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A Brief History of Marketing—65-Years of Journey from 1948 to 2013

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Marketing and Customer Loyalty

Part of the book series: International Series in Advanced Management Studies ((ISAMS))

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Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the evolution of marketing, from its birth to the present day, and a description is provided of the current state of the discipline. The aim is to verify the current role of our discipline and to consider the definitions of marketing formulated by colleagues during its first sixty-five years of life for the purpose of identifying some gaps and schisms that have been detected between what is stated in literature and what actually happens in firms. This chapter seeks to clarify the situation, verify the state of play and offer a possible solution and for this purpose it: (1) analyses the evolution of the concept of marketing as reported in literature; (2) defines a leitmotiv that has evolved over time providing the relevant key words for each phase; (3) reports some elements highlighting the evolution of marketing; (4) considers the gaps and schisms emerging from literature; (5) lists seven situations that have undermined the validity of what marketing stands for/represents/proposes. In particular, some motives or reasons are given that have weakened, impaired and at times even nullified the possibilities for marketing to make a winning contribution to the firm. All these considerations have provided a stimulus for reflecting on how marketing can return to being a guiding light acknowledged in the company and make a strategic and effective contribution to the market.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the article quoted, Cova et al. report neologisms linked to different types of marketing traced back over the period 1985–2005, identifying 82 different words collected by the authors in a “list of marketing panaceas”.

  2. 2.

    A discipline has also arisen around this subject that deals precisely with the history of marketing (see Hollander et al. 2005).

  3. 3.

    Marketing is the performance of business activities aimed at and connected with the passage of goods and services from the producer to the consumer or user (AMA 1948).

  4. 4.

    Marketing is the activity, the group of bodies and processes for creating, communicating, transferring and exchanging offers that are of value to the customers, partners and companies in general.

  5. 5.

    On this matter, it is also interesting to present the results of the study carried out by Gamble et al. (2011) on the evolution of the concept of marketing from the 1960s to the end of the 2000s, according to which the main themes of marketing are:

    • satisfying customer needs/wants

    • organisational activities

    • exchanges

    • goods and services

    • organizational objectives

    • identifying customers’ needs/wants

    • customer profit.

  6. 6.

    Grönroos, Christian. “Service logic revisited: who creates value? And who co-creates?.” European business review 20.4 (2008): 298–314.

  7. 7.

    From an international point of view, the critical points may be even greater. On this point, Akaka et al. (2013, p. 5) have identified a series of complex aspects to which marketing must pay attention such as: “Issues with operating or expanding in foreign environments, Issues with moving goods across different countries, Consumer preferences across cultures, Intangible resources (e.g., brands, services), Convergence and divergence of communications and logistics networks, Emergence and growth of regional and global markets”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Mauro Cavallone

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  1. Mauro Cavallone
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Correspondence to Mauro Cavallone .

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Cavallone, M. (2017). A Brief History of Marketing—65-Years of Journey from 1948 to 2013. In: Marketing and Customer Loyalty. International Series in Advanced Management Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51991-3_1

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