Critical Marketing

In this commentary, I use selected autoethnographic passages from my life in teaching to reflect on what, if anything, the designation of 'critical' might mean in my own practice of marketing education. I draw selectively on some ideas from educational and critical theory, and I invoke Gross and Laamanen's (2021) excellent piece on the (mis)interpellation of marketing ideology by marketing academics, to reach the conclusion that my personal idea of critical marketing pedagogy is probably closer to Postman and Weingartner's (1969) notion of classroom education as a subversive practice than it is to any neo-Marxist versions of liberatory pedagogy. Ernest Hemingway (reported in Postman and Weingartner, 1969) suggested that the primary virtue of a writer's education ought to be the refinement of the students' ability to detect crap. By nurturing the fundamental transferable life-skill of crap detection, I like to think that marketing can fulfil a worthwhile pedagogic role alongside the other subjects in a liberal intellectual university curriculum.

One might expect feminist perspectives to be at the forefront of critical engagement with consumer behavior theory, especially given the importance of gender in consumer research. Yet critical feminist voices have been muted in recent years. This paper traces how insights from feminist theories and feminist activism have altered our understanding of gendered consumption. It then discusses how postmodern and post feminist perspectives have diluted feminism as a potentially transformative critique, leading to a critical impasse in the discipline. Finally, we suggest how feminist perspectives, notably materialist feminism, may open up new possibilities for critique and research in consumer behavior.

Feminist scholarship has played a major role in revealing the gendered nature of much theorising that masks taken-for-granted assumptions about the roles of men and women in society and associated heteronormative ideologies. From the study of theology, through the physical and social sciences to research on consumers, a feminist lens has brought new insights time and time again. Despite a proven track record, however, much confusion still exists over what exactly comprises feminist scholarship, and how to use the many theories it espouses. In this chapter we seek first to give a broad, explanatory overview of the basic principles inherent in any feminist thinking. Then we discuss three bodies of feminist theorising that we believe are particularly relevant for marketing and consumer researchers, namely poststructuralist feminism, ecofeminism, and intersectionality. We have chosen the first two primarily because this is where the main emphases between feminism and consumer research have been to date. The third body of feminist scholarship is where we envisage fruitful new directions for marketing and consumer researchers.

Tourism geography and tourism studies have for a long time been interested in tourist destinations, their identity, representations and the changes occurring in them. In the view of the 'spatialisation of social theory', this article discusses the nature of tourist destinations and their representations. Tourist destinations are seen as dynamic, historical units with specific identities, which produce a notion of what the destination is and what it represents at the time.

Through the collaboration of two black queer-feminist theorists this paper challenges to reread Foucault in the context of black studies by pairing his genealogical method with Du Boisian genealogy in Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1940). Through Nahum Chandler's deconstructive reading of Du Bois and blackness in X: The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Thought (2013), we present Du Bois as a dark fi gure that both usurps and disrupts the genealogical line of fi liation that links Foucault to Nietzsche. The discontinuities produced in Du Bois's genealogical charting of his own racial inheritance align him, strangely, with a Foucauldian method that also focuses on breaks and ruptures. Conclusively, a Du Boisian genealogy that engages blackness allows us to focus a critical lens back on Foucault in the context of a modern antiblack world. Drawing on Foucault's conception of genealogy forwarded in History of Madness in 1961 and later reiterations of this method in "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" (1977) and "Lives of Infamous Men" (1979), we argue that Du Bois is an absence that makes the history of genealogy possible. We posit that the silence of historical time about Du Bois's idiosyncratic genealogical tracing of a concept of race produces a lacunary reserve that suspends meaning in the history of philosophy's account of genealogy. The silence of historical time produces a break where Du Bois stands in as a disruption to the line of fi liation between Nietzsche and Foucault. We conclude by arguing a black feminist genealogy is a post-moral method that thinks with the voids that annotate and arrange black life. Ultimately, we investigate the lacuna of race in Foucault's genealogical method to argue the privilege of the black to the archive. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. We want to give our immense gratitude to Lynne Huffer who has read many iterations of this project from its early conceptions and who continues to remind us to explore how we are pushing Foucault's theories beyond the limits of his own thought. To Tamara Jones, who never fails to make us feel welcome into her home, has cooked us meals, and reminds us to laugh. To one of the many Boiling Crabs in Los Angeles, CA for bringing this joke into the light. To Mukasa Mubirumusoke and Danielle Wiggins-our OG Black Studies Collective. And fi nally to Thomas Jordan Jr. and Ronald Jordan Harrell for bringing us together before, during, and after their transition to the otherside. It is through them that we are who we are and we do what we do.

In this paper, we trace the thinking around atmospheres and atmospherics. Initially our focus is upon Franz Anton Mesmer. We next examine atmosphere construction in retailing during the nineteenth century. From this, the narrative unpacks outputs penned between 1900 and 1950 which depict advertising as fashioning 'psychic' atmospheres and 'magic cloaks' for products and services. We then explore publications stressing curatorial atmospheres in retail stores. Concurrently evolving with the managerial literature is a critical stream of writing which holds that advertising generates pathological atmospheres. The spotlight next moves to debates taking place between the 1950s and 1970s. Attention is subsequently shifted to the 1980s revivification of critical studies and discussions of 'toxic climates'. Finally, multiple possible future directions are identified.

