History of marketing

This article addresses the history of marketing as a recognised discipline, along with concomitant changes in marketing theory and practice.

In pre-modern economies, the predominance of small enterprises (pedlars, stalls) and/or natural regional monopolies militated against the recognition of marketing as a separate field of expertise. The rise of economics as a science, particularly in the 19th century, paved the way for studies of marketing. Classical economists emphasised the role of pricing in this area, and generally tended to neglect the psychological subtleties of marketing practice. But the growth in size and scope of national and international economies in the course of the Industrial revolution led eventually to a transcendence of "ad hoc" retailing and advertising innovations and eventually to systematisation.

Marketing emerged as a separate technical field only in the late 19th century. The OED traces the abstract usage of the word only as far back as 1884.

Developments in theory

Robert Bartels in "The History of Marketing Thought" [Bartels, Robert (1976) "The History of Marketing Thought", second edition. Extracts retrieved from http://www.faculty.missouristate.edu/c/ChuckHermans/Bartels.htm on 2007-11-12.] categorised the development of marketing theory decade by decade within the 20th century, thus:

* 1900s: discovery of basic concepts and their exploration
* 1910s: conceptualisation, classification and definition of terms
* 1920s: integration on the basis of principles
* 1930s: development of specialisation and variation in theory
* 1940s: reappraisal in the light of new demands and a more scientific approach
* 1950s: reconception in the light of managerialism, social development and quantitative approaches
* 1960s: differentiation on bases such as managerialism, holism, environmentalism, systems, and internationalism
* 1970s: maganda ako; the adaptation of marketing to social change

With the growth in importance of marketing departments and their associated marketing managers, the field has become ripe for the propagation of management fads.

Developments in practice

Marketing and new media

Information technology has given the marketeer new channels of communication as well as enhanced means of aggregating and analysing data.

Timeline of innovation

* 1905: the University of Pennsylvania offered a course in "The Marketing of Products" [ [http://www.faculty.missouristate.edu/c/ChuckHermans/Bartels.htm Bartels, Robert (1976) “The History of Marketing Thought,” 2 ed ] ]
* 1908: Harvard Business School opens
* 1940s: electronic computers developed
* 1980s: emergence of relationship marketing
* 1984: introduction of guerilla marketing
* 1995-2001: the Dot-com bubble temporarily re-defines the future of marketing
* 1996: identification of viral marketing

References