MarketingProfs' Members Register for B2B Forum 2010 for just $695! (good until 11/30) »

Ask your question ... sign up today! It's FREE!
Student Questions     
 
This question has been closed, and points have been awarded.
Postmodern Marketing?
Posted By: Soejmark* on 7/12/2004 5:02 PM (CST) 250 Points
I believe that postmodernism has a still increasing impact on the marketing practice, and especially advertising. Nevertheless, in theory we still find ourselves browsing through articles and textbooks from prominent modern marketing thinkers like Kotler etc.

For instance, many of the advices found on this page is indeed modern. Thus, I would like to start a discussion about the postmodern conditions that we are experiencing in our contemporary society, if you believe we are experiencing any.

Therfore, I adress the following questions: 'What do you believe to be the postmodern condition(s)?' and 'what are the(ir) impacts on contemporary marketing (or advertising)?'

Posted by: gavin.dowling* Accepted Answer
7/12/2004 7:46 PM (CST)
Hmmm.

I would say that postmodernism resists agreed universals and encourages more fractured, fluid and multiple perspectives. This makes the job of the marketer both easier and more complex at the same time. And certainly more interesting.

Easier because your target audience are not so hidden amongst the masses. They should be easier to identify and target because they "congregate" according to their interests and beliefs. Think just about the Internet and how it allows the marketer to talk to a much smaller but much more defined audience than any previous mass media permitted.

Harder because with so much fragmentation it can take a huge amount of research and understanding of your customer and target customer to actually nail 'em!

Postmodernism is many things and few are in agreement about what it means. I think one of its greatest impacts on society is an increase in irreverance - of the state, of norms, of everything. Informality, humour and questioning are the order of the day, no? This is just to kick things off.

Have a good day. Gavin
 
Posted by: Soejmark* Author Response
7/13/2004 6:00 AM (CST)
Hi Gavin,

Some facts from me on postmodernism…

Marketing has been more than open to – some say too open – to exogenous concepts and methodologies. It has long regarded itself as an integrative business philosophy, a co-ordinating function within the firm, and a bridge discipline between ivory-tower esoterism and the real world of the practicing manager. Last but not least, marketing has by no means ignored postmodernism – a small but rapidly growing group of ‘postmodern’ marketing academics already exists.
Nevertheless, it is not an exaggeration to state that marketing remains an essentially positivist or positivistic discipline (in that it seeks, as we shall later discover, the grail of universal laws and objective knowledge).


Many of postmodernism’s leading lights occupy positions on the far left of the political spectrum.

 Postmodernists tend to be preoccupied with the traditional Marxian concerns of the internal contradictions of capitalism, the class struggle and the need for revolutionary political change.

For instance, Jean Baudrillard asserts, that we have moved from a phase in the development of capitalism where the commodity-form was dominant to one where the sign-form prevails. Consumption, then, must not be understood in relation to use-values, as material utility, but primarily in relation to sign-values, as signification. In this context, postmodernity places emphasis on hyperreal spectacle and signification rather than ‘real experience’, and is thus, e.g. Firat & Venkatesh (1995), seen as liberatory for the consumer and frees him or her to construct his or her own symbolic world. Firat & Venkatesh also indicate that their liberatory perspective stands in opposition to Baudrillard’s pessimistic view which asserts that consumers lose their sense of identity and purpose in such postmodern hyperreality. Instead they find that (1995, p. 251):
“… postmodernism creates arenas of consumption which are fluid and nontotalizing, which means that consumers are free to engage in multiple experiences without making commitments to any … The consumer finds his/her liberatory potential in subverting the market rather than being seduced by it.”

Furthermore, Firat et al. (1995), for example, argue that we are experiencing a transformation from the modern to the postmodern era. Postmodern conditions tend to be hyperreality, fragmentation, decentring of the subject, juxtapositions and reversals of production and consumption.

I agree with you that we are experiencing fragmentation everywhere today. But I do not totally agree with you on the congregation around interests and beliefs because I see consumers today as persons with multiple identities, thus, as you say, it is hard to actually target them.
You’re talking about a huge amount of research and understanding of the customer (consumer) which I agree upon. Nevertheless, I do believe that this understanding has to be based primary on qualitative techniques instead of the generalizing quantitative techniques.