The effect of indexes, rankings and impact factors in accounting research and in accounting education in particular. This is very much a personal view, taken from a UK perspective, but others tell me that it resonates very much with what has happened elsewhere during the past decade or so. When I first became a higher education teacher of accounting in 1983, it was in a domestic science college in Scotland. I taught accounting to students who needed to use it in their careers, not as accountants but as hotel managers, cooks and chefs. The focus was upon the practicalities, the 'know how' of a technician, not the 'know why' of a professional accountant. In that job, there was no pressure to do research. But, I wanted to move to a university and that required that I could demonstrate that I could do research and that I had a higher degree than the bachelor's degree I held. Accordingly, I did a master of science degree part-time between 1984-6 and, in the course of doing it, I learnt for the first time what it meant to read, investigate, analyse, and write in an academic style. In 1987, I published my first research article and succeeded in moving to a university soon after. However, the only pressure I had upon me to do research up until 2004 related to seeking promotion or moving jobs. If I did not wish promotion or a change of university, there was no pressure upon me to publish, and many of my colleagues did just that: they did no research, but things were changing, slowly.

This is a conceptual paper that discusses and presents a research project concerned with relationships and relationship marketing. The paper shows that the concept of relationship marketing is in the early stages of development, besides the huge amount of books written about the subject. We highlight that the boundaries of relationship marketing are permeable and elastic. Relationship marketing consists of a fragmented sort of different approaches, partly independent partly overlapping, inspired by different theories, with a multitude of aggregation levels and several units of analysis. We clarify the scope of this domain and we present a number of critical issues that remain unresolved. Is the concept of relationship marketing ubiquitous and can it be applied to any context? Are relationships alike whatever the market considered? The paper reviews some approaches and theories that are consider relevant: the IMP approach to business relationships, the Nordic approach to services relationships and the one-to-one approach of database marketing, related with IT and CRM. Finally, we present a research project that questions the legitimacy of this domain extension and the nature of relationships in consumer markets.

