Traditional Marketing and Critical Marketing - Essay Example

?CRITICAL MARKETING According to Stair and Stair (2008), we are within the marketing era, which is characterized by a radical shift from the previoussales orientation to market orientation – a paradigm that emphasizes the identification of what the consumers want and produce products according to these wants. (p2) But recent developments as highlighted by the previously cited emergent issues underscore how the “marketing-era” period have further evolved, ushering in new marketing perspectives. There are currently new logics in the field that characterize recent marketing practices such as the way intangible resources are integrated in the creation of value and relationships. An examination of this and other contemporary marketing practices reveals emergent issues that deserve closer inspection in the area of marketing as a discipline. A number of these have already attracted academic investigation but the most important include the advent of the so-called relationship marketing and the increasing focus on ethics and social responsibility. There is, hence, an additional paradigm shift, which is best examined through the critical marketing perspective. Traditional Marketing The traditional marketing mix is composed of the so-called 4Ps, which was introduced by McCarthy back in the 1960s. This doctrine explains how marketing strategies, plans and approaches are designed according to four marketing elements: product, price, place (distribution channel); and, promotion (marketing communication). According to Barker and Angelopulo (2005), the fundamental task of marketing is to combine these four elements into a marketing program so that efficiency in dealing with customers is achieved. (p139) For several decades, this traditional marketing mix, dominated marketing practices because it is aligned with the core marketing principle of consumer-centrism. By 1990s, however, new marketing paradigms began to surface. The usefulness of the 4Ps became suspect as new variables emerge, calling for new marketing models. Day and Montgomery (1999) explained that “with growing reservation about the validity or the usefulness of the Four Ps concept and its lack of recognition of marketing as an innovating and adaptive force, the Four Ps now are regarded as merely handy framework.” (p3) The development stemmed from the schools and lines of thoughts that were brought about by new practices such as relationship marketing, quality management, market orientation, supply and value chain management, resource management, and networks. (Vargo and Lusch 2004, p1) Specific examples that demonstrate the changing face of marketing today is how digital technology revolutionizes the way people behave, interact with each other and their environment and consume products. Social networking websites are cases in point. They best represent the emergence of the so-called digital community through the Internet, which serve as some form of online version of society wherein people live their digital lifestyles: wherein they talk with each other, forge relationships, buy their needs, look for guides and directions, and so forth. These websites introduced new marketing channels. In consideration of the previously cited factors, Vargo and Lusch were able to posit how contemporary marketing has become fragmented. What happened was that the traditional conception of marketing has to be set aside in order to accommodate the requirements and challenges such as those posed by the addition of services and other intangible variables in the marketing practice as the marketplace included ideas and cultural artifacts as products. This is in addition to the diversity in the roles of several actors and stakeholders in the development process such as institutions, ideologies, and the empowerment consumers. The dynamics of these new changes and how they call for new marketing models are best explained by a critical analysis of marketing. Critical Marketing According to French et al. (2010), critical marketing or the critical analysis of marketing is an invaluable tool for understanding how marketing works; how it impacts on behavior; and how it can be turned to social good. (p263) This explanation covers the far-reaching capability of marketing both as a discipline and as a commercial strategy. It does not merely explain how marketing is employed to create and sell products, rather, it provides the rationale for the claim that the discipline challenges and criticizes the relationships between liberal economic model and marketing practice that is why it assumes a social character. This is fundamental in understanding how institutions and ideologies shape marketing practices and how concepts such as ethics and social responsibility dictate a new paradigm, especially in the emphasis on the relationship marketing paradigm. The research aspect highlighted the critical perspective, which according to Maclaran et al. (2009), “can enlighten us about the connections and interactions of actors and their actions that together constitute what comes to be known as marketing.” (p140) Critical marketing, in the context of an analysis of the marketing phenomenon, allows us to understand how marketing emerge as a result of capitalism. In addition, it also allows us to understand the business philosophy typified by consumer domination. It allows for the contextualization of marketing practices, issues and activities. Critical marketing is also pivotal in predicting the future marketing trends because it provides the platform of epistemological inquiry. All of these are demonstrated in the discourse of the roles of institutions and ideologies as well as ethics and social responsibility in marketing practice today. Role of Institutions Unarguably, economic and socio-political forces affect marketing channels. A good number of academic investigations on this area have focused on the economic and socio-political structures and processes in addition to the general economic environment. Simply put, there is a wide recognition that marketing channels operate within a political economy framework in which the channel dyad is a social system that is highly susceptible to the influence of economic, social and political variables. (Grewal and Dharwadkar 2002, p83) From a critical marketing perspective, however, a researcher could expand this analysis further and highlight the importance of the role played by institutions through the analysis and comparison of marketing patterns. There is very little research undertaken exploring this theme. But those who assumed a critical perspective point to the manner by which organizations and institutions contribute through their regulatory and normative characteristics. Organizational