You’re right about the lack of consensus on the concept. And as Gellner, 1992 writes:
Postmodernism ‘is a contemporary movement. It is strong and fashionable. Over and above this, it is not altogether clear what the devil it is. In fact, clarity is not conspicuous among its marked attributes. It not only generally fails to practise it, but also on occasion actually repudiates it… there appear to be no 39 postmodernist Articles of faith, no postmodernist manifesto, which one consult so as to assure oneself that one has identified its ideas properly.’

References:
Firat, A.F., Dholakia, N. and Venkatesh, A. (1995), ``Marketing in a postmodern world', European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 40-56.

Firat, A.F. and Venkatesh, A. (1995), “Liberatory postmodernism and the reenchantment of consumption”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 239-67.

Gellner, E. (1992) Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, London: Routledge.

Yours sincerely, Rasmus Sřjmark
 
Posted by: srinivas* Accepted Answer
7/22/2004 10:56 AM (CST)
I believe that the post modern world has a rhizome like nature and the lack of centre can be seen in the way customers are constantly changing their responses to marketing impetus. I believe that the segmentations that marketing teaches has failed us and the there are increasingly a large number of tribes and behaviour of customers seems to be linked to proxemics and similar characters and the increasingly split market place will lead to increasingly larger number of marketplaces and a large number of tribes within the current consuming population.

Marketing is deeply positivistic in nature and as such it explains the market from such a position.Postmodernism on the other side laughs or atleast for now only mocks through parody and pastiche. As Frediric Jameson points out in his article of the Bonaventura hotel in los angeles, the customer is increasingly routed through the shopping area and out rather than an earlier style of avenue shops where there was a freedom of direction.Increasingly people shop in postmodern malls and are attracted to them. I havent yet heard of any marketer discussing architecture of the postmodern shopping mall and its determination on the consumer. I guess the only statement is of the architect who is in a way challenging the marketer with his building.

The success of movies like the matrix and books like neuromancer show a rapidly changing value system,consumers increasingly dependent of technolgy as well as fighting it and seeking an end in a postmodern answer to the villian- merging with it. well lets try doing something like Neo
 
Posted by: junkbox* Accepted Answer
7/31/2004 7:14 PM (CST)
From the perspective that postmodernism is described as post-industrialism, perhaps the hyper-fragmentation of the consumer is an indication they are increasingly rejecting the “commodity meanings” that industrialism has brought about through the consumption of mass produced products and services.

This whole week I have been studying the concept of “brand journalism” that Larry Light, the Chief Marketing Officer McDonald Corp has conceived. This is perhaps an attempt to address the hyper-fragmented market that postmodernism has brought about?
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
7/31/2004 10:24 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question since it's more than 2 weeks old. We do this to reward the contributions of participants in a timely manner + to give increased visibility to the newer questions.

Thanks, so much, for participating!

Val (Moderator)
 


Get more answers ... ReTweet this!

Would you like to post a response?
Welcome to Know-How Exchange!
This is a collaborative community. We welcome everyone's participation.
All you need to do is login. Enter your account info in the box above (top right).
Not a member? Not a problem. Register here (it's FREE and EASY).




Know-How Exchange powered by MarketingProfs


Sponsored Links

Buy a Link Now

Just Released ... Download Today!
Just Released ... Download Today!
Look inside
Included with Premium Membership
User Name:
Password:
Remember Me
Forgot your password?

Top 25 KHE Experts
(Student Questions)
W.M.M.A. (28840)
Carl Crawford (22363)
wnelson (20398)
Puru Gupta (19298)
Peter (henna gaijin) (18747)
mgoodman (15744)
Jay Hamilton-Roth (13995)
thinkmor (10987)
ASVP/ChrisB (10031)
Gary Bloomer (9758)
mbarber (9061)
Pepper Blue (8859)
SRyan ;] (8165)
Sanjeev Kumar Vyas (7310)
stevea (6301)
jose04 (5994)
NoStressXpress (5284)
bennydunreallycare (5043)
michael (5010)
bobhogg (4824)
MANSING (4819)
Michele (4712)
SteveByrneBranding (4652)
sham (4488)
telemoxie (4315)
Recently Posted Marketing Jobs
Director of Marketing and Communications
Demand Generation Manager
Marketing/Advertising Faculty
Director of Marketing
Market Analyst
Sr. Field Marketing Manager - Business Intell.
Associate Vice President of Marketing and Corporat
Marketing Manager
[more jobs]

Join over 355,000 members ... SIGN UP!

My email address is and I'd like my password to be .

Already a member? Sign In!

My email address is , and my password is .


HACKER SAFE certified sites prevent over 99.9% of hacker crime.