Journal of Macromarketing

The earliest analysis of the socioeconomic foundations of the marketing system is found in a dialogue written 24 centuries ago by Plato. Describing the basis of society in terms of human needs, Plato addresses the most efficient means of satisfying these needs. A chain of reasoning is created linking division of labor to comparative advantage to efficiency in production to a rationale for market exchange. Plato further links the efficiency of market exchange to opportunity costs to a rationale for marketing middlemen. Plato's framework is extended to explain the nature and types of exchange, particularly commercial exchange, and their economic consequences and social significance. The framework is further expanded to analyze market transactions as a building block for constructing the aggregate marketing system. Finally in the enlarged framework, the market transaction as an expression of free choice is viewed as a social exchange strategy. Thus, Plato clarifies the institutional mechanism by which the marketing system links the economy to society and thereby provides a systematic framework for developing modern macromarketing thought.

The central position held by wholesalers in the Japanese marketing system has been viewed, varyingly, as a form of market control and system restraint. Compared to their Western counterparts, Japanese wholesalers play a decidedly more dominant and multifunctional role in relation to retailers and manufacturers. This article explains, through an interpretive historical account of events in Edo, Japan, how their special position came about and why it endured through the upheavals of Meiji modernization. The analysis helps new participants in the Japanese market appreciate the roles played by indigenous wholesalers and, it is hoped, profit from their multiple services.

While the bicycle industry has been recognized for its contribution to mass production in the late 1800s, it has not been generally recognized for developing mass marketing techniques to sell its products. The bicycle advanced the practice of advertising by developing competitive content, using images in posters, developing research techniques to determine effectiveness, and supporting a new media, magazines. The industry also developed new promotional techniques, including sponsoring racing teams and obtaining celebrity endorsements. It perfected the trade show and annual model changes. Most significantly, the bicycle of the late 1800s was marketed using segmentation techniques that have been thought to be of more recent origin.

Over time, a variety of arguments aimed at banning or severely restricting the use of billboards have been voiced. In response to these criticisms and threats of government regulation, the outdoor advertising industry became involved in self-regulation. In general, that has proven to be a potent force in responding to most antibillboard arguments. Objections based on aesthetics, however, have been enduring and have had the strongest effect on regulation.

Sixty years ago, the cornerstone of retail location theory was laid down by a German geographer, Walter Christaller. This article summarizes the subsequent central place literature and presents a simple "generational" model of theory development. It contends that the concept's evolution is explicable in terms of Christaller's other, less well-known, theoretical insight, the so-called "tourist" or "resort" cycle.

Knowledge of the Agora in classical Athens is available from architectural remains, artifacts (especially painted vases), and literary fragments. The types of retailers, goods and services sold, the attitudes of buyers and sellers, and buying influences are described.