From Marketing Mix to Relationship Marketing: Towards a Paradigm Shift in Marketing

Marketing ethics and social responsibility are inherently controversial, and years of research continue to present conflicts and challenges for marketers on the value of a socially responsible approach to marketing activities. This article examines whether or not consumers care about ethical behaviour, and investigates the effect of good and bad ethical conduct on consumer purchase behaviour. Through focus group discussions it becomes clear that although we are more sophisticated as consumers today, this does not necessarily translate into behaviour which favours ethical companies and punishes unethical firms. The article concludes by some thoughts on how marketers might encourage consumers to engage in positive purchase behaviour in favour of ethical marketing.

The myth of the ethical consumer – do ethics matter in purchase behaviour?

Discusses the nature and sometimes negative consequences of the dominating marketing paradigm of today, marketing mix management, and furthermore discusses how modern research into, for example, industrial marketing and services marketing as well as customer relationship economics shows that another approach to marketing is required This development is supported by evolving trends in business, such as strategic partnerships, alliances and networks Suggests relationship marketing, based on relationship building and management, as one emerging new marketing paradigm of the future Concludes that the simplicity of the marketing mix paradigm, with its Four P model, has become a straitjacket, fostering toolbox thinking rather than an awareness that marketing is a multi‐faceted social process, and notes that marketing theory and customers are the victims of today′s mainstream marketing thinking By using the notion of a marketing strategy continuum, discusses a number of consequences of a relationship‐type ma

From Marketing Mix to Relationship Marketing

The evolution of relationship marketing

Discusses the nature and sometimes negative consequences of the dominating marketing paradigm of today, marketing mix management, and furthermore discusses how modern research into, for example, industrial marketing and services marketing as well as customer relationship economics shows that another approach to marketing is required. This development is supported by evolving trends in business, such as strategic partnerships, alliances and networks. Suggests relationship marketing, based on relationship building and management, as one emerging new marketing paradigm of the future. Concludes that the simplicity of the marketing mix paradigm, with its Four P model, has become a strait‐jacket, fostering toolbox thinking rather than an awareness that marketing is a multi‐faceted social process, and notes that marketing theory and customers are the victims of today’s mainstream marketing thinking.

Keynote paper From marketing mix to relationship marketing ‐ towards a paradigm shift in marketing

Resurgence of Interest in Marketing Theory. The Era of Turbulent Transition. Framework for the Book. Metatheory Criteria for the Evaluation of Theories. NONINTERACTIVE--ECONOMIC SCHOOLS OF MARKETING. The Commodity School of Thought. The Functional School of Thought. The Regional School of Thought. INTERACTIVE--ECONOMIC SCHOOLS OF MARKETING. The Institutional School of Thought. The Functionalist School of Thought. The Managerial School of Thought. NONINTERACTIVE--NONECONOMIC SCHOOLS OF MARKETING. The Buyer Behavior School of Thought. The Activist School of Thought. The Macromarketing School of Thought. INTERACTIVE--NONECONOMIC SCHOOLS OF MARKETING. The Organizational Dynamics School of Thought. The Systems School of Thought. The Social Exchange School of Thought. WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED. Is Marketing a Science or, at Best, a Standardized Art? What Is, or Should Be, the Relationship between Marketing and Society? Is It Really Possible to Create a General Theory of Marketing? REFERENCES.

Dennis E. Garrett

Papers

Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation

Marketing Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings

Marketing Management : A Comprehensive Reader