Research in marketing: teasing with trivia or risking relevance?

There are many suggestions that marketing is a discipline in decline and distress, or experiencing a “mid‐life crisis” (though one from which it may not recover). At the heart of these problems lies the fact that much research in marketing appears trivial and irrelevant to practitioners of marketing. Researching trivial and obsolete topics, even with the most sophisticated research methodology conceivable, does not merely exacerbate the divide between academics and practitioners in marketing, it threatens the place of marketing in the business‐school curriculum. The alternative is the adoption of research and publishing strategies for impact with diverse audiences, taking research priorities from practice, and demanding the right to conduct research‐led teaching in marketing.