Editorial

Abstract

Introduction: mapping Australian marketing history "Marketing has never been a particularly well respected discipline in Australia", declare Roberts and Styles (2001, p. 106). Such indifference, they suggest, is a reflection of Australia's economic development and broader Australian cultural norms. For the greater part of its history, Australia's economy was driven by primary industries, and trade was primarily conducted with Britain. The relative lack of competition provided little impetus for innovative marketing practices. Over the twentieth century, increased tariffs for local manufacturers, depression and war-led austerity collectively resulted in the insatiable appetite of consumers during the post-war boom. However, this boom would also impede local innovation -although not completely as this collection of papers attests. The lack of serious attention being paid to marketing was also consistent with general Australian attitudes. Stating that Australians possess a "'cut the bull shit' mentality", Roberts and Styles contend that such cynicism has meant that marketing has been interpreted "as froth and bubble rather than a systematic way of ensuring alignment between productive capability and user needs" (2001, p. 107). With local consumers and industry leaders sharing a mutual scepticism of marketing's value, it is perhaps unsurprising that Australian marketers faced an uphill battle to gain respect.Scholarly work on the history of Australian marketing industries and practices has been relatively inconsistent -a situation that reflects marketing's struggle for recognition in Australia and the broader neglect of business history in Australia (Merrett, 2001, p. 103; Fleming et al., 2004, p. 7). It should therefore come as little surprise that no definitive history of marketing in Australia has been published. Of course, this is not to say that Australian marketing history has gone undocumented -far from it. Crawford's (2016) overview of marketing practices in Australia from European settlement in 1788 to the emergence of the marketing profession in the 1960s in the recently published The Routledge Companion to Marketing History presents an overdue starting point for scholars seeking to develop a more comprehensive account of Australia's marketing history, whereas Amanda McLeod's (2007) Abundance offers a more detailed study of marketing practices during the post-Second World War economic boom. Research on the history of marketing has tended to focus on more specific aspects of marketing practice, notably market research (