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On defining marketing: finding a new roadmap for marketing

Christian Grönroos

Hanken Swedish School of Economics, Finland

The American Marketing Association has updated its marketing definition and included value for customers and customer relationships in the new definition. Moreover, marketing is defined as one organizational function. Taking mainly service and relationship marketing research as a starting point, this present article broadens the discussion to a generic marketing level, and analyses the underpinning logic of the updated definition. It concludes that the use of these elements of the definition is not well founded in current research. Also, it shows that marketing cannot be treated as one organizational function only. Drawing on the analysis of the updated definition, a set of propositions regarding the scope and content of a marketing definition are developed. Finally, based on the analysis and this set of propositions, an alternative marketing definition, based on the promise concept, and labelled a promises management definition, is suggested and its implications for marketing research and practice are discussed.

Key Words: marketing definition • marketing theory

Marketing Theory, Vol. 6, No. 4, 395-417 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1470593106069930
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