Abstract
I want to continue exploring the image of the consumer as a member of the audience at a performance, with another brief example of almost-but-not-quite, off-the-cuff marketing. Like the Dr Dre example in Chapter1, this one can be seen, on the face of it, as merely a minor piece of promotional fl air, perhaps the digital equivalent of P.T. Barnum blustering about his latest exhibit, or “Colonel” Tom Parker selling signed photos of Elvis at the stage door while the main man wowed the crowd in Las Vegas. The arch marketing chutzpah of both these iconic hard-sellers was unorthodox, but I think it would be wrong to dismiss them as purveyors of petty promotional wheezes on the periphery of real marketing. Likewise, the efficacy of Dr Dre’s intrusion into Olympic swimming and Oeros’ exploitation of a dud plug at the Superdome were probably over-hyped in the marketing trade press, but it would be similarly mistaken to dismiss them as outliers to the real story of marketing management analysis, planning and control. In fact, I’d argue that the role of communication in marketing has been consistently played down in the managerial marketing textbooks in favour of a much simpler, and less accurate, mechanistic model of the marketing process. After all, what is a market but a forum of communication? The interesting thing about both the Dr Dre and the Oreos examples is that picking them apart reveals layers of context without which neither initiative would be any richer in significance than a product fl yer blown down the street off the side of a bus shelter. The fact of creating
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Notes
For example, see Wired, http://www.techdirt.com/ articles/20130203/21125221870/oreo-wins-superbowl-adwars-with-timely-tweet.shtml (accessed 22.02.2013).
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/04/watch-oreos-snappy-super-bowl-blackout-ad/(accessed 5.02.2013).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014241278873249002 04578282360008085752.html (accessed 5.02.2013).
For a detailed analysis of Dichter’s work in historical context see M. Tadajewski (2006) “Remembering Motivation Research: Toward An Alternative Genealogy of Interpretive ‘Consumer Research,’” Marketing Theory 6(4), 429–466, full copy at http://www.uk.sagepub.com/ellis/SO%20 Readings/Chapter%201%20-%20Tadajewski.pdf (accessed 4.3.2013).
See http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/television/news/nielsens-charts.htm (accessed 10.4.2013).
See Robert Kozinets on netnography http://kozinets.net/ (accessed 9.5.2013).
I’ve also discussed this case in my advertising textbook, but the piece isn’t merely cribbed, honest–I take a different angle on it here: see C. Hackley (2010) Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Approach, London, Sage.
This is a comment often attributed to a Revlon executive and used in textbooks as an illustration of the way the marketing concept focuses on end-user benefit. Other similar illustrations include the alleged comment of a power tools executive that “We don’t sell drills, we sell holes.”
http://www.dove.co.uk/en/Our-Mission/Self-Esteem-Toolkit-and-Resources/default.aspx (accessed 4.3.2013).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U (accessed 22.02.2013).
This comment is based on nothing more scientific than my discussion with students while teaching in Hong Kong, and my observation of the poster advertising for the brand.
Dove “Thought Before Action” viral video http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=m0JF4QxPpvM (accessed 7.3.2013).
Quo Vadis blog, http://www.qvbrands.com/dove-rant/(accessed 7.3.2013).
This Huffington Post comment was one of hundreds, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/21/women-femfreshvagina-outrage_n_1616156.html (accessed 22.02.2013). This was another http://jezebel.com/5920297/intimatehygiene-product-ad-is-scared-of-the-word-vagina (accessed 22.02.2013).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/15/michiganpolitician-banned-using-word-vagina (accessed 22.02.2013).
The post is here https://www.facebook.com/Bodyform/posts/10151186887359324 (accessed 23.02.2013).
Bodyform’ s video response is here: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Bpy75q2DDow (accessed 23.02.2013).
Including this piece in the UK Daily Mail http://www.dailymail. co.uk/femail/article-2218920/Bodyform-viral-spoof YouTube-video-Response-Richard-Neills-Facebook-rantperiod-adverts.html (accessed 23.02.2013).
I’ve written more about this in, for example, C. Hackley (2010) “Theorizing Advertising: Managerial, Scientific and Cultural Approaches,” chapter 6 in P. MacLaran, M. Saren, B. Stern and M. Tadajewski (eds) The Sage Handbook of Marketing Theory, London, Sage, pp. 89–107.
See previous note for more on AIDA.
For the BBC News account of the story see http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/uk/1222326.stm (accessed 4.3.2013).
The collection of Adorno’s essays, The Culture Industry, referenced in Chapter 1, sets out a view of popular culture as a dismal, formulaic, and repetitive tool that sedates and controls the masses in the interests of capitalism. The idea of a postmodern culture industry acknowledges the vaguely unified interests behind mass media (which now include social media) but resists the view that pop culture lacks the ability of high art and culture to engage and elevate the human spirit with creativity. In Chapter 4 I touch on Guy Debord’s notion of the Spectacle of mediated capitalism, another slant on the Culture Industry thesis.
Fast Moving Consumer Goods.
For more on this topic, please see C. Hackley (2009) Marketing: A Critical Introduction, London, Sage.
See, for example, P. Svensson (2004), Setting the Marketing Scene: Reality Production in Everyday Marketing Work, PhD Thesis, Lund Business School Press http://www.lu.se/lup/publication/21565 (accessed 10.4.2013).
Also see B. Ardley (2009) a Phenomenological Perspective on the Work of the Marketing Manager: An Analysis of the Process of Strategic Planning in Organisations, Lambert Academic Publishing.
My Advertising text book has more on this topic, referenced in the previous chapter. Academic journal articles include, for example, C. Hackley (2003) “Account Planning: Current Agency Perspectives on An Advertising Enigma,” Journal of Advertising Research 43(2), 235–246. This and several others on account planning in advertising can be read in pre-print on my Royal Holloway research pages http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/christopher-hackley_bb78fbaf-7641–4f8f-87c0–57dc1b4db16f.html or my academia.edu pages http://royalholloway.academia.edu/ ChrisHackley/Papers
Notably Stephen Brown www.sfxbrown.com
For an entertaining and informative diatribe against the marketing concept see S. Brown (2003) Free Gift Inside, Chichester, UK, Capstone.
Late historian Roland Marchand has written of the ad agencies’ role in legitimizing big business in Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (1998), University of California Press. His more famous book, also dealing with the influence of ad agencies in framing consumer culture, is Advertising the American Dream-Making Way for Modernity (1992), University of California Press.
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Hackley, C. (2013). Marketing as Communication. In: Marketing in Context. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137297112_2
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