This paper looks at the effect of feminist theory on the conceptualization of marketing thought. Specifically, it examines the effect of feminist theory on the formulation of research in marketing generally and consumer behavior in particular. Finally, it discusses implications of feminist theory for the marketing paradigm. INTRODUCTION Over the past fifteen years, feminist scholarship has had a significant impact on a number of disciplines, including anthropology, literature, psychology, sociology and history (see Langland and Gove 1981; DuBois et al. 1987). This scholarship argues that hidden assumptions about men and women have influenced standard academic subjects. Such assumptions are embedded in the theoretical frameworks, the formulation of research questions, the methodology and data collection, the interpretation of results, and the conclusions drawn. Feminist theory may influence the fields of marketing and consumer behavior differently from the way it has affected disciplines such as history and literature or even social sciences such as psychology and anthropology. In these latter fields, feminist theory provided a totally new perspective. Because marketing theoreticians and practitioners have always focused on "women as consumers," the feminist perspective may not initially appear to offer something new and unique. We argue, however, that by incorporating the tenets of the feminist perspective, consumer behavior theory can be significantly enriched. This paper first describes the foundations of the feminist perspective as they are applied to research. It then poses questions such an approach raises concerning the conceptualization of consumer behavior theory and research. Finally, it develops implications for reshaping the consumer behavior, and, more generally, the marketing, paradigm. Questions to be considered include: 1) How does feminist theory affect research? 2) How does gender affect the formulation of consumer behavior research? 3) How do researchers in consumer behavior and marketing view their subjects? How does the researcher/subject relationship affect research and its outcomes? 4) What is the effect of gender on our research methodologies? 5) What is the interdisciplinary dimension of research in consumer behavior and marketing? These questions stem from a feminist approach to research. Such an approach extends beyond consideration of women's issues into a fundamental investigation of gender differences and their impact on a discipline's body of knowledge. Several of these issues have received attention in the marketing literature, without being seen in a specifically feminist context. Exploration of all these areas should lead to new insights which can ultimately operate to influence the paradigm. A FEMINIST RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE A feminist perspective is one that challenges and questions underlying assumptions in the discipline that have to do with gender (see Gergen 1988; Childers and Grunig 1989). This process allows scholars to see how these assumptions have affected research approaches and the development of thought in a field. Langland and Gove have articulated this usefully, writing that "A feminist perspective...seeks to correct the bias present in our academic disciplines by uncovering and questioning the hidden assumptions about men and women that have shaped and informed standard academic subjects" (1981:3). A feminist approach however, does not only focus on women and gender, although that is its fundamental perspective. However, it also takes a holistic view of research, recognizing the interrelationships that exist between constructs within a domain. The perspective advocates a nonhierarchical methodology, wherein subjects are treated as equal partners with an investigator. It maintains that research cannot be value-free, because both the values of the researcher and the traditions of the discipline guide inquiry. A feminist approach fundamentally questions the status quo, forcing researchers to explore the assumptions they hold. As applied to consumer research this perspective would allow us to re-examine consumer behavior theory, consumer research agendas, and more generally, the academic marketing discipline overall. The marketing discipline as a whole is ripe for such re-examination; as Shelby Hunt has pointed out, according to the definitions set by Thomas Kuhn (1970), marketing is actually "pre-paradigmatic," still in that first stage of debate over what constitutes the scope and content of the discipline, what the important questions are. It is not yet firmly shaped and solidified (see Hunt 1991: 332; see also Firat, et al 1987: xii-xiii). In this sense the feminist point of view can simply join all the other points of view competing for inclusion, as marketing sets an agenda in terms of its content, methodology and epistemology. It is crucial that the feminist perspective be considered now, and, where relevant, incorporated, since the discipline's paradigm sets the rules for research formulation and administration. As one scholar has noted: A paradigm (1) serves as guide to the professionals in a discipline for it indicates what are the important problems and issues confronting the discipline; (2) goes about developing an explanatory scheme (i.e. models and theories) which can place these issues and problems in a framework which will allow practitioners to try to solve them; (3) establishes the criteria for the appropriate 'tools' (i.e., methodologies, instruments, and types and forms of data collection) to use in solving these disciplinary puzzles; and (4) provides an epistemology in which the preceding tasks can be viewed as organizing principles for carrying out the 'normal work' of the discipline. Paradigms not only allow a discipline to 'make sense' of different kinds of phenomena but provide a framework in which these phenomena can be identified as existing in the first place (William J. Filstead, quoted in Deshpande 1986: 113). However, despite its early stage of development, the marketing discipline already operates from some basic assumptions, values and methodologies which often go unchallenged and which affect research in consumer behavior. Marketers do not necessarily recognize that they are influenced by these beliefs in choosing what they consider to be salient research problems, appropriate research design and methodology, and proper analysis. Using a feminist approach forces us to uncover and reexamine those beliefs, particularly as they relate to gender. APPLICATIONS OF FEMINIST THEORY Feminist Theory and Research The feminist approach to research builds in part on the work of those who have examined gender differences in personality, cognitive development and socialization, work which holds strong implications for scholars in consumer behavior (see, for example, Carlson 1971; Miller 1976; Gilligan 1982). This body of research has found differences between males and females in processing skills and cognitive structuring. These lead to different world views, which in turn result in the preference for alternative approaches to seeking knowledge and to conducting research. Such gendered cognitive and social differences between males and females affect both female scholars in the marketing profession generally, and perceptions and research about female consumers. (Such gender differences are learned behavior, thus are culture bound. This paper reviews studies pertaining predominantly to men and women in the United States). Women, feminist scholars conclude, frequently interpret experiences in relatively interpersonal, subjective, and contextual ways. Men, on the other hand, frequently interpret experiences of self, others, space, and time in individualistic, objective and distant ways. For example Carlson (1971), in studying personality and gender, used conceptions of agency and communion to differentiate the aggregate of males from the aggregate of females. As she defines it, Agency is seen in differentiating of self from the field, in intellectual functions involving separating and ordering and in interpersonal styles involving objectivity, competition exclusion and distance. Communion is seen in merging of self with the field, in intellectual functions involving communication, in interpersonal styles involving subjectivity, cooperation, acceptance and closeness (Carlson 1971:271). Carlson found that men were more selective in the information cues they use in interpreting and acting upon the world; women were found to be more comprehensive in cue perception and more likely to consider problems within a context or frame of reference. Gilligan (1982) and Belenky, et al. (1986) reached similar conclusions about gender differences. Like Carlson, they reported that women exhibit greater complexity of constitutional-psychological processes, and that they are more concerned with interpersonal relationships than men. Gilligan (1982) attributed differences in personality and cognitive structures to fundamental developmental differences that had not previously been recognized. She and Belenky et al. (1986) studied the developmental and socialization processes of females and found them to differ significantly from those of males. Through examining developmental differences these authors have identified men's knowledge as "separatist." Men (and women adopting this pattern) use impersonal procedures for arriving at the truth. This can be contrasted with women's "interconnectedness," in which truth emerges through empathy and understanding (Belenky et al. 1986: 102). Where men, as separate knowers, prefer to separate out or extrapolate a singular factual error or logical contribution as a basis for analysis, women have a tendency toward a more holistic view. Belenky et al. (1986) defines this interconnectedness as "constructed knowing." Women, according to these researchers, integrate knowledge of self (that which is personally important) with knowledge...

This study examines how public discourse impacts cultural valorization of the cancer marketplace. We find that cultural valorization relies on a system of discursive and affective (e)valuation that is largely grounded in "hopeful uncertainty" and that is subject to macro historical, scientific, and sociocultural influences.

