Marketing Theory

Markets have been argued to be of central concern in marketing theory; nevertheless, the representations that depict what a market is, and how it works, remain understudied. To remedy the gap, this paper takes a qualitative in-depth approach to observe the representational objects that market research practitioners privilege when describing a market to their clients. The organizing of representational objects into market representations is studied through Latourian translations and assemblages. Four distinct dimensions of market representations are identified: frame, content, purpose, and approach. Tensions arise within those dimensions when managers privilege representational objects regarding: the frame of the market (exchange or nonexchange), what to include in the content of the representation (actors or practices), what purpose will be accomplished (ostensive or performative), and how to approach what is assembled (internal or external perspectives). This paper disentangles assemblages so that market representations can be qualified.

Despite attempts to encourage music consumers in countries including the United Kingdom, France and United States to download music from legal sources, many not only continue to download from unauthorised sources but reject the very idea that what they are doing is wrong. Symbolic interactionist sociology helps us to structure these failed attempts to control this consumer misbehaviour. It shows us that opponents and proponents of illegal downloading have become locked in a battle over who can define behavioural standards for consuming music. This battle has come to a standstill as both sides have turned to the same economic imperative – that creators should be rewarded for their work – to justify their positions. Moving beyond this economic imperative, the article concludes, may mark a symbolic but ultimately hollow victory for proponents of unauthorised file-sharing.

As portfolio models have evolved in the area of business marketing scholars have turned their attention from traditional product-based and transaction-oriented portfolios to portfolios based on business relationship considerations. However, the conceptualization of relationship portfolios has remained vague, and the applications of these analyses in business practice are quite limited. In a parallel stream of studies, the Industrial Network Approach (INA) has increasingly explored the concept of relationship value and highlighted the need to take into consideration the interdependent and dynamic features of business relationships as well as the phenomenological and situational nature of value perceptions. Although judgements in terms of relationship value applied to a set of business relationships are foundations of portfolio investment decisions, the connection between the two streams of research has not yet been explored in depth. This study introduces five critical elements of relationship value stemming from INA that have important consequences for business relationship portfolio management. Developing the concept of Relationship Value Portfolio provides the foundation for a discussion about the need to integrate the two fields of research – namely, relationship value and relationship portfolios – into a more grounded conceptual framework. This framework allows for propositions to be developed, which contribute to enriching the theoretical debate on both streams while offering important implications for managerial practice.

This article examines the highly under-researched area of exactly how a market orientation can be successfully implemented within an organisation. Market orientation is the key strategic orientation that assists for-profit organisations achieve improved performance and can potentially also assist charities that play a vital role within society but are facing increasing competition. Utilising a discourse transformation framework to case study a charity that introduced market orientation as its dominant strategic orientation, thematic analysis identifies how management transformed the organisation via a three-phase process and greatly improved performance. The new dominant market orientation was aided by elements of other strategic orientations, particularly entrepreneurialism. Minimal articles have previously examined how management of a charity can successfully implement a market orientation. The article also introduces a discourse transformation perspective into the examination of market orientation and offers charity managers valuable insights to assist performance improvement.

The present paper offers a new and potentially useful approach to the development of knowledge in the fields of marketing and consumer research. Specifically, it reports a dialogue between a doctoral student (Michael N. Woodward (MNW)) and a recently retired professor (Morris B. Holbrook (MBH)) in which MNW and MBH debate the meaning(s) of various concepts in general and of the ‘consumption experience’ in particular. The presentation of this material in dialogue form – echoing the Socratic method but in a manner new to our own discipline – sheds light on both the relevant issues at stake and the rhetorical strategies of those who espouse somewhat different points of view.

This article considers the concept of ‘place’ in the context of place marketing. Following a discussion of the disciplinary antecedents of place marketing/branding, the article evaluates the concept of the ‘place product’, with specific reference to the construction of place narratives. In particular, contrasts are drawn between notions of materiality and realm of meaning as devices for conceptualising places as products to be commodified and marketed. This is illustrated using as a case study, a place marketing initiative in the city of Manchester in the north west of England. The implications of this are analysed in terms of three questions, relating to (1) what is being marketed, (2) who is implementing the place marketing activity and (3) how places are represented as a consequence. The article concludes by arguing that the place product should be regarded as a dynamic concept, composed as much from changing and competing narratives in and over time, as it is from its tangible and material elements.

