associated with marketing knowledge had
opened the doors for a post-modern paradigm, and in the process set up both a paradox
and a dilemma for marketers.
The four “eras” describe a history little different from that of other fields of study
that have established themselves as unique disciplines with their own, distinct,
branches of learning or bodies of knowledge (Onions, 1995). Knowledge, in particular,
is defined by Webster’s Online Dictionary (www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm) as
consisting of general truths or laws, especially as obtained and tested through
scientific methods. Accordingly, the academic marketing community has sought the
respect conferred by recognition as a “science.” Some commentators argue that this
ambition has hints of an inferiority complex, dubbed “physics envy” by Tapp (2007).
Others have noted that an increasingly self-perpetuating scientific elite at the top of the
academic discipline may threaten that very status in the eyes of the wider community
(Svensson, 2005).
As marketing has matured and distinct subject areas within it have evolved,
boundaries have been further demarcated in ways similar to those in sciences it has
chosen to emulate. Predictably, it is now experiencing problems typical of maturing
disciplines. Challenges to its sustained development include the potentially negative
consequences of the fragmentation characterizing Era IV, as well as the increasingly
technical and academic nature of its literature. Concern has been expressed about
letting go of core concepts and theories felt to be central to the discipline’s identity and
established boundaries. Yet, those were established in the very different social,
economic and cultural conditions of a half-century ago, in an altogether less-global
marketing environment. As Wilkie and Moore (2003, p. 125) observe:
It is startling to realize just how many of these [concepts], now almost a half century old, are
still prominent in the field today: the marketing concept (McKitterick, 1957); market
segmentation as a managerial strategy (Smith, 1956); the marketing mix (Borden, 1964); the
4 P’s (McCarthy, 1960); brand image (Gardner and Levy, 1955); marketing management as
analysis, planning, and control (Kotler, 1967); the hierarchy of effects (Lavidge and Steiner,
1961); marketing myopia (Theodore Levitt, 1960); and the wheel of retailing (Hollander, 1960;
McNair, 1958).
One might add that Lavidge and Steiner’s seminal model was in fact a logical
development of one published 35 years earlier: the celebrated “AIDA” (Strong, 1925),
the inspiration for which was acknowledged to be the writing of E. St Elmo Lewis, in
the late nineteenth century. Yet, it remains a feature of training courses for salespeople
and advertising copywriters to this day.
Adulthood
As concerning as the antiquity of the core concepts is the question of their relevance to
contemporary practitioners. Wilkie and Moore (2003, p. 132) remark on “the takeover of
marketing’s body of thought by the academic community . . . the virtual disappearance
of practitioner representation in the leading journals.” Svensson and Wood (2007)
found none at all on the editorial boards or reviewing panels of three leading marketing
journals in the USA, the UK and New Zealand, over the period 2000-2006. An entire
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Special Issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning was devoted to this potentially
damaging “academic-practitioner divide” (Brennan, 2004) and another in the Journal of
Marketing Management (UK), will focus on “bridging the theory/practice divide”
(Dibb and Simkin, 2008). The worrying implication is that academics deal in theory
and neglect practice, while practitioners follow the conventional professional wisdom
and mistrust theorizing.
In fact, many leading marketing scholars have issued calls for some change in our
understanding of what marketing is, and whom it is best suited to serve. Fully 16 years
ago, Day (1992, p. 324) expressed his concern that, “Within academic circles, the
contribution of marketing, as an applied management discipline, to the development,
testing, and dissemination of strategy theories has been marginalized during the past
decade.” More recently, at a symposium convened to discuss the question Does
Marketing Need Reform?, topics addressed by respected participants included: the
reputation of marketing, or the lack thereof, among consumers and professionals
(Sisodia, 2004); how to bring about necessary reform (Sheth, 2004); the need to
challenge our “mental models” (Wind, 2004); the negative consequences of disciplinary
fragmentation (Wilkie, 2004); a change of focus from exchange to change (Lusch, 2004);
and the diminishing influence of marketing as a discipline (Varadarajan, 2004).
It seems odd that the very business discipline whose literature directs students and
practitioners alike to adopt the “outside-in” marketing concept in its strategic planning
should have become increasingly marginalized in practice by failing to respond to the
needs of its own “markets.”
Mid-life crisis
In 2004, the American Marketing Association (AMA) unveiled a new definition of
marketing at its Summer Educators’ Conference, following predecessors formulated in
1948, 1968 (unchanged) and 1985:
Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating
and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that
benefit the organization and its stakeholders.