Feminist perspectives expose many gendered ideologies embedded in marketing and consumption phenomena, as well as the unequal power relations that underpin them. Initially critiques came from outside the marketing and consumer research disciplines, led by second wave feminists in the 1960s and 70s. Activists such as saw marketers as being complicit in a patriarchal system that sought to manipulate and control women through domesticity. They targeted advertising in particular where negative female stereotypes abounded, stereotypes that served to reinforce passive, decorative models of femininity. Despite such critiques, it was not until the 1990s and following the "cultural turn" that scholars within the marketing discipline began to draw on feminist perspectives. This work deconstructed advertising meanings (Stern, , 1993) ) and the underpinning masculinist ideologies of both marketing (Bristor and Fischer, 1993) and consumer research (Hirschman, 1999;. It also introduced innovative theoretical perspectives such as ecofeminism that threw light on the feminine bias in caring for the environment and the androcentric rationale separating humans from nature and guiding marketing activities . Since this period feminist voices have waxed and waned in marketing and consumer research scholarship, reflecting also the trajectory of feminism and the (so-called) postfeminist era. After giving a brief overview of feminism's main principles and major types, this chapter chronicles the historical intertwining of feminism with marketing and gives an overview of the contributions feminist scholarship has made to critical marketing. In order to do this we look at what are now often referred to as the four waves of feminism and analyse the different relationship each time period has had with marketing and the scholarship therein. 1 We also highlight key theoretical perspectives within the feminist canon that have driven this work, before detailing key areas where we believe future critique is urgently required. Many misconceptions of what constitutes a feminist still endure and, sadly, the two authors frequently hear young female students using the well-worn expression "I'm not a feminist but…" This denial is usually based on ill-founded assumptions such as the belief that feminists hate men or consider women to be superior to men. We believe, therefore, it is important to set out some of the basic principles of feminism to put the record straight for new readers to the topic. Part of the problem in understanding feminism is that it is not just one unified body of thought and there are many different varieties, each with their own emphasis (see Table below for examples of various types of feminism, although this is by no means an exhaustive list). Broadly speaking, however, a key principle that underpins feminist approaches and theorising is that men and women should be equal and that currently there is an unequal relationship, although this inequality varies greatly depending on a multitude 1 Although we find the 'wave' metaphor useful for this analysis -especially in connecting early suffragette activism with that in the 1960s -we also acknowledge that it risks being reductionist in simplifying historical complexities and obscuring other feminist activism/scholarship that does not fall neatly into these periods or that may risk being mis-categorised.

Esta pensata desafia o marketing atual, marcado por uma busca alucinante pelo lucro e influenciado por gurus tão superficiais quanto relevantes. Discutindo a necessidade de uma reconexão com bases acadêmicas robustas, o texto critica como a ética foi à deriva e as práticas inclusivas negligenciadas tanto em ambientes acadêmicos quanto corporativos. O texto também aborda a discrepância entre o discurso de marcas e suas ações, propondo um retorno ao verdadeiro potencial transformador do marketing por meio de uma educação comprometida com a ética, a história e a crítica social. Parte essencial da solução para os desafios do marketing moderno é formar profissionais conscientes do profundo impacto que podem ter na construção de sociedades mais justas e plurais.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: gurus de marketing, história do marketing, marketing tóxico, ética no marketing, críticas ao marketing.

This case study analyzes the scientific and managerial discussions inside a research stream in marketing labelled as Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). When CCT was introduced by Arnould and Thompson (2005) it was part of a strategy to create legitimacy for the outsider status of interpretive research in marketing. It was argued that interpretive researchers needed to be more pragmatic in their attitude. This was a fundamental change in the scientific culture in this stream of research. This paper analyse these changes and study how CCT represent a new and pragmatic attitude. It is shown how the changes intended by CCT can imply a shift from a focus on new groundbreaking research to an awareness of realpolitik consequences. This strategic move can be seen as an example of how scientific cultures try to move from a marginal position to the mainstream. The consequences of this attempt to manage science are analyzed and solutions to problems created by these changes are developed in form o...

Purpose-The paper aims to shed light on the potential of ethnography to provide a dialectical approach to modeling the process of branding as its focus widens from managerial to social. Design/methodology/approach-A critical approach to ethnography is adopted and implemented in light of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's ethnographic modeling technique of 'Participant Objectification' . Findings-The paper demonstrates from the customer standpoint-of a case of a grocery retailer-the ability of critical ethnography to dialectically model the branding process as an organic cultural whole, which envelops an intricate set of different, yet interdependent, social and managerial systems, functioning in a coherent and complementary manner. The empirical evidence is limited to the area of grocery retailing. Thus, widening the application of the technique in other areas would be desirable. The dialectical nature of the critical approach to modeling yields a rich multi-faceted view of the branding process that could help remedy the problem of detachment from complex reality, which has often been a criticism of traditional approaches to modeling in marketing. Originality/Value-The suggested dialectical approach to modeling expands the potential use of ethnography within the critical orientation to theory building in marketing generally, and branding in particular through elaborating the process of cultural construction from textual via participant observation to dialectical via participant objectification.

