Marketing in the age of sustainability

Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 26, Issue 7

Hedger G. Admap (UK), January 2010, Vol. 45 No. 1, Start page: 32, No. of pages: 3

Identifies four crises that have caused marketing to fall somewhat from grace, from its peak of influence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, culminating in the global economic and financial crisis (“credit crunch”) and recession and the pressing demand for a global rethink to guide marketing back to sustainability. Discusses the nature of the four crises, comprising: crisis of purpose; crisis of methodology; crisis of scalability; and crisis of theory. Explains that companies have pressed forward with unsuitable strategies, fearing the consequences of changing course, while divisions have deepened between traditional and modern schools of brand management, and between local and global strategies of campaign management. Concludes that the key to success lies in regaining an interest in people and their behaviour, and resources currently allocated to market research could be spent instead purely on ethnographic studies as a reminder that it is the consumers who matter. Article type:Research paper ISSN: 0001-8295 Reference: 39AE817

Keywords: Customers, Economic depression, Finance, Marketing strategy, Strategic marketing, Surveys, Sustainable development