Marketing is everywhere around us. It is perhaps the
most visible aspect of business and even if not everyone has had the experience
of being a marketer, there are very
few people in the world who have not been exposed to marketing activities in
their capacity as customers. As a result, a common mistake made by students who
are new to marketing is they believe that they already pretty much know
everything there is to know about marketing (Celly, 2007). Exacerbating this,
for many third level institutions introductory marketing courses are largely
based on teaching a toolbox based approach (O’Malley and Patterson 1998;
Catterall et al., 2002; Hill and
McGinnis 2007) with assessment often involving short or multiple choice questioning.
As a result, a great number of students do not connect with marketing theory in
any meaningful way, and deep learning and engagement is certainly not fostered
(Celly, 2007).
Why is this important for you? Well, that all depends on why you are
studying marketing. If, like many people, you believe that the purpose of
marketing education is to prepare students for the world of work (Hill and
McGinnis, 2007), then you need to be confident that what you learn now, and how
you learn, will prepare you well for your future. However, it is not always
easy to know if what you learn now will be sufficient for the work you will
later be required to do. What we do know is that marketing managers of the
future will have to deal with extraordinary levels of disruption and change –
much more than marketers of any previous generation. They will have to deal with
rapidly changing technology and shorter product-life-cycles (Christensen and
Overdorf 2001; Gilbert and Bower 2002; Hill and McGinnis 2007). They will operate in a
complex, dynamic global marketplace in which consumers’ continue to demand increasingly
new, different and more meaningful experiences (Pine and Gilmore, 2011).
Knowledge of the past is unlikely to be sufficient to
deal with complex new issues as they arise in the future (Hill and McGinnis,
2007). Future marketing managers will, therefore, need to be able to evaluate
whether extant marketing theories remain useful, whether they can be adapted,
or, whether completely new theories are required. In order to negotiate the
complex marketplace, and make informed practical decisions, these managers will
need to be effective learners and thinkers in action. An essential meta skill in this regard is the ability
to think – in critical, creative and reflexive ways – and this is foundational to
becoming an effective practitioner in whatever capacity you choose to work
(Schon 1983; Catterall et al., 2002;
Cunliffe 2004; Paul and Elder 2004; Hill and McGinnis 2007; Hill et al., 2007). The ability to think about theory therefore becomes more important than the content of
the theory itself – because thinking
about is a transferrable meta skill that you can take from education to the
world of work. Mastering this skill is essential to becoming an effective
marketing practitioner.
This chapter first reviews the nature and purpose of
theory as a tool of thought that enables the development of reflexive
practitioners. We then introduce you to the rich and diverse landscape of
marketing theory and we revisit seminal debates that shaped marketing thought
and practice. In doing so, we hope to highlight the transformative potential of
marketing theory; learning from the past can lead to better future marketing
thought and practice (Witkowski 1989).