The Market Today - Essay Example

 The Market Today Marketing is a core function that determines the success of any firm in the competitive market today. As organisations and the business operations advance, marketing as a function has undergone changes alongside the market demands and conditions. The entire marketing function today has been reduced to a societal activity. An increased awareness in consumerism has transformed marketing today from what it used to be. For instance, there are numerous advertising campaigns that indicate a postmodern perspective in marketing. The market today is characterised by numerous shopping malls all over the market, the development of new and captivating products to consumers, the increasing in price wars among producers and innovations in offering services to customers are all indications of a new market perspective, the postmodernist marketing era (Brown, 1993). Shopping today is characterised by binge shopping where marketers entice the modern consumer to shop their products in frenzy (Brown, 1993). As such, the current market is characterised by increased urge to consume not to satisfy a need by but for pleasure and in seeking identity as a postmodern consumer. Some of the significant changes that have occurred in the market over the time could be grouped into modernism, critical and postmodernism eras, which have put different demands on the marketing function, as a response to evolving marketing needs and business operating environments. This paper outlines the three eras with the various changes that reshaped the marketing function and the respective environmental demands from the market that precipitated such changes. Critical thinking represented a significant step in business operations where scholars and researchers studied the contemporary organisation in finer details to understand how productivity could be improved. Winslow Fredrick Taylor, a management consultant, mainly concerned with the ways in which the output of any firm would be enhanced significantly, first developed the theory (Simmons, 2008). The central idea behind Taylor's theory was to increase efficiency in the production functions within organisations. As Sedtke (2009) further explains, the theory demanded that work be divided into smaller movements that were highly regularised, resulting in a disciplined approach to functions at work. The result was breaking jobs into smaller sections leading to the separation of workers from each other and specialization of tasks (Tsukamoto, 2007). The critical thought theory in marketing aimed at dividing the job into smaller units and aligning these units to specialised skills by workers. In this regard, critical theory in the marketing function attempted to go beyond the explanations and templates spelt out in the traditional marketing theories in coming up with a more detailed reality and structures (Baker & Salen, 2010). Critical theory affected market communications, consumer behaviour and the development of green marketing ideology and amounted to rethinking the marketing activity. Researchers questioned the effectiveness of the existing literature in offering the right solutions to the changing demands of the market and the environment. In other words, in critical theory, scholars and marketers tended to go beyond the existing marketing theories and traditional approaches to ask deeper questions with respect to the market activity and whether the theories articulated the marketing function with the required depth and detail (Ellis et al. 2012). Critical thinking theory in marketing was precipitated by the lack of agreement in theories, philosophies and methods of marketing and management as a whole. As such, some academicians concluded that with the existence of the enormous volumes of ideas in different fields with regard to consumer behaviour, marketing ethics among other areas, there was a need to rethink marketing as a way to realign the marketing research in the future (Woodall, 2007). Though many theories in marketing are based on consumption tendencies and issues related to consumption in the market, there was a need to look beyond these issues to understand other trends such as knowing customers from a different perspective, understanding the ethical elements in visual representations and deconstructing lifestyles and how they affect the marketing function, in addition to analyzing consumption trends and practices semiotically (Skalen, Fougere & Ellesson, 2008). As such, the critical theory approach was a way through which researchers could go beyond the use of one-dimensional issues and the perspectives of existing theories and methods in marketing to ask more detailed questions concerning marketing without formulation of a complete marketing theory (Schroeder, 2007). In these cases, application of objective rationality was the main goal where everything was seen as equal and that the answer was correct despite the circumstances. The aim of such marketing based on critical theory was to have a solution for any problem in the workplace as well as having a unique approach that consumers could recognise the company away from static marketing theories. The concept of marketing first had it's current development in modernism. The period of modernism was mainly depicted as a highly progressive and innovative era and unfolded towards the end the 18th century and mostly happened across Europe in the 1920s as an artistic movement (Brown, 1998). Modernity was characterised by an attempt to come up with the rational science, absolute truths, develop rational sciences and accumulation of knowledge in eliminating the irrationality resulting from myths and religion (Brown, 1993 ). Modernism had its focus on the rise of technical instead of humanistic or socio-psychological factors (Engoholm, 2001). The main belief in the modernist era was that progress could only be achieved by extensive application of scientific research, achieving mass productivity and promoting industrialisation (A. Mills & H. Mills, 2012). Similarly, in marketing, modernism overrelied on marketing theories on which they based their decisions as perfect guidelines to achieve the required results. Rational thoughts were the key for humanity to perfect themselves and gain some degree of control over some causal relationships in the workplace. Largely, the modernist approach in marketing was rigid and had its main premise of mass production and hopes based on technological determinism (Clegg & Kornberger, 2003). Competition was key to achieving results under modernism. Firms were doing less to undertake consumer information, which was viewed as perfect and costless and hence the only goal of competition was to maximise profits in meeting a homogenous demand in a particular sector (Hunt & Morgan, 1995). The main characteristic of the modernist organisation was that firms tended to deal more with results or organised cases