Naturally traditional or traditionally natural – exploring the concepts natural and traditional in marketing research

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to understand how current marketing research conceptualises natural and traditional products – products that strongly attract consumer attention and capture large and growing market shares yet remain vague and weakly defined by a regulatory framework. The analysis is conducted on systematically selected research articles published in relevant journals over the past two decades. The results show that the natural products are mostly defined by the way they are produced and the ingredients they do not contain, while no consensus was reached for the traditional products. Furthermore, not only is the concept of traditional defined by an unusually large number of themes, but the themes also vary considerably depending on stakeholder group from which they originate, indicating an inevitable communication problem between these groups. The results also show that despite attempts by marketers to link the meanings of the two types of products, the themes in the definitions of natural and traditional products are different and overlap only sporadically. These findings serve as a step toward creating better academic conceptualizations and a more specific regulatory framework for natural and traditional products that will reduce the likelihood of misleading business practises and confusion among consumers and researchers.