New dominant logic of marketing: views of the elephant

Ambler, T (2004) New dominant logic of marketing: views of the elephant. Working Paper. London Business School Centre for Marketing Working Paper.

Abstract

The essay opens with a brief historic overview. Marketing is as old as commerce but the discipline only emerged in the last century to support a new manager cadre: marketers. Academics portray marketing differently not so much because marketing itself differs as because they see the beast from different angles using the spectacles of their own training and experience. Marketing is also context dependent. Differing practices according to the type of product being marketed may not change the underlying logic, only its appearance. Furthermore, contrasting goods versus services is a false dichotomy if most products have features of both. This paper suggests that the type of product only moderates marketing. Other developments, such as increasing choice and complexity, are also influencing marketing practice. So is the pressure for accountability. If the raison d’être of marketing theory is to assist marketers, then academia needs to provide tools to enable practitioners to be more effective within the strengthening financial ecology of large public companies. Brand equity, or whatever the marketing asset is called, is a key part of that. The question left is whether accountability, in shifting orientation from consumer to the firm’s cash flow, is a change in marketing’s dominant logic.