The Dominant Influence of Marketing in the 21st Century

The Marketing Leviathan

P. Kitchen, P. Kitchen

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137322630
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

Marketing has become the dominant connecting mode of expression between business and non-business organisations and customers and consumers. However, there are some misgivings about marketing in the 21st century. This volume addresses the positive and negative elements of marketing and questions 'Is marketing a leviathan in today's societies?'

1

Introduction

Philip J. Kitchen

In the last decades of the 20th century, “marketing” was a dynamic force in all economies. It was also a driving force for change in many (not all) businesses throughout the century as companies attempted to transition from a production, product and sales orientation to an orientation, at least from a practical if not a theoretical perspective, towards customers and their needs. As we move into the 21st century, marketing seems to be entrenched in every facet of human life. There are few corners on the earth where marketing has not made inroads and where its presence and accompanying influence cannot be felt.

While marketing has been around since humans first walked the earth and engaged in transactions, in its modern sense, marketing is a product of the 20th century. It is perceived everywhere as a suitable topic for scholarly (academic) address and has been legitimised and justified by business practices in every country in the world. It is difficult to identify any public or private sector company or organisation where marketing in any of its guises or manifestations has not been considered, and/or implemented or trumpeted as leading hopefully to more profitable or appropriate outcomes than was previously the case.

In the latter part of the 20th century, the peoples of the collapsed economies of the failed communist regime (the USSR or ex-Comecon countries) turned rapidly not just to embrace democracy wholeheartedly but also to embrace market economies, and with these, the discipline and practice of marketing. Within a fairly short time period, “Red” China has turned to marketing as a modus operandi of liberalisation for its people and its business institutions, while retaining overarching central political autonomy and control. China’s associated disjunctions have yet to arise, but so far have been avoided.

Yet, despite the perceived legitimacy of marketing, even in 2013, there is no generally acceptable extant theory of marketing. There is, however, some agreement that such a theory would rest on at least three pillars:

1.  A thorough understanding of consumer needs and behaviour,

2.  Critical analysis of opportunities for competitive advantage,

3.  Inside a marketplace or space that is global in form, structure and ubiquity.

Inevitably, underlying these pillars is the notion of a market transaction or exchange of money for some product or service that appears at least at face value to satisfy some perceived need. A transaction can also be an exchange of values.

Marketing is sufficiently important that its definition needs to be periodically reviewed. And, the world’s largest marketing group – the American Marketing Association (AMA) (2012) – does this every five years. The definition in 2007 was

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

The previous definition (est. in 2004) was

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 new definition takes into account input from a broad cross-section of the Association membership. Marketing is regarded as an “activity” instead of a “function” and this positions marketing as a broader activity in a company/organisation, and not just a department. The new definition positioned marketing as providing long-term value rather than, narrowly, as an exchange of money (short term) for the benefit of the shareholder/organisation.

The committee began the review process by establishing three critical goals for the review and potential revision of AMA’s definition of marketing: transparency, broad participation and continuity.

The process was furthered by publicizing the review and encouraging people to provide input via feedback through the Marketing News and e-mail surveys to members. While the committee had the option to affirm the current definition or produce a revised one, they chose to revise the definition based on member input.

The new definition was the subject of two surveys sent to members, and 80% of them held a favourable opinion of the definition. Lastly, the AMA Board of Directors voted to approve it at the October 2007 meeting. The next revised definition is due in December 2012 and will no doubt take into consideration the world’s first recession since 1929 (the Great Depression) and the current stagnant state of many national economies.

Leaving aside AMA’s needs to market its own organisation, several questions arise from the 2007 definition:

•  What is “value”? How is it manifested, made, communicated, marketed, sold or assessed?

•  Are customers the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes value? Or, is value – from their perspective – simply the offering of or payment of money for goods and services received?

•  Does the creation and communication of value by marketing also create problems and difficulties for others? Or, does creation of what is perceived to be valuable by customers and consumers simultaneously create noise or nuisance for others who may be uninterested in the constant repetition of banal messages?

•  Does marketing possess a societal value? How can this be assessed?

Asking these questions to those other than marketers will result in a surprising diversity of responses, some (not all) intensely antithetical towards marketing.

We are reassured from various sources that marketing is firmly entrenched in many societies and that it runs contemporaneously and roughly in line with economic and social development. Despite some misgivings, it is relevant to literally millions of businesses and 7.1 billion potential customers.

Indeed, marketing is a global phenomenon. It affects global, multinational, international and national firms and the media and market research agencies that service their needs. It affects every man, woman and child on the planet. It is ubiquitous and omnipresent, and of relevance in developing world nations and, of course, in the advanced economies of the 21st century as well.

Marketing has become the dominant connecting mode of expression between business and non-business organisations of all types and sizes, and customers and consumers are continually informed that marketing is in their interest and seeks to fulfil their needs, and changes are invariably presented in a way that are supposedly beneficial to target audiences.

Yet, there are misgivings in the marketing domain in the 21st century. For, it is patently obvious that many organisations (business or otherwise) do not adopt a customer or consumer orientation. This is evidenced in many ways – difficulties faced by consumers in contacting organisations save by labyrinthine methods, a disinterest and disclination by businesses to treat consumers with respect, products that do not deliver proclaimed benefits and perhaps are incapable of so doing, services that do not match expectations and products that while they satisfy needs also damage consumers and the environment. And, despite the advent of customer services in many organisations, these are often designed to keep customers away from influencing marketing in any way. There are many consumer watch-dog programmes that all too often reveal companies (often large, well-branded, proclaimed consumer-oriented businesses) who only respond to complaints when they come under the all-seeing eye of the media.