contrary to social processes that define a market, such as dealing with customers (Engholm, 2001). Considering that the main objective under modernism was efficiency and effectiveness, in the marketing discipline, a modernist manager could be only interested in making more sales with no regard to social practices that would affect the marketing activity (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006). Marketing in modernism was mainly based on the premise that marketing was an organisational affair with no impact to the larger society. Marketing activities under modernism observed not to impact the society, a definition that led some scholars to vehemently critic this assertion. Later the American Market Association retracted on its earlier definition of marketing and explained marketing to be a set of institution and professional that result in creating, delivering and communicating value to the customers, clients, parents and the society at large (Ellis et al. 2012). This was the best definition that captured the concept of marketing from a modernist to a postmodern market. Marketing in a postmodern era is characterised by the increase in awareness of consumption trends in the market. In other words, we are in a society marked by differences in consumption where the sense of identity among people is enhanced by what they consume (Tadajewski & Brownie, 2008). Importantly, in a post-modernist era, the business-to-business marketing arrangement lost taste with companies going beyond to reach the final consumer in a business-to-consumer arrangement (Ellis et al. 2012). A marketing approach that does not align the modern consumer with the market activity would be blamed for lack of customer loyalty and has lost tastes in the current postmodern market (Tadajewski & Brownie, 2008). Largely, a postmodernist approach is important in understanding today’s consumption patterns and the consumption behaviour of the postmodern consumer. Brown (1993) explains the major characteristic of postmodernism to be the preference of cynicism, incongruity, paradox, style, love for life spectacles and increased dissatisfaction from generalizations. To postmodernists, it is impossible to enforce command and rationality in the chaotic and fragmented reality in the market (Hackley, 2009). Rather, the best approach would be to appreciate and enjoy the diversity of human worlds and live comfortably with uncertainties with the belief that it is impossible to know the truth objectively. As such, postmodernists prefer chaotic and heterogeneous life marked by style and self-centred playfulness (Brown, 1993). Therefore, the postmodernists prefer to take a relativist approach to all issues such as mixing the truth and falsity, genuine and fake among others (Brown, 1993). For instance, today, advertisements are major artworks that demonstrate the extent to which postmodernism affects marketing. For instance, currently, reality shows such as the Big Brother and Loft Story portray the extent to which marketing research has become sophisticated and how organisations prefer to use surveillance and monitoring of the consumer to offer products that accord with their lifestyles and preferences (Ellis et al. 2012). The style and fantasy in most advertisements today indicate that a postmodernist consumer is appealed by the intangibles such as the brand name, images and the aspects surrounding the product and not the tangible value that such a product would deliver (Parsons & Maclaran, 2009). With this knowledge, marketers in postmodernism have capitalised on presentation of images as the best marketable entity to appeal to customers. Perception is, therefore, everything to the postmodern consumers. For instance, advertisers have continuously portrayed that by taking a certain product, one may actually achieve the unthinkable (for instance, the Cadbury ad), which presents a truth versus falsity case where consumers’ perception created by the advert becomes more important. The overreliance on appealing colours in images is also an attraction to consumers in the postmodern market. The concept of hyperreality characterises the postmodern market as a result of the dream world resulting from promotions and advertising campaigns in the market (Devinney et al. 2010). In addition to this trend, hypereallity is the creation of consumer fantasy that includes the use of themed environments in shopping malls and restaurants, use of computer games and other virtual reality platforms. For instance, an Irish pub in New York would be decorated in the Irish style to communicate its Irishness with such communication appealing to customers willing to experience the Irish culture (Parsons & Maclaran, 2009). However, as Parsons and Maclaran (2009) explain, despite the increasing modernity, the postmodern purchaser has a well-built sense of the past and its representation. For instance, companies are today launching vehicles that resemble vehicle brands of the 60s and 70s with some consumers preferring the old style. However, this is purely a way to experience the style and different experiences as a result of the aesthetic nature the product represents. Such consumption is purely for fashion and style, a characteristic that identifies the postmodern consumer in mixing styles (pastiche) and an indication of plurality in consumption (Parsons & Maclaran, 2009). Similarly, marketers such as Coke and Pepsi in their advertisements recognise the preference for the mix of style in consumerism and exploit this preference marketing their products to appeal to the postmodern consumer. Besides, style and fashion in consumerism, the current postmodern consumer is more aware of marketing ethics and organisational Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, than ever before. For instance, most consumers do prefer to use products processed through green technologies or products from companies that are environmental conscious (Devinney et al. 2003). Companies accused of contaminating the environment or processing unhealthy products are treated harshly in the market, with increased public court proceedings discouraging people from using their products. With this realisation, companies have come up strategic CSR campaigns to appeal to customers. An example is the Red Label campaign, which involved brands such as Gap and Giorgio spearheaded Bono and Booby Shriver, a campaign whose proceeds were donated to support AID victims (Devinney et al. 2003). Therefore, the ethical consumer in postmodernism forces companies to act ethically with the belief that such ethical policies would appeal the consumer to reward the company by using their products. Therefore, in summary, the marketing function has evolved over time from the modernism era where marketers had all their hopes on theories and frameworks, which they hoped, would solve all problems related to marketing. 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