Merlo Understanding the “Crisis” of Marketing

UNDERSTANDING THE “CRISIS” OF MARKETING Omar Merlo, Gregory Whitwell and Bryan A. Lukas The University of Melbourne

Abstract This paper concerns academic debates on the relevance of marketing, by providing an investigation of the alleged "crisis" of marketing. The crisis refers to a decline in marketing 's strategic role within organisations, and has been discussed in different forms for at least two decades This paper provides a systematic analysis of the alleged crisis and, after carefully analysing the relevant literature, provides a categorisation of the symptoms of the crisis. This in turn provides the basis for an outline of research propositions that can be used for an empirical analysis of the alleged crisis.

Introduction As early as the beginning of the 1980s, marketing academics bemoaned an apparent decline in marketing’s strategic role (Day and Wensley 1983). In recent years, such claims have been made more stridently and with greater frequency (e.g., Day and Montgomery 1999; Doyle 2000; Piercy 2000; Webster 1997). Typical is Webster (1997, p. 49), who argues that, “for the past two or three decades, marketing has effectively ceded its strategic responsibilities to other organizational specialists who have not, until recently, been guided by the voice of the customer”. Such has been the decline in marketing’s strategic influence, Webster and others suggest, that marketing is now in “crisis”. This paper provides a systematic analysis of the alleged crisis of marketing. It examines and categorises the views of marketing academics on the major “symptoms” of marketing’s malaise, and suggests a number of research propositions. Furthermore, a number of important questions regarding the future of marketing are explored in order to discern the impact of the “new” economy on the alleged crisis of marketing. The paper is organized as follows. We begin by reviewing the marketing literature to uncover a number of key indicators of marketing’s crisis.

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