PurposeThis paper aims to shed light on the potential of ethnography to provide a dialectical approach to modeling the process of branding as its focus widens from managerial to social.Design/methodology/approachA critical approach to ethnography is adopted and implemented in light of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's ethnographic modeling technique of “participant objectification”.FindingsThe paper demonstrates from the customer standpoint, of a case of a grocery retailer, the ability of critical ethnography to dialectically model the branding process as an organic cultural whole, which envelops an intricate set of different, yet interdependent, social and managerial systems, functioning in a coherent and complementary manner.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical evidence is limited to the area of grocery retailing. Thus, widening the application of the technique in other areas would be desirable.Practical implicationsThe dialectical nature of the critical appro...

Buffeted by the twin forces of postmodern cultural shifts and momentous technological developments, the conceptual structure of marketing that had crystallized during the 1960s and 1970s is being strained. This article analyses the impact of postmodernism and of new information technologies on the conceptual foundations of marketing. Six main areas of challenge are identified. Cases that illustrate the technology-driven cultural shifts, affecting the very foundation of marketing, are presented. Key Words • business process • consumers • globalization • marketing organization • markets • modernity • post-consumer • postmodern 123 Volume 6(2): 123-162

The prosumer concept has become increasingly relevant in the current economy, necessitating the development of resilient and adaptive business models. Given the lack of a systematic framework for evaluating prosumers, the present study aimed to develop a framework of reference for assessing the roles and impacts of prosumers across various industries. Although this is not a systematic literature review, 2,500 papers were initially retrieved from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, and 67 were selected and used in the prosumer conceptualisation. CiteSpace software was used to map the prosumer literature stream. The content analysis informed the exploration of the origins of the prosumer concept and the development of a contemporary definition of this concept. Terms that relate to and/or overlap with the prosumer concept, as well as the nuances of prosumer engagement levels, were also analysed. Additionally, prosumers' place in the archetypal sharing economy, as well as their limitations and challenges, were examined. Notably, this study proposes a tentative framework of reference for prosumer conceptualisation and opens up new areas for exploration via a theory-based agenda for future research. This research offers unique contributions to the prosumer literature, practice and other related works because it comprehensively encapsulates and summarises all relevant literature pertaining to the prosumer concept and establishes a transdisciplinary conceptualisation and framework of reference.

An important contributor to the rising global prevalence of obesity 1 has been the widespread availability of cheap, unhealthy ultra-processed foods (UPFs). These are "formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, typically created by a series of industrial techniques and processes" 2 . UPFs are nutritionally inferior to unprocessed, minimally processed or processed foods, containing significantly higher proportions of free sugars, total and saturated fats, salt and energy density, and lower proportions of protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals 3 . They are affordable, hyper-palatable, stimulate repeat purchase, are aggressively marketed and branded, and highly profitable 4 . The evidence is now unequivocal that UPFs are a significant driver of obesity 5 , diabetes 6 , increased morbidity and mortality 7 . UPFs now comprise over half of all food intake in America 8 and Britain 9 , radically displacing healthier, less processed food from the diet 10 . Reformulation -the reduction of saturated fats, sugar and salt in food -has long been considered a strategy to mitigate the public health risks associated with unhealthy dietary patterns globally 11 . Food reformulation is perceived as a 'win-win' 12 because unlike other public health nutrition policies it has the potential to also benefit the UPF industry, as the focus is on changing the nutrient profile of a product rather than decreasing its overall consumption 13 . However, public health experts have argued that there are no such things as 'healthy' ultra-processed foods: replacing sugars with artificial sweeteners, for example, is not a strategy that leads to a greater share of unprocessed food in the diet . In order to assess the policy of reformulation, it is necessary to consider the system dynamics between

One question regularly recurs concerning an ethics of care, which is how it can be applied beyond the intersubjective relationship, or otherwise than within the caregiver/care receiver dyad. To the extent that it presumes affects, or an attentiveness to the particular or the individual, is it possible to show concern collectively and bring it to bear on an unknown other? This inquiry is generally approached through the prism of the institutionalization of an ethics of care, of its compatibility with the scale of the state and its logic of universalization. But the question I wish to address here is that of the market. Can care, which I will call concern for others, be deployed on and with the market? This is the proposition advanced by contemporary consumer ethics and the one I would like to critique in this paper. After drawing up a cartography of the objects with which contemporary ethical consumption is concerned, I will show that there is a vainness to ethical consumption as a critique of capitalism insofar as it centers on immoderation. I will then highlight what the market does to care by translating it into the language of prices.

Purpose– This paper aims to account for the crafting of the constellation of brand and consumer values around an everyday product, that of bottled water. This paper situates the exponential growth of this market in its historical and cultural context, paying particular attention to the fostering of the “social conditions of possibility” for this product in the French market. The socio-historical context and the interplay of stakeholders to the respondents’ understanding and uses of bottled water, highlighting the importance of a range of factors that made this market and product resonate with their requirements, are linked.Design/methodology/approach– This account responds to the call for more engagement with social theory in marketing and consumer research (Brownlie and Hewer, 2011). It also connects with recent scholarly pleas for a displacement of the consumer from the center of our analytic attention (Askegaard and Linnet, 2011; Holt, 2012). It does so by using the social praxeo...