The AMA’s Journal of Public Policy & Marketing later issued a “Call for papers”
(American Marketing Association, 2006, 2007) that would examine the implications of
the new definition for “the academic disciplines of marketing and society . . .
scholarship . . . education . . . future development . . . the relationship and impact of
these disciplines on other fields.”
Both, the new definition and the Call for Papers are discipline-focused, setting the
boundaries of marketing as an organizational function and an added-value
management process. Marketing is defined by its own professionals association as a
“thing,” in turn consisting of subsets of other “things.” The implicit assumption is that
principles and practice are best understood and evaluated through internal analysis of
existing knowledge and by those who have produced it. Rather than alleviating the
problems that have resulted from marketing’s past disciplinary focus, these efforts to
move forward perpetuate them.
If marketing maintains its inward focus on the existing body of knowledge, it risks
further marginalization in its application. The decades-old classic, “Marketing myopia”
(Levitt, 1960) cautioned managers against the risk implicit in narrowly focusing their
attention on products made, rather than the needs fulfilled by those products – that,
ultimately, the value and success of the provider can be made only by the actual and
potential users, not by its own cost accountants. Likewise, we need to beware of
myopia about marketing. The very essence of its status as a distinct business
discipline has been its managerial focus on markets as the source of the information
and insight necessary for effective decision making, on continuously striving to
understand change in the market place, to be ready to offer new responses to new
situations. It is difficult to see how a new definition of marketing that continues to
emphasise the “what” enshrined in the received wisdom could encourage marketing
academics to address the “why” and “how” questions to which marketing practitioners
need answers if they are to respond creatively to the evolving markets of the future.
The grown-up marketing discipline finds itself in an interesting situation with
respect to strategic planning and operational control. On the one hand, it has built a
framework for strategic action on such foundations as segmentation and positioning,
and on a willingness to let outside forces shape internal planning. On the other, it has
treated that framework almost as a body of laws. We argue that its very commitment
to the continuous validation of the existing body of knowledge may in fact be
misdirecting the academic community. Marketing theorists would do well to read the
introduction to the seminal text on “grounded theory” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), in
which two young sociological researchers explain how they rebelled against a
convention that their sole role was to validate and perhaps refine the “grand theory”
promulgated by the founding fathers of the discipline. But where had that which they
were to work with sprung from? Exactly. We refer to the marketing manifestation of
this inertia in the system as the “contributing , hindering paradox, henceforth
referred to as, simply, the C , H paradox.”
The paradox: by contributing, we hinder
For at least half a century, the marketing discipline’s resolute focus on the
Contributing , element of this dichotomy has diverted attention from the equally
important , Hindering aspect. This is understandable, for it seems paradoxical that
theoretical progress could be hindered by adding to the body of knowledge: “a sense of
familiarity or acquaintance, apprehending truth or fact, the range of one’s information
or understanding” as Webster’s Online Dictionary (www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm)
defines it. However:
. . . it must be recognized that . . . it is ignorance that gives rise to inquiry that produces
knowledge, which, in turn, discloses new areas of ignorance. This is the paradox of
knowledge: As knowledge increases so does ignorance, and ignorance may increase more
than its related knowledge (Loevinger, 1995).
This paradoxical condition creates a dilemma for marketing or any other discipline
per se. According to Webster’s Online Dictionary, a discipline is “a subject that is
taught; a field of study; training that corrects, moulds . . . a rule or system of rules
governing conduct or activity.” Marketing has its subject and its field, and
has produced its professional rules. It also has its accumulated knowledge The
dilemma is that the very structuring of that body of knowledge is limiting, restricting,
static, demarcating, and value-laden. The body itself is more than 50-years old. Thus,
the more the discipline seeks to establish its credentials by reference to codified
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knowledge, the more entrenched its theories, concepts, models and plans become.
Furthermore, the more technical and academic marketing-as-content becomes, the less
useful, relevant and adaptable it is for the practitioners it strives to help.
Does this mean that marketing scholars should contribute to the development of the
discipline by, paradoxically, reducing the number of conceptual contributions?
Obviously not. The issue is that familiarity with the received wisdom predisposes us to
accept it exactly because it is endorsed by practice, and therefore not to question it.
Thus, familiarity itself is a hindering factor, as “questioning stops and the door to
thinking closes” (Hill et al., 2007). The normative practices of researchers, teachers and
practitioners reinforce this closed loop of cause and effect.