Marketing may create exchanges, but does the process of marketing, and indeed exchange, deliver the desired satisfaction? And, to what extent does satisfaction of, say, a consumer’s needs simultaneously create dissatisfaction and annoyance for other people, for the nation at large, and/or damage the environment in some way? Plainly, marketing – although global in scope and scale – does not have any overall monitoring authority. Many marketers now speak of corporate social responsibility, which is integrally related to marketing. Yet, in some sectors where businesses go to great lengths to proclaim their adoptive virtues of corporate social responsibility, it is now evident that corporate social irresponsibility is more the norm. The recent corporate example of failed banks and financial institutions, together with the government monitoring bodies that also failed in their fiduciary duties, and then went unpunished, is remarkable. In the end, governments have bailed out these institutions that have been free to continue “business as usual”. Meanwhile, those paying the price – the electorate – have been seriously punished by retributive measures that are ongoing. Looking at this from a marketing perspective, it would seem that marketing is an organisational activity founded more on rhetoric than on anything else.

In this book, we consider the dominant role of marketing in the 21st century. Each of the authors has their own perspective on the topic. I have not attempted to proscribe their inputs into a particular form. The outcomes would appear to be these:

Yes, marketing is a powerful and dynamic force.

Yes, it has some weaknesses and problems that are increasingly visible from organisational and consumer perspectives.

Yes, marketing can be a nuisance; it can even be seen in the communication domain as a form of leviathan.

Yes, there are many examples of failure.

However, there is no substitute for marketing at this time. Other alternatives have been tried, tested and failed. If we accept the need for democracy, then, to some degree, we accept the notion of markets. Marketers must have some degree of freedom in which to market goods and services. The notion of a marketing orientation ‘that seeks to satisfy customers and their needs profitably’ is not a very robust approach to marketing per se. Most marketing is today organisationally and competitively focused. That marketing is being done for “us”, for and on behalf of customers and consumers, is more a form of rhetoric than some deep underlying business concept. As we shall see in the following chapters, the warts of marketing are plainly visible. Perhaps over time, these can be eradicated, removed or ameliorated? For now, marketing would appear to be the best approach underpinning transactions.

Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan was seen as a powerful metaphor of a gigantic human form where otherwise war-like citizens needed to be controlled by two dominant factors – Church and State. Today, of course, both these forces are well nigh obsolete. However, one form of control may be via marketing, which has reached such a state of intensity and ubiquitousness as to either be a modern leviathan or be capable of influencing the attitudes or behaviour of a leviathan-like society or market. While a marketing leviathan today may well be cast in human form (or stated as such by the concept and philosophy of marketing), it seems to be more and more organisationally centred and not necessarily consumer or customer centred. This will be at the heart of the critical chapters in this book.

References

American Marketing Association (2012). “AMA definition of marketing”, http://www.marketingpower.com/Community/ARC/Pages/
Additional/Definition/default.aspx, accessed June 2012.

2

The Recasting, Questionability and Applicability of Hobbes’ Leviathan

Philip J. Kitchen

Introduction

One may enquire as to the relevance of Hobbes’ Leviathan in a modern-day context. To explore this, it is necessary to explain some – I hasten to add – not all, of Hobbes’ book.

First, many modern ideas and practices are traceable to ancient origins. For example:

• Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) proposed the ideal of one world, one ruler (himself) and one people united under (his) common rule. From there can be traced cultural and economic commonalities and, of course, “free trade”, which nowadays would be couched as “globalisation”, with its impressive storyline proclaimed by the World Bank and a corresponding cacophonous barking of national governments. Today, these ideas are being gradually worked out, albeit couched in democratic guise in the form of the European Union (EU) and Association of South East Asian countries (ASEAN), to name but two of many economic and quasi-political forms.

• Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was once described as the greatest scientist who ever lived. He made many relevant contributions to modern societies in classical mechanics, physics, astronomy, natural philosophy and theology.

• At the country level, Greek democracy (developed around 510 BCE) led to many aspects of Western modern civilisation, in terms of not only more inclusive democratic ideals, but also Greco-Roman styles of architecture and mathematics. Alexander the Great was apparently tutored by Aristotle, who in turn was tutored by Plato. Once again, societies turn to Greece for early developments in psychology, politics, social sciences, religion and teaching. It is interesting to note that much of the ongoing European crisis again has Greece as a central issue or bone of contention.

• Ancient Rome is responsible for the development of the Roman legal system, mass entertainment, the alphabet, the Julian calendar and the Latin language, which underpins many European languages, not to mention derivatives elsewhere in the world.

Time and time again, history offers the basis and antecedent of current practice, or even actual practice, in many fields of endeavour.

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1979) published Leviathan in 1651 (all references to his book here are traceable to th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Recasting, Questionability and Applicability of Hobbes’ Leviathan
• 3. Who Is Like unto the Beast? Tall Tales of Fail Whales
• 4. Seven Simple Rules to Better Customer Service
• 5. Ninety Trillion Spams and Counting: Rethinking the Marketing Social Contract in a Web 2.0 World
• 6. Cloud as a New IMC Tool: How to Make Our Marketing More Ubiquitous
• 7. The Age of Organisationalism
• Index