PurposeThe role of the university as a site of social, cultural and political critique appears to be in terminal decline with the inexorable “commodification” of the university in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Yet, although scholars have identified the dangers of such a scenario, few attempts have been made to offer a pragmatic solution to preserve, or even rejuvenate, the university as an agent of critique. This paper proposes that a critical marketing education can take over this role in the academy where traditional critical agents like the arts and humanities are widely acknowledged to have failed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a historical‐critical approach, and conceives of “critique” as a heterogeneous, multidimensional amalgam of both business and the humanities.FindingsThe paper shows how a critical marketing education offers a pragmatic means of preparing university students to become active and critical voices of society.Originality/valueFew attempts have bee...

This paper conceptualizes political marketing as a field which needs to engage more deeply with the symbolic and discursive insights of critical theory in order to advance significantly beyond its current theoretical and empirical parameters. Although the marketing theories and concepts which have influenced this growing sub-discipline have been applied productively to the marketing of political parties (and, more broadly, to the processes of democratic governance), political marketing scholars now recognize the need to stretch both its theoretical and practical boundaries in order to promote a more inclusive research agenda. This paper reviews some of these concerns, analyses their strengths and weaknesses and proposes a 'critical turn' for the field of political marketing based on critical theories of consumption, production and difference.

As provocações deste estudo encaminham-se mais na direção de um debate que visa esclarecer problematizando. Dessa forma, um estudo baseado em práticas com teorizações foucaultianas busca analisar, não os comportamentos, nem as ideias, não as sociedades, nem suas "ideologias", mas as problematizações através das quais o ser se dá como podendo e devendo ser pensado, e as práticas a partir das quais essas problematizações se formam. Pensando essa condição existencial nas organizações, podemos considerar que ela é crítica ao reconhecer que os limites de saber e dispositivos de poder, sob os quais se situam a experiência do sujeito organizacional, não são imutáveis e sua própria experiência histórica aponta que os modos de organizar mudam e se alteram com o tempo. A escolha reflexiva pelo estilo de vida, ou seja, o trabalho contínuo de criação sobre a própria conduta tem o papel de questionar o sistema vigente de relações. Essa existência ético-estética também concede uma condição de experimentação, porque se submete à prova constantemente, estabelecendo os limites impostos à experiência como a própria condição de sujeito que tais limites conferem ao período em que se vive.

As provocacoes deste estudo encaminham-se mais na direcao de um debate que visa esclarecer problematizando. Dessa forma, um estudo baseado em praticas com teorizacoes foucaultianas busca analisar, nao os comportamentos, nem as ideias, nao as sociedades, nem suas “ideologias”, mas as problematizacoes atraves das quais o ser se da como podendo e devendo ser pensado, e as praticas a partir das quais essas problematizacoes se formam. Pensando essa condicao existencial nas organizacoes, podemos considerar que ela e critica ao reconhecer que os limites de saber e dispositivos de poder, sob os quais se situam a experiencia do sujeito organizacional, nao sao imutaveis e sua propria experiencia historica aponta que os modos de organizar mudam e se alteram com o tempo. A escolha reflexiva pelo estilo de vida, ou seja, o trabalho continuo de criacao sobre a propria conduta tem o papel de questionar o sistema vigente de relacoes. Essa existencia etico-estetica tambem concede uma condicao de exp...

Harlow Gale is often depicted as the first experimentalist in advertising thought. This positioning elides influences which impacted upon his thinking. In this article, we outline Gale’s involvement with psychical research and its implications for advertising. These narratives are
situated within a genealogy of subliminal processes across advertising and marketing theory from the late nineteenth century through to social cognition studies today. Gale’s connection with psychical research, in conjunction with early practitioner reflections on the unconscious, formed the enabling conditions for his major contributions to advertising. Psychical scholarship spotlighted the centrality of the “multiplex self” to human functioning. While psychical framings scaffolded Gale’s empirical, conceptual, and theoretical work, it also limited greater engagement with his insights. However, subsequent modifications of advertising theory and practice are underwritten by levels of continuity and discontinuity that
facilitate the identification of psychically indebted bodies of thought from Gale’s time to the present day. Taken together, these analytic associations provide a substantive reorientation of historical and contemporary accounts of advertising theory and practice.

Russ Belk’s work has been extremely influential (Ladik et al., 2015). While there are somepapers that engage with his ideas in detail, his 1988 manuscript on the extended self isfrequently an ‘obligatory citation’ (Belk, 2024). Becoming an obligatory citation might bepleasing for a moment. It is, however, a hollow genuflection for those interested in seeing their work critically evaluated in order to vitalise alternative readings and new research trajectories (Belk, 1989).

Introduction: Product in tourism "I think this is the main element here, that we have a human being 'living' the nature presenta-tion with the customers, together. And it is the local person. The customers have been truly pleased when they can ask the guide, like: 'Do you really live here?' 'Yes, ...

