1,062 research outputs found
New marketing, improved marketing, apocryphal marketing: is one marketing concept enough?
PURPOSE â This paper seeks to explore marketing's ambiguous relationship with truth and, in so doing, to question the efficacy and value of the marketing concept and the very nature of marketing itself. Is marketing something that marketers do, or is it something much broader than this? If the latter, are marketers themselves either willing, or able to operate beyond traditional boundaries and, if not, should they focus â honourably â on what they do best, and encourage/support others who might market just as effectively, but in a different manner? DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH â Starting with a summary of recent developments in marketing thought this paper argues that marketers find difficulty in implementing the marketing concept, and that market-oriented compromise and pretence should consequently be abandoned. The thesis goes on to suggest that both âperformanceâ and the âpart-timeâ marketer should be given greater respect and allocated substantially more credence by all marketing communities. FINDINGS â The argument concludes, ultimately, that marketing could find both greater respect and effectiveness by focusing its efforts more on the extremes of âmarketing spaceâ, and that the presently envisioned marketing concept offers scope only for a dispiriting and partially realised evocation of its stated aims. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONSâ Marketers should take marketing more seriously. ORIGINALITY/VALUE â This paper seeks to add to current debates on marketing theory and will, hopefully, help inform ongoing exploration into the nature and role of marketing practice
Recommended from our members
Conceptualising 'value for the customer': an attributional, structural and dispositional analysis
Recommended from our members
Making sense of higher education: students as consumers and the value of the university experience
In the global university sector competitive funding models are progressively becoming the norm, and institutions/courses are frequently now subject to the same kind of consumerist pressures typical of a highly marketised environment. In the United Kingdom, for example, students are increasingly demonstrating customer-like behaviour and are now demanding even more âvalueâ from institutions. Value, though, is a slippery concept and has proven problematic both in terms of its conceptualisation and measurement. This article explores the relationship between student value and higher education and, via study in one United Kingdom business school, suggests how this might be better understood and operationalised. Adopting a combined qualitative/quantitative approach, this article also looks to identify which of the key value drivers has most practical meaning and, coincidentally, identifies a value-related difference between home and international students
Exploring the UK high street retail experience: is the service encounter still valued?
Purpose: The relationship between service quality, the service encounter and the retail experience is explored within a changing UK retail environment.
Design: Data was gathered from forty customers and twenty staff of an established UK health and beauty retailer with a long standing reputation for personal customer service. A qualitative analysis was applied using both a service quality and a customer value template.
Findings: Customers focused more on the utilitarian features of the service experience and less on âextraordinaryâ aspects, but service staff still perceived that the customer encounter remained a key requisite for successful service delivery.
Research implications: Recent environmental developments - involving customers, markets and retail platform structures - are challenging traditional service expectations.
Practical Implications: Retailers may need to reassess the role of the service encounter as part of their on-going value proposition.
Originality/value: There has been limited research to date on the perception of shoppers to the service encounter in a changing retail environment and to the evolving notions of effort and convenience
Recommended from our members
Marketing personality, relational intent and the propensity for non-disclosure: an offensive/defensive exploration of the marketer mindset
Recommended from our members
Everything flows: a pragmatist perspective of trade-offs and value in ethical consumption
The debate around ethical consumption is often characterised by discussion of its numerous failures arising from complexity in perceived trade-offs. In response, this paper advances a pragmatist understanding of the role and nature of trade-offs in ethical consumption. In doing so it draws on the central roles of values and value in consumption and pragmatist philosophical thought, and proposes a critique of the ethical consumer as rational maximiser and the cognitive and utilitarian discourse of individual trade-offs to understand how sustainable consumption practices are established and maintained. An in-depth qualitative study is conducted employing phenomenological interviews and hermeneutic analysis to explore the consumption stories of a group of ethically minded consumers. The research uncovers the location of value within a fluid, yet habitual, plurality of patterns, preferences, morals, identities and relationships. Its contribution is to propose that consumer perception of value in moral judgements is represented by an overall form of aggregate personal advantage, which lacks conscious reflection and delivers a phenomenological form of value rooted in habits, reflecting a pragmatist representation of value unified as a 'consummatory experience'
Recommended from our members
Itâs just for old men and children: exploring self-image barriers to cycling
- âŠ