Brand-management philosophy has recently expanded to include public and spatial contexts producing a cacophony of logos, slogans and events all aimed at promoting and marketing places. Yet, there is still a lack of understanding about how the brand-management philosophy changes when moving into and across places and in which way places change when affected by this way of thinking. Through a multi-site ethnography of three Italian territories, this paper applies a semiotic framework (based on the constructs of syntax, semantics and pragmatics) to interpret the interweaving of procedures, mechanisms and symbols that underpin the emergence of place brands. The enquiry reveals that each place brand is characterised by a specific level of integration (‘symbiosis’) between functional and representational dimensions. By recognising this interrelatedness through an ecological perspective that focuses on the connections among all the constituents of a place, the concept of brand ecology is offered to unpack the complexity of place brands and to reconsider the relationship between place branding and place marketing approaches.

This comment addresses the context within which markets have turned into purported panaceas to alleviate poverty and promote development. Expanding formal markets and rescuing the poor from the traps of informality is often seen as recipe to unlock the untapped energies at the base of the pyramid (BoP), turning individuals into budding entrepreneurs and aspiring consumers. But, so far we have failed to appreciate how the informal sector plays a key role in supporting the formal economy and providing a route for subsistence at the BoP.

As far back as the 19th century, the notion of a ‘social pyramid’ was critiqued in the social sciences as an inadequate and simplistic model of society. The model encourages the idea that those at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) are uniformly mediocre and the small number at the top overtly exceptional—social pyramid thinking not only tends to reflect differences in incomes but blends together other ‘traits’ such as talent, genius, values, practices and so on. Despite the disfavour in the social sciences throughout the 20th century about the notion of a social pyramid, the concept is now enjoying a renaissance in business, marketing and management theory in ‘frontier’ understandings of poverty in places such as Brazil and India. This article argues that the idea of vested ‘globals’ at the top of the pyramid (ToP) transgresses the concept of a social pyramid because India’s ToP engages with the BoP from afar, remotely and in ways difficult to trace. Crucially, it is not those in India’s BoP who are demanding of inquiry, but instead those at the ToP in terms of their stakes in India’s austerity and their lived distance from these austere conditions.

There are significant opportunities to learn from but also develop the literature on multinational corporations (MNCs) when analysing bottom of the pyramid (BOP) markets. This short review explores three potential opportunities relating to market making dynamics, knowledge mobilities and embedded power geometries. Each is explored in turn and helps reveal the complex questions that exist about the situated nature of both BOP markets and the activities of MNCs in these markets. The underlying theme that emerges from the review is that multinationals have the potential to shape in both positive and negative ways in terms of ‘trade not aid’ the development of BOP markets.

Over the last decade, there has been increasing recognition of the value of understanding the lives of people throughout the world who experience impoverishment. ‘Bottom of the pyramid’ is the term used to describe people living in absolute poverty who, despite economic limitations, can be ‘resilient entrepreneurs’ and co-creators of new market opportunities that result in win-win situations for companies and consumers (Prahalad, 2004: 3). A range of metrics are used to define and describe people living in poverty, and although these metrics help identify the neediest across the world, such measures exclude people living in developed nations where poverty exists on a large scale, but where welfare policy provides a safety net. In this essay, we discuss some of the issues for those living in poverty in both developed and developing countries and argue that this will lead to a deeper understanding of the consumption experiences of those living in poverty.

There are thousands of journal articles that concern themselves with markets at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP).¹ What is there to say that hasn’t been said already? In 2002, an article published in the Harvard Business Review (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002) brought to the forefront of business and academic attention a ‘missing market’ that was claimed to be lying dormant, ignored by international and multination corporations yet worthy of attention for its potential to contribute to both economic and social prosperity. The notion of markets at the BoP is concerned with providing the ‘poor’ in developing and emergent economies with access to markets. Prahalad and Hammond (2002) champion the needs of the ‘invisible poor’ to the marketing efforts of multinational corporations. Prahalad and Hammond’s (2002) assert that the poor as ‘consumers’ constituted a sizeable market opportunity but this view has been criticised. In this essay, we explore how BoP markets might be reconceptualising to better shape interventions that relieve poverty.