In this paper, we explore and extend the work of Daniel Pick. Pick articulates the ways in which the political and intellectual atmosphere shapes how we understand human thought. As a case in point, advertising and marketing have been influenced by theories, concepts and empirical materials that problematised the materialistic interpretation of mind. This is most overt in the debates relating to hypnotism and telepathy. To extend Pick's analyses, we engage with these areas, focusing initially on the issues of hypnotic and telepathic crime, subsequently outlining the activities of E. Virgil Neal. We maintain that it was politically problematic for marketing to enrobe itself in hypnotic verbiage and trace the relevant changes in the language used to frame marketing and advertising discourse. What Pick's writings and the narratives unravelled in this manuscript illuminate is the conceptualisation of the consumer as a porous being.

This article offers an historical account of the contestation surrounding MP3 and its legitimation as a consumer choice option. We juxtapose our narrative against the service-dominant logic (SDL) literature, which positions the consumer as the co-creator of value. In these debates issues of power and politics are downplayed. By contrast, we foreground the politicized processes that frame consumer choice options. Through a study of the legal disputes around MP3 and digital delivery services, we make a case that law courts provide the scaffolding for judgements of value in the market system. Contrary to proponents of SDL, value is not only a function of co-production between company and customer. Nor do all consumption practices acquire sufficient legitimacy to enter into legally sanctioned value co-creation interactions. This is a function of the ‘hyper-power’ practiced by the legal community and related actors, which constitute or deny value to product offerings. Value is not, there...

This article extends our knowledge of scientific marketing management and the reasons behind the emergence of the marketing concept. In our narrative, the banking community plays an important role in promoting marketing in the early 20th century. We illuminate this argument using the writings of Fred W. Shibley (1864–1944) and the theoretical resources of Michel Foucault. For Shibley, marketing advanced the interests of corporate financiers, shareholders and employees. Their profit focus was enabled through the marketing concept and accounting practices that mediated hyper- and disciplinary power. In this discourse, organizational relations reflected a pyramidal management of information through a ‘principle of omnivisibility’. These processes individualized departments and affected all employees. Importantly, these control mechanisms were seeded through ‘displacement’. This discursive move reveals a new dimension underwriting the promotion of the marketing concept and the pursuit o...

He wrote several macromarketing themed papers on social consumption and social class. After working at Shiga University for 12 years, he moved to the School of Commerce, Meiji University, Tokyo. Since 2011, he has attended and presented at some of the Macromarketing and ISMD conferences. His current research focus in on revitalization of rural areas in Japan and the history of consumption in Japan Nikhilesh Dholakia is Professor Emeritus, University of Rhode Island (URI), and founding co-editor of Markets, Globalization and Development Review. Dr. Dholakia's research deals with globalization, technology, innovation, market processes, and consumer culture. His current work focuses on global social and cultural aspects of new media and sentient technologies such as robotics and autonomous vehicles. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Cover Page Footnote The core ideas in this editorial are from the first editor. The second editor has provided general background and English language editing.

Invoking the Austrian School of economics, we argue marketing is a natural correction mechanism and hence, a sustainable and efficient function for ensuring an ordered society, encouraging good human behavior. We demonstrate the similarity between the Austrian School and Aldersonian Marketing and how both mainstream marketing and its critics, maintain a socialist orientation—the detrimental legacy of mainstream economics. We briefly cite the global lockdown as having served as an opportunity for marketing to demonstrate its natural function of encouraging good human behavior towards a properly ordered functioning society. We go further by tracing marketing’s true genesis to Catholic Social Thought, which the Austrian School is also premised.

This essay gives closer historical consideration to the unprecedented disciplinary impact of Belk's (1988) conceptualization of the extended self. This canonical article initially appeared to be another flashpoint in the paradigmatic conflict between positivist and interpretivist consumer researchers. However, Belk's portrayal of consumers as agentic actors who produce their own identities through a network of possessions and symbolic artefacts proved to be highly compatible with interdisciplinary trends toward a more holistic and socio-culturally situated understanding of consumer behavior. Accordingly, Belk's "extended self" created an ontological bridge between interpretivist studies of consumers' co-constituting relations to the socio-material world and consumer psychologists' quest to expand their research interests beyond the study of rational decision making processes. While some marketing historians have suggested that the extended self's seminal influence derives from its generative "vagueness," I propose that its transformational effects on the broader field of consumer research trace to a genius of mythopoesis and a genius of timing. I then discuss how the logic of ontological reconfiguration, manifest in Belk's conceptualization, can foster more synergistic and innovative inter-paradigmatic dialogues between consumer culture theory (CCT) and consumer psychology.

Echoing the shift in orientation from transactional to relationship marketing (Gronroos 2006), the debate over the process of branding has moved from a managerially closed to a socially open orientation (Pitt, Watson, Berthon, Wynn and Zinkhan 2006) creating a multidisciplinary intellectual puzzle. In light of the 'limit attitude' approach in critical marketing (Tadajewski and Brownlie 2008), this paper attempts to make sense of this puzzle through a critical examination of the evolution in branding thought. The paper concludes by developing a synthesis, through a constructed tree metaphor, which conceptualizes the multidisciplinary process of branding within a single organic (holistic and integrated) framework.

