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‘We Are All Customers Now . . .’ Rhetorical Strategy and Ideological Control in Marketing Management Texts

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  • Chris Hackley

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper critically appraises the rhetoric of marketing management texts. Its interpretive frame is informed respectively by critical management and discourse analytic theoretical traditions. Its main data set is drawn from popular textbooks written for taught university courses but it also draws attention to similar rhetorical strategies in leading academic marketing journals. In addition, parallels are drawn with other popular management and consulting fields. In this way the paper attempts to mark out an initial topology of the ideological influence that is enabled and mobilized by marketing's rhetorical strategies. Marketing rhetoric often escapes critical attention precisely because it is platitudinous. Marketing management axioms have become slogans and the slogans have become clichés regularly employed in organizational, educational and political settings. But the prevalence of platitudinous rhetoric in management consulting schemes does not necessarily hinder their popularity or inhibit the deployment of their rhetorical/ideological strategies in other settings. Popular marketing management rhetoric is a special case because it positions itself not only as a prescriptive management‐consulting framework but also as a legitimate academic field. It is in the latter guise that the success of managerial marketing's rhetorical/ideological strategies has proved most striking.

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  • Chris Hackley, 2003. "‘We Are All Customers Now . . .’ Rhetorical Strategy and Ideological Control in Marketing Management Texts," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(5), pages 1325-1352, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:40:y:2003:i:5:p:1325-1352
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-6486.00382
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    Cited by:

    1. Ksenia Silchenko, 2018. "The other "meta" of meta-analysis: Qualitative and text-based approaches to "analysis of analyses" in marketing," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2018(4), pages 27-45.
    2. Canavan, Brendan, 2019. "Tourism-in-literature: Existential comfort, confrontation and catastrophe in Guy De Maupassant's short stories," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Michael B. Beverland, 2005. "Crafting Brand Authenticity: The Case of Luxury Wines," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 1003-1029, July.
    4. Ksenia Silchenko & Søren Askegaard & Elena Cedrola, 2020. "Three Decades of Research in Health and Food Marketing: A Systematic Review," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 541-580, June.
    5. Elizabeth Goodrick & Trish Reay, 2010. "Florence Nightingale Endures: Legitimizing a New Professional Role Identity," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 55-84, January.
    6. La Torre, Matteo & Dumay, John & Rea, Michele Antonio & Abhayawansa, Subhash, 2020. "A journey towards a safe harbour: The rhetorical process of the International Integrated Reporting Council," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    7. Fellesson, Markus, 2011. "Enacting customers--Marketing discourse and organizational practice," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 231-242, June.
    8. Ingrid Kajzer Mitchell & Michael Saren, 2008. "The living product – using the creative nature of metaphors in the search for sustainable marketing," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(6), pages 398-410, September.
    9. Lowrie, Anthony, 2007. "Branding higher education: Equivalence and difference in developing identity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(9), pages 990-999, September.

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