Introducing the History of Marketing Theory and Practice
Introducing the History of Marketing Theory and Practice
1.1 Introduction
The global popularity of marketing as a subject for study might suggest that those studying and teaching the subject know what it is that they are studying and how this study should be undertaken. But as we shall see in this chapter and others in this book, this has often not been the case. Marketing as a subject has proved almost impossible to pin down, and there is little consensus about what it means to study marketing. Most organisations now employ marketers. Marketing roles were traditionally found in commercial firms, but increasingly all kinds of organisations feel the need to employ marketers or to commission services from marketing consultants. The popularity and pervasiveness of marketing is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. Academics have only studied marketing as a discipline in its own right for just over a century, and during its short history the study of marketing has been influenced by many different academic movements, fads and priorities. This variability can be viewed as a positive state of affairs, because it means that the subject is always open to new ideas and new trends. On the other hand, it has the potential to undermine the value of marketing knowledge because there is no general consensus on what the study of marketing should be for, how these studies should be conducted, or what the outcomes should be. Before we can begin to study marketing, we need to understand something about this history and the debates and controversies that have shaped the field. In this chapter, we shall review the origins of marketing thought, examining when the term ‘marketing’ was first used, its subsequent development, and provide an overview of the development of marketing thought and practice. Marketing, clearly, is probably as old as human civilisation itself (see Jones and Shaw, 2002; Minowa and Witkowski, 2009; Moore and Reid, 2008; Shaw and Jones, 2005). For our
1.1 Introduction
The global popularity of marketing as a subject for study might suggest that those studying and teaching the subject know what it is that they are studying and how this study should be undertaken. But as we shall see in this chapter and others in this book, this has often not been the case. Marketing as a subject has proved almost impossible to pin down, and there is little consensus about what it means to study marketing. Most organisations now employ marketers. Marketing roles were traditionally found in commercial firms, but increasingly all kinds of organisations feel the need to employ marketers or to commission services from marketing consultants. The popularity and pervasiveness of marketing is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. Academics have only studied marketing as a discipline in its own right for just over a century, and during its short history the study of marketing has been influenced by many different academic movements, fads and priorities. This variability can be viewed as a positive state of affairs, because it means that the subject is always open to new ideas and new trends. On the other hand, it has the potential to undermine the value of marketing knowledge because there is no general consensus on what the study of marketing should be for, how these studies should be conducted, or what the outcomes should be. Before we can begin to study marketing, we need to understand something about this history and the debates and controversies that have shaped the field. In this chapter, we shall review the origins of marketing thought, examining when the term ‘marketing’ was first used, its subsequent development, and provide an overview of the development of marketing thought and practice. Marketing, clearly, is probably as old as human civilisation itself (see Jones and Shaw, 2002; Minowa and Witkowski, 2009; Moore and Reid, 2008; Shaw and Jones, 2005). For our
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