Some observations and thoughts about domestic and international interactions between marketing and economic, sociopolitical, and cultural factors are presented using Turkish examples. These interactions are discussed in terms of satisfaction of the needs (having, actualization, and social) of the three parties that seem to be differentially influenced by marketing: over-and underprivileged individuals, the society, and the businesses. In particular, the attention is drawn to the fact that whereas marketing has had mainly positive effects on the country's privileged consumers, the poor consumers have seldom benefitted. The author suggests a number of actions, to be taken by business and non-business organizations, that could increase the need satisfaction of each of the parties. Marketing, as a business philosophy and activity, and socioeconomic conditions and development are interdependent. The potential catalytic role of marketing in economic development has been widely examined

This paper extends the macromarketing debates on gender by considering how gender ideology acts as a macro-level constraint to developing sustainable initiatives. While the macromarketing literature has long considered the significance of social enterprise and nonprofits, gender has not been theorized within these studies. In redressing this gap we examine the case of the Uniform Project, spearheaded by disaffected advertising executive and enthusiastic social entrepreneur, Sheena Matheiken. Our critical interrogation of the project shows that Matheiken’s path to becoming entrepreneurial “woman of the year” reinforces a gendered model of social entrepreneurship. We also expose the role of media and the forums designed to encourage social innovations in gendering, thus stifling, a social enterprise. We reaffirm the importance of theorizing gender ideology in macromarketing and submit that any such theorization must recognize and account for the ways that gender intersects with neolib...

This introductory chapter provides a background to the Nordic wave of place branding and its impact on research and practice. The ocean wave is used as a metaphor in the book to emphasize the Nordic as a movement whose boundaries flow back and forth in time and space. The contributors in the book surf the Northern waves in different directions towards increasing the knowledge of the Nordic brand and its implications for place branding. Their contributions emerge from different understandings and ideals of Nordicity, which are used to frame place branding in various ways. The contributions are organized according to three themespoetics, practices and politics-which are introduced in this chapter. Nordic place branding is an emerging field of academic research and practice. The evolution, expansion, and geographical spread of place branding in the Nordic region has been studied in several ways and is echoed in recent journal articles and special issues. The strong focus on the Nordic region is evident in the study of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish cases, strategies, and processes, as well as in the researchers' country of origin (see for a review Lucarelli and Berg, 2011; Chan and Marafa, 2013; Lucarelli and Broström, 2013; Andersson, 2014). Similarly, the strong focus on the Nordic as ideological and socio-cultural construct is evident in the analysis of topics and cases that are not only peculiar to the Nordic as a specific academe (e.g. the interest in food), but also more crucially by the recurrence of similar topics and analysis which are translocal (across countries) and international (outside the Nordic). The Nordic is here understood in broad terms as an idea (Czarniawska-Joerges and Sevón, 2005), an ideological orientation, and myth, as well as a regional space in relation to which theories, concepts, and practices of place branding emerge and develop. The present book is a further step in the evolution, expansion, and geographical spread of place branding

The essay discusses the concept of postmodern marketing and its impact on marketing theory and practice. It explores the characteristics of postmodernism, including openness, tolerance, hyper-reality, fragmentation, and the lack of clear boundaries, and how they challenge traditional marketing approaches. The paper also looks at the contributions of postmodern marketing to consumer and marketing research and how it has redefined the way we think about marketing as a science. Ultimately, it raises the question of whether and how marketing should adapt itself to the new conditions brought about by postmodernism.

Marketing has predominantly seen tourism as a panacea, benefitting host communities. As such, the discipline largely overlooks the negative impacts of tourism development in the context of power imbalances, which bring about dependency and exploitation. This paper explores the genealogy of tourism development, situating the analysis within the socioeconomic and political structures that influenced development discourses in general, and tourism discourses in particular. In doing so, we claim that the development of social, human rights and environmental movements played a significant role in the birth of sustainable tourism and other related forms. These popular demands/grievances, however, were managed and repackaged in the shape of ethical, morally acceptable products without the structures of inequalities changing. Today, even this discourse has been pushed back as the salvation of economic growth dominates the development discourse. We argue for the return of the political, an analysis that incorporates power and hegemony in an attempt to develop a counter-hegemonic discourse, vital for a critical and progressive transformation.

This article illuminates consumers' views of marketing in light of theories of resistance. It argues that consumers engage in resistance to the power of marketing through their everyday actions and also through the ways they construct their accounts of these actions. It identifies three theoretical approaches to resistance (hegemonic, relational and autonomous). These are used to discuss consumers' accounts of marketing collected through 78 personal interviews in which participants were asked to describe marketing and provide examples of their experiences with marketing as they defined it. Through this, the study uncovers various forms of consumer resistance, which can often go unnoticed. These are conceptualised through the notion of everyday resistance to marketing and are used to challenge existing marketing theory and develop paths for future research.