MARKETING, EXISTENTIAL MALPRACTICE AND AN ETHERISED DISCIPLINE; A SOTERIOLOGICAL COMMENT

There are certain eschatogical academics who smash up marketing and its people and then retreat into their protected power bases, taking with them their vast carelessness, leaving others to clear up the mess they have made. Nonetheless, whilst not pretending to understand what these worthies stand for (as opposed to what they are against), the author has some sympathy with the eschatogical theme when applied to marketing. As T.S. Eliot (1934) said: “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” He may not have been referring to the kind of periphrastic papers that emanate from business schools around the world and which are largely irrelevant to and ignored by practising managers, but he makes a valid point which all of us need to take on board if we re not to see marketing as a discipline entirely sidelined in the real world of commerce. (Davis and Brady, 1993 and all that followed). The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief review of the state of the marketing domain and to set out an alternative model designed to put marketing back at the heart of organisational strategy-making. It is deliberately written in a ‘non double-blind-referred journal ’ style in the hope that these views will reach a wider audience. It is fully accepted that the art versus science, phenomenology versus positivism debate will continue, quite rightly, but this paper is not about such grave matters. It is intended merely to note some reflections after sixteen years as a marketing practitioner and twenty six years as an academic on why, following the white heat of excitement about the orgastic future of marketing in the Wills days of the 1960s, (Wills, G., 1976) it has today lost its influence in the corporate world, in spite of all our best efforts. So, what has gone wrong and what can be done to bring about a recovery