{"id":571,"date":"2020-08-20T13:25:34","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T10:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/?p=571"},"modified":"2020-08-20T13:25:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T10:25:34","slug":"marketing-communication-needs-a-new-logic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/2020\/08\/20\/marketing-communication-needs-a-new-logic\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing communication needs a new logic!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My doctoral\ndissertation originated in my desire to understand the effects of the cognitive\nturn in the field of marketing communication from the late 1950s. Cognitivism\nsaw people as active, thinking, meaning-building subjects instead of as\npassive, receiving objects. The view of learning changed radically, and people\ncame to be viewed increasingly as builders of understanding rather than mere\nrecipients of information, knowledge and messages, as was earlier the case. A\nconstructivist view of learning displaced the previous behaviouristic approach\nto learning and teaching. The field of education and the school world are still\nstruggling to deal with the impact of this revised view of people. But progress\nis taking place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As for marketing,\nthe cognitive turn has become evident in the development of service management,\nservice marketing, relationship marketing, service logic and consumer behaviour\nresearch, just to mention a few examples. The fundamental ideas of the Nordic\nSchool were also influenced by the cognitive approach. Hanken\u2019s strikingly\nmodern view of people and business was one of the main reasons I applied here.\nIn fact, a professor at the Stockholm School of Economics suggested that I\napply to Hanken, despite it being 300 kilometres from my home: \u201cApply to\nHanken, they\u2019re really onto something there\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussions about\nthe scholarly home and theoretical status of marketing research as well as\nother related topics have been going on since the 1980s. I will not address\nhere whether they have adequately focused on relevant issues, but what is clear\nis that more and more attention is placed on the customer<\/em>. Value\n(co-)creation and customer needs are examples of this. Brand heritage and the\nactive customer in advertisements are other indicators of the modern view of\npeople. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence in the\nfield of marketing communication<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately,\ndiscussions have not focused on the premises and view of learning in marketing\ncommunication. My search of nearly 21,000 articles in the ten most cited\ninternational journals in the field indicates that silence reigns on this\ntopic. An author here, another there may make an attempt, but everything soon\npeters out in the black space of marketing communication. In Sweden in 2019,\ninvestments in marketing communication exceeded those in defence by 50%,\ntotalling some eight billion euros. Silence persists, nevertheless. Activities\ncontinue along the same path, without reflection or attentiveness to theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal of\nmarketing communication is to influence people in the market. Companies have\nlong strived to influence behaviour. To date, the dominant view on influencing\nhas been a behavioural kind: messages in the form of advertisements are\nexpected to generate<\/em> the desired behaviour. This approach continues in\nthe vein of the stimulus-organism-response model, even though it was deemed\noutdated over 60 years ago. Perhaps not everywhere, but almost. However, in\nmarketing communication, things continue as before. Nothing has happened. It is\ntrue that new channels have emerged, but the thinking nevertheless remains the\nsame. Another aspect that has not changed is that half of the money put into\nmarketing goes wasted. Which half is still unclear.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My research shows\nthat marketing communication is mainly carried out in the form of a message\nfactory<\/em>. Announcements are produced and published on the same bases as they\nwere over 120 years ago. Behaviourism retains its grip on the theory and\npractice of marketing communication. The field follows a message logic<\/em>,\nin which advertising agencies and the media jointly exert structural pressure\nover companies and organisations doing marketing. The agencies and media laugh\nall the way to the bank, and companies pay the price. This has been going on\nfor a long time and it will continue to do so if the views and expectations\nplaced on marketing communication do not change. The message logic and the\ndominance that behaviourism exerts over marketing communicators must be\nabandoned in favour of a more nuanced view of the communicating and learning\nperson. It is by no means a controversial idea \u2013 it just needs to reach\nmarketing communication as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a message\nlogic to a logic of learning<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One of the\nquestions is which view of influencing is relevant in this field. Marketing\ncommunication is part of marketing, the academic home of which has been placed\nwithin business economics, which in turn is an offspring of economics. This\nmeans that it is influenced by the natural scientific approach characteristic\nof economics as well as the strive in social sciences to find methods that are\nboth specific to the field and meet the criteria of scientific investigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, since\nthe stimulus-response approach and behaviourism have, essentially, been\nabandoned, it is time for marketers to take into consideration that marketing\ncommunication may also<\/em> belong to another academic field: that of the\nhumanities. The constructivist view of people has shown us that behaviour cannot\nbe triggered through stimuli alone \u2013 people are more complex than that. This\ncomplexity is something that the humanities strive to understand and deal with.\nWhat this entails is that marketing communication must nurture and master a\nsimultaneous existence in three scientific paradigms: natural sciences, social\nsciences and the humanities. Paradoxically, this ought to make life easier,\nthough not necessarily simpler. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a single workday, we would speak the language of economics, business, management, marketing and influencing. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It would mean\nthat during a single workday, we would speak the language of economics, business,\nmanagement, marketing and influencing. This poses certain challenges, but it is\nfully possible. We just need to accept that we have learned a great deal about\npeople and know that they are more complex than the former and present premises\nof behaviourism, scientific management and scientific marketing lead us to\nbelieve. We must also follow the cognitive approach, not only in marketing but\nalso in marketing communication, which will consequently be imbued with a\nconscious view of influencing and learning. Management\u2019s classic dream of an\neasy, simple solution to the question of influence in marketing communication\nwill be replaced by a conscious understanding of the communicating, influencing\nand learning person as well as the implications and consequences of this. We\nwill move from the dominant message logic to a revised logic of learning<\/em>.\nThe message factory can finally be closed down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be fantastic if we at Hanken could help students, researchers and business through our research, methods and education and in this way help marketing communication benefit from the reform that it rightly deserves. This would also help avoid any more squandering of half the marketing investments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sigge Birkenfalk
Doctoral student
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biography<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Sigge holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in education and a master\u2019s degree in economics from Stockholm University. He has also completed a degree in market economics at Berghs School of Communication, where he has taught subjects such as influencing studies, marketing communication and qualitative methodology for management and marketers for the past 25 years. Sigge worked at the SAS airline carrier for 12 years, as project manager in an advertising company for three years, and has together with his wife, Birgitta, run a company of their own, Communicans AB, since 1998. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My doctoral dissertation originated in my desire to understand the effects of the cognitive turn in the field of marketing communication from the late 1950s. Cognitivism saw people as active, thinking, meaning-building subjects instead of as passive, receiving objects. The view of learning changed radically, and people came to be viewed increasingly as builders of …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70,71,72,15],"class_list":["post-571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cers-blog","tag-communication","tag-company","tag-logic","tag-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions\/573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}