VIEWPOINT
A marketing paradox
Mark E. Hill and John McGinnis
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.
KeywordsMarketing, Marketing decision making, Marketing philosophy, Marketing management, Thinking
Paper typeViewpoint
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
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Received February 2007 Revised July 2007 Accepted August 2007
Marketing Intelligence & Planning Vol. 25 No. 7, 2007
pp. 652-661
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited 0263-4503
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 characterizingEra 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 theJournal 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
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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, theC , 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” (Hillet 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 closureper 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).
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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 ofMarketing 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 inMarketing Intelligence & Planning(Hillet 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.
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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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