{"id":683,"date":"2021-04-28T12:02:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T09:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/?p=683"},"modified":"2022-01-21T12:07:35","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T10:07:35","slug":"the-marketing-archipelago-a-reflection-on-how-we-understand-the-concept-of-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/2021\/04\/28\/the-marketing-archipelago-a-reflection-on-how-we-understand-the-concept-of-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marketing Archipelago \u2013 a reflection on how we understand the concept of marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Photo: Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If somebody would ask you to explain marketing what would you say? Those\nof you who are marketing students, scholars, or professionals probably have an\nunderstanding of what marketing is, grounded in your own experiences and use of\nmarketing. But marketing has some meaning for many others too, including\nconsumers. Here is the problem: marketing means different things to different\npeople. The end result is a diversity of meanings of marketing that we do not\neasily recognize but hinders communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some, marketing comes in size S (small): it is equal to marketing communication<\/em> managed by a marketing department in a commercial setting with the intent to acquire and keep customers. Earlier, this meant focusing on advertising campaigns, nowadays it is based on digital and social media. Marketing is in other words what the marketing department does. Some argue according to this view that sales is not marketing, neither are the other well-known Ps, product development, pricing and distribution (place) in Philip Kotler\u2019s Marketing Management book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, marketing in L (large) size considers marketing not as a function but more as a business perspective<\/em> positioned on a strategic level. This is how marketing has been seen at Hanken since I started my studies in marketing about fifty years ago.  Ironically, then it was the Department of Market Economy and we changed the name in the 80\u2019s to Department of Marketing to align with current thinking. Marketing in L size also comes in the shapes of service marketing and management, customer relationship management, business-to-business marketing; all of these still retaining the idea that marketing mainly has to do with commercial goals and interests, starting from business model design and corporate strategy. These perspectives have been the foundation for Hanken\u2019s research institute CERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketing is currently expanding its scope to a XL size: a responsibility\nperspective<\/em> where systems in many layers are in focus, sustainability and\nwellbeing are goals beyond company profitability and success and recognizing\nall the organization\u2019s stakeholders is considered essential. Transformative\nService Research has emerged as movement within service research to address the\nwell-being of individuals and communities, often recognizing those that are in\na vulnerable situation. Similarly, the American Marketing Association has recently\ninitiated discussion groups about BMBW (Better Marketing for a Better World)\nresulting in thematic sessions at conferences and special issues (such as the\nrecent issue in Journal of Marketing). In service and business marketing\ntheorizing about ecosystems are increasingly in focus rather than the focal\ncompany. Technology developments have inspired to broaden the perspective on\nmarketing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, it would be fair to put \u201cmarketing\u201d within citation marks to\nindicate that there is almost no shared meaning of what \u201cmarketing\u201d is,\nalthough the term is commonly used by many. Depending on whether you apply a S,\nL or XL perspective on marketing you end up in discussing completely different\nissues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be very practical: how do you describe to a new student at Hanken\nwhat marketing is and what you can become by studying marketing, how do you\nexplain marketing to those in organizations that do not have a formal marketing\ntraining, and how do you describe to those that have a marketing training that\nthe term is the same but the content has completely changed? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my view, based on my observations in the last decades, there is\nmetaphorically no single Marketing Island where all marketing people live.\nInstead, it seems more to be a big archipelago consisting of bigger and smaller\nislands down to skerries that barely rise above the water. The islands\nrepresent different understandings of \u201cmarketing\u201d, like business-to-business\nmarketing, service management, service design, branding, consumer behaviour,\ndigital marketing, customer relationship management, macromarketing, social\nmarketing; many populated by several scholarly tribes with different language\nand gurus. As marketing had a specific meaning when the concept was invented\ndecades ago the relevant question today would be: what is the essence of\n\u201cmarketing\u201d as a phenomenon today, and is marketing the most appropriate term\nanymore?   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps one way forward is to reconsider the American Marketing Association\u2019s current definition of\nmarketing from 2017,\nwhich is essentially a satellite picture of the proposed\nMarketing Archipelago; it might be\ninclusive but not very informative on the ground level:\n\u201cMarketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,\ncommunicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for\ncustomers, clients, partners, and society at large.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In increasingly dynamic\nenvironments where \u201cofferings that have value\u201d is a moving target and\norganizations continuously struggle to meet emerging challenges, a\nproactive exploration of new islands might be necessary. In practice this means taking the\nrisk of trying out new perspectives, conceptual frameworks, and concepts to\nunderstand emerging changes. Fortunately, CERS is an excellent home base for\nsuch expeditions.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tore Strandvik<\/strong>
Professor Emeritus, Hanken<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

If somebody would ask you to explain marketing what would you say? Those of you who are marketing students, scholars, or professionals probably have an understanding of what marketing is, grounded in your own experiences and use of marketing. But marketing has some meaning for many others too, including consumers. Here is the problem: marketing …<\/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":[15],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cers-blog","tag-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","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=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}