Postmodernism and Marketing: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

Abstract

Postmodernism, as a philosophy and a set of doctrines, has made incursions into marketing. The incursion into marketing has given postmodernism visibility among marketing academics. This article argues that there is a need for a critical appraisal of postmodernism’s potential contribution to marketing. What has been written so far on postmodernism as applied to marketing tends to be peripheral to the key doctrines of postmodernism. In setting out the postmodernist claims, this article argues that while some of these claims may be defensible, most are not. Insofar as the influence of postmodernism has been benign or progressive, it is because it has dramatized and intensified criticism already under way of the claim that the methodology of the physical sciences represents the only way to certain knowledge. The downside of postmodernism is an untenable extension of this insight that would, if adopted by marketing, be highly dysfunctional.