The Identity Crisis in Marketing

Abstract

IN Conceptual Conflicts in Marketing, William G. Nickels reported that of 74 marketing professors surveyed, 95% felt that the scope of marketing should be broadened to include nonbusiness organizations, and 93% believed that marketing is not concerned solely with economic goods and services.1 These responses imply that marketing is something other than the official definition given by the American Marketing Association, something other than what is currently presented in most marketing textbooks, and something other than what marketing theory has yet been developed to express. In the marketing literature of the past few years, this broadened view has come to define marketing as the application of marketing functions or techniques to both economic and social, business and nonbusiness processes. The former pertain to the distribution of economic goods and services; the latter, to the dissemination of ideas, values, and programs of religious, educational, military, political, social service, and other types of institutions. The broadening of marketing to include the latter represents a shift of emphasis from economic to noneconomic subject matter, from physical to mental elements, and from entrepreneurial to societal activities. Wide acceptance of this viewpoint is evident in the survey. It is apparent also in current marketing literature, conferences, collegiate courses and, to some extent, in business practice. During the past 75 years many new, and usually broadening, concepts of marketing have appeared. Few, however, have gained the support that has been given to the idea that marketing rightfully encompasses such a diversity of activities. This change of viewpoint has occurred largely within the last 25 years, within scarcely two generations of marketing scholars. Some coming into the profession during this period may never have known marketing otherwise, having been educated primarily in its managerial, social, and quantitative aspects. Others may see marketing in a broader perspective, if not in broader scope. While normative criteria may be lacking to say how marketing should be defined, some profit may be found in a speculation as to why this viewpoint has come about and what its implications are relative to marketing theory, education, and practice.