The challenge for marketing scholars is not to the paradox and its resulting
dilemma, but rather to recognise and understand it, so as to be able to develop
strategies or means to work around its consequences. To seek a solution would be to
deny the paradox. Recognizing its inevitable existence, on the other hand, presents an
opportunity to re-think marketing. This might perhaps entail moving for
marketing-as-content toward marketing-as-questioning (Hill et al., 2007). By
improving our understanding of the , Hindering elements of the C , H paradox,
we become aware of the value of marketing thinking and its questioning advance,
among academics and practitioners in concert, as the impetus for a challenge to the
authoritarian power of current theories, concepts, models, and planning frameworks.
Recalling the studies by Wilkie and Moore (2003) and Svensson and Wood (2007), it is
vital to the success – and relevance – of this new paradigm that the practitioner’s
voice be heard in the marketing literature.
It is the dynamic tension inherent in the C , H paradox that will motivate the
questioning of current marketing thinking. This tension can never be fully resolved; it
is a continuous means to an end. Accordingly, we must now turn our attention towards
the re-defining of marketing in such a way as to address this state of affairs.
Moving forward: re-thinking “marketing”
The C , H paradox and its associated dilemma highlight the disciplinary problem.
The status quo is clearly not an option. Simply changing the ingredients of
marketing-as-content would leave the root problem intact, set up unnecessary
boundaries between marketing and other disciplines, and remove principles further
and further from practice in a continuously changing marketplace. At the extreme and
of the linear change continuum, the pursuit of scientific respectability (Tapp, 2007)
would exacerbate the problem. It is not just a matter of thinking more, but thinking
differently.
If marketing scholars do take the view that marketing is about thinking as much as
about explaining or doing, they will at the same time be recognizing its paradoxical
position by shifting the focus towards questioning, driven by an understanding of the
ignorance associated with knowledge where there is no closure per se (Bell, 2006).
This is by no means to suggest that the current body of marketing knowledge
cannot, or even should not, provide the momentary footings for the questioning
approach that we advocate, but they should be temporary. The emphasis needs to shift
from inventory, application and confirmation to discovery – of what lies beyond the
received wisdom. It has to be on Donald Rumsfeld’s notorious “unknown unknowns”
(Slate.com, 2006).
In a Special Issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning, “Thinking Allowed”
we defined marketing as “a way of thinking [which] involves a particular type of
questioning . . . an active, cognitive engagement centring on out-thinking the
competition (strategically) through the means of marketing . . . ” (Hill et al., 2007).
Elsewhere, we had already suggested (Hill and McGinnis, 2007, p. 13) that this kind of
thinking might involve the generation of alternatives (creative thinking), the
evaluation of alternatives (critical thinking), or the valuation of outcomes (reflective
thinking). We identified the common thread as the marketer’s curiosity, a crucial driver
of the process. When the curiosity evaporates and the questioning stops, we asserted,
so does the thinking.
What distinguishes this view of “marketing” is that emphasis is shifted from “what
is” to “what may be,” toward the appropriation of appropriate available information
and intelligence, and its extension to the particular purposes at hand. The value of
current knowledge is not as an end in itself, but as a means. The advance is the
opportunity for new syntheses to be developed in real time. In other words, the body of
marketing knowledge is useful only to the extent that it is used to develop new
understanding. Its value resides only in its use as the fuel for the combustion of
productive questioning advance of marketing. From this perspective, the focus of
marketing should be on the way its knowledge is being used to move beyond itself,
which involves the questioning advance of marketing. The next question, then, is: how
can we participate in the process?
A route map
In moving forward, we will not necessarily be making progress in the modernist sense,
toward a universal, general theory of marketing. If that were the goal, questioning and
thinking could eventually cease, but they must not. Their necessary role in the
advancement of knowledge in the physical sciences is powerfully summed up by
Loevinger (1995):
Scientists have long assumed that humanity will overcome its ignorance of the universe
through accumulating knowledge. However, they have also become aware that the more
knowledge is acquired, more is left unexplained or unknown. Thus, advances in the fields of
biology, astronomy, quantum physics and medicine seem to uncover more areas for study.
A more appropriate attitude would be to regard science as a search for answers to problems,
which would continuously generate new problems.
Why should that not apply equally to our own applied social science?
The direction of any questioning is not always forward; we can return to previous
questioning, detour along the way, and spring off in new directions all together.
Forward is not the only way to discovery, and backward is not necessarily a retreat.
