Marketing as a response to paradox and norms in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

PurposeThis study seeks to investigate the interaction between marketers' strategic behaviors, social norms, and societal stakeholders within a particular historical time period, the 1960s and 1970s.Design/methodology/approachThe study's findings are based on an analysis of two dominant retail industry trade publications, Chain Store Age and Progressive Grocer.FindingsThe analysis reveals an intriguing array of strategic marketing activity throughout these two decades not captured in considerations of marketing strategy at the time. The retailers examined engaged in two interesting behaviors. First, they responded to a wide range of stakeholder demands in a paradoxical fashion. Second, as retailers were confronted with social norms, instead of conforming to these norms they worked to help influence and shape them to their own advantage. This examination of retailers' behaviors over two decades has allowed the authors to present an intriguing new dimension to the understanding of marketing strategy.Originality/valueThe study found that throughout the 1960s and 1970s, marketers appeared to be actively engaged in a social dialogue. Through this dialogue, they not only responded to norms, but also attempted to shape the norms that came to define legitimate behavior for the marketers. This kind of strategic marketing endeavor was not accounted for in the managerial school of thought that dominated marketing thinking at the time.

What Your Consumer Wants

“…Perhaps as a result, social research on marketing practices has been based almost exclusively on studies of business-to-consumer marketing. Among the few studies of business-to-business marketing, Handelman, Bourassa, and Cunningham analyzed the content of several decades of articles in two important grocery retail trade journals and showed how market actors come together around, frame, and respond to 'trigger events' like activists' demands and economic volatility (Handelman et al 2010, Bourassa et al 2012. Similarly, Cochoy (2010) analyzed the texts of one of these same journals and argued that their modeling of retail displays was a crucial part of marketmaking, indicating what he called a politics of performativity.…”

Marketing to the Big Middle: establishing Australian discount department stores

“…Theorists from the late 1950s onwards warned of the limitations of this approach and the opportunities afforded by engagement with consumer needs and expectations (Levitt, 1960). From this, emerged strategies such as product differentiation, market segmentation, product life cycle management and marketing mix (Smith, 1956;McCarthy, 1960;Sheth et al, 1988;Bourassa et al, 2013).…”