theorists in their effort to challenge established marketing principles, for example, emphasize the importance of institutional environments because they are processes of institutionalization and mechanisms of influence that pertain to the legitimacy in a particular context. (Grewal and Dharwadkar, p84) The role of the institutions in this context is underscored in the concept of legitimacy. Suchman (1995) explained that it as a criterion in the evaluation of a value’s social fitness, is the “generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within socially constructed system of norms, beliefs, and definitions.” (p574) It becomes clear how institutional processes bring about rules, laws, standards, policies, certification, accreditation, habits, and precedence, among other related consequences. Grewal and Dharwadkar stated that they have the ability to recur by reproduction. (p84) Critical marketing can also explain how the role of institutions can be underpinned by the concept of ideology. According to Hirschman, ideology pertains to the ways in which a particular world-view or "value and belief system of a particular class or group of people" is reproduced through communication strategies such as normalization, universalization and instrumentalism. (Hirschman, 1993, citing Eagleton, 1991) Critical marketing perspective can demonstrate how institutions create or facilitate ideology through its regulatory, validating and normative processes and how it impacts marketing. It can also define the extent to which ideological products are disseminated by institutions such as political parties, religion, the media and cause-oriented groups. This is highlighted by Hirschman (1983), who noted that there is currently a resurgence of ideological products and that it is imperative that they should be examined comprehensively for better understanding of their relationship to marketing. (p46) Ethics and Responsibility Through critical analyses, marketers and academics alike are in a better position to understand how consumers are increasingly becoming concerned about ethical practices or malpractices of corporations, which influence their purchasing behavior and decisions. It forces marketers and companies to accept that consumers are susceptible to their environment and that it would be disastrous to ignore how such environment impacts consumer behavior. This is especially highlighted with the fact that marketing is inevitably tied to inequalities. Critical marketing enables companies to address these issues through initiatives such as the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. There is a positive consequence to this ethical and social responsibility trend. A long-term comparative study from 1984 to 2001 demonstrate how consumers has a less unfavorable regard for the establishment of marketing than has prevailed over the past two or three decades. (Gaski and Etzel 2005, p865) Out of all these issues and developments, the role of critical marketing researchers is highlighted. In the context of social criticism, such role is inescapably negative but, as explained by Murray and Ozanne (1991), it is an effective way to make marketers and researchers more fully aware of their potential in changing the world. (p142) Through critique, they are led to discover wider perspectives that engage and challenge, urging them to seek changes and reform. On Education and Research The educational value of critical marketing is important. Integrating the subject in educating future marketers can lead not only to better equipped professionals in the field but also marketers that are aware of the social importance of marketing as a strategy. Besides the ability to understand commercial marketing decisions, consumer behavior and product development in general, those students well versed with critical marketing could also make a difference in their communities. Maclaran et al., emphasized that they will be able to scrutinize marketing activities using the intellectual skills provided by a critical marketing education making them more likely to make ethically and socially responsible decisions, either in their own consumption or in their place of work. (p135) Building on this area – the increase in the “enlightened” and responsible marketers, there is a bigger possibility of a knowledge transfer on the wider public about what marketing is, how to distinguish the negative and positive aspects of it, among other marketing issues and apply such insights in their own behaviors and activities as consumers. This sort of knowledge, stressed Moisander and Valtonen (2006), also provides tools for public policy makers to elaborate, for instance, on what the market can and cannot do in community development. (p62) Academic interest on the critical marketing theme also demonstrates its impact on research. According to Hackley (2003), critiques “reappraise the ways in which practice and representation impose narrow values and reproduce narrow interests” and “questions the moral conduct of organizational marketing and management and attempts to put forward alternative agenda from the point of view of less powerful parties.” (p143) This is very important because marketing research has been consistently found to be prone to unethical practices. Hunt, Chonko, and Wilcox (1984) has outlined specific factors that impose on marketing researchers great pressures to compromise the fundamental integrity of their work. For example, there is the ethical conflict about balancing the interests of self and the company against the interests of other parties. (p319) Critical marketing has made it possible for ethics to be included in areas such as marketing research. Specifically, it has rationalized the need for a code of ethics that will govern marketing research to ensure its integrity and success. Conclusion Critical marketing has not only shown but also ensured that marketing has evolved. It has explained how marketing has assumed a more complex form, entailing an expansion of elements involved in its processes. Aside from the proprietary 4Ps, there is the addition of intangible actors, digital technology, among others, which reinforce the claim that marketing has become fragmented. The critical marketing perspective is also responsible for the new marketing models that place great emphasis on themes such as relationships and vertical marketing perspective. The latter variable challenges the managerial ideology in marketing, which is typified by the traditional hierarchical approach to responding on contemporary marketing issues. Furthermore, it is clear that organizations or its managers do not have the monopoly of control, especially on what message or meanings to impose. 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