This flexibility is one of the appealing characteristics of marketing. There is always
something new and different to be understood, another way to understand, and hence
to compete. The corollary that the goal is never fully realized is a value in itself; the
process is dynamic.
One way to initiate the process is to stand back, and view the familiar from a
different vantage point, from which new and different paths or avenues may branch
out. Questioning is directional, affecting what is seen and considered, and in turn
affecting our understanding of situations. There is strategic value in recognizing it as a
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resource for developing new directions for market analysis, marketing intelligence,
and marketing planning.
Another useful approach would be to begin with practitioners. How do they picture
the necessary thinking and questioning, from their performance-led perspective? What
about questioning by consumers (the questions they ask in navigating the
marketplace), rather than of them (the questions asked by market researchers)?
What kinds of thinking are affecting the social responsibility of the practice of
marketing today? Is the questioning shifting direction, to set the stage for tomorrow?
How are today’s questions affecting public policy with respect to marketing? How does
global thinking affect local questioning, and vice versa? How are technological changes
affecting what we ask? Academics have much to learn from marketing planners about
sophisticated developments on their side of the academic-practitioner divide. For
example, marketing consultancies and advertising agencies have begun to track on the
internet every global cultural phenomenon that looks to be new and next. This
“cool-hunting” was concisely defined and explained by one such consultant in a Special
Issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning (Southgate, 2003).
Another key feature of questioning is that it has a centring role in establishing the
footings. As Gelven (2000, p. 3) put it:
We begin in the middle because we are in the middle; we are askers far more profoundly than
we are knowers or sceptics. Knowledge and ignorance, however, do not, when combined,
somehow tell us about asking; it is the other way around: only as askers can we make sense of
knowledge or ignorance.
To put it another way, we must ask the necessary questions of the prevailing
knowledge, despite its the privileged position in the discipline. In so doing, our
emphasis will shift from observation and verification (a Utopian goal) to participation
in the creation of applicable knowledge.
To facilitate that ambition, we need to understand the forces that could potentially
thwart it. Those “obstacles to marketing thinking” are the subject of our previous
paper in Marketing Intelligence & Planning (Hill et al., 2007). Apart from sheer inertia
and the power of the status quo, as in many other disciplines, we argued that the key
obstacles are familiarity with the accepted principles, a static orientation, and the
existence of implicit norms. Other observers might include forced choice from within
limited sets of alternatives, constraints imposed by the nature of the questions asked,
and starting from the wrong standpoint.
Practitioners would certainly add time-poverty to the list. Southgate (2006)
identifies this as one of two reasons for not reading the academic marketing journals,
and not forging links with the business school community (the other is the comparative
inaccessibility of journals and the all-too-ready accessibility of popularizing
textbooks). He says:
Time is nearly always scarce. Even when it is not, the belief that it is scarce is almost
universal amongst practitioners . . . [those] who look to academic sources are taking a gamble
with their scarcest resource: time.
The inescapable conclusion is that the impetus to bridge the academic-practitioner
divide is more likely to be provided by the more pragmatic kind of business-school
academic than by time-pressured practitioners themselves.
What next?
Are there certain attitudes, behaviours, and activities that those practising or teaching
marketing can embrace, to enhance marketing practice? We say yes.
Raising consciousness
Theories, concepts, models, and planning frameworks must be recognized for what
they truly are: the products of marketing thought, not marketing thinking. They are
the starting points for marketing thinking, and invaluable as such, but are neither
solutions nor ends. The new streams of marketing thought that questioning can extract
from them not only facilitate real progress in the discipline, but also accommodate the
C , H paradox/dilemma.
Increasing inclusiveness
The thought processes that a marketing academic follows in pursuit of the answer to a
hypothetical strategic problem is neither necessarily any better nor any worse than
those followed by a marketing practitioner faced by a practical problem. Indeed, it is
intuitively logical that multiple starting points will enhance the quality of the solution,
because more paths are explored and more time is allocated to constructive thinking.
Thus, the view of marketing advocated here can increase the inclusiveness of the
discipline. Closing of the academic-practitioner communication gap, via professional
associations, journals and professional seminars, should be a key priority for anyone
with a stake in the future of our discipline.
Perhaps, astute marketers already grasp all this, instinctively. Let us hope so. And
may those colleagues proselytise effectively to others who have not yet strayed from
the status quo.
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Corresponding author
Mark E. Hill can be contacted at: hillm@mail.montclair.edu; stratageml@earthlink.net
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