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The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical analysis of an important early contribution to the history of marketing thought literature – the six-book series titled The Knack of Selling – which was published in 1913 and intended as an early training course for salesmanship.

This research utilized a close, systematic reading of The Knack of Selling series and places it in the professional and intellectual context of the early twentieth century. Books published about marketing are primary source materials for any study of the history of marketing thought. In this case, The Knack series constitutes significant primary source material for a study of early thinking about personal selling.

Echoing A.W. Shaw, Watson offers a more sophisticated interpretation of the “one best way” approach associated with Frederick Taylor. Watson’s advice did not entail the repetition of canned sales talks to each customer. His vision of practice was more complicated. Sales presentations were temporally and locationally relative. They were subject to ongoing evolution. As the marketplace changed, as customer needs and interests shifted, so did organizational and salesperson performances. To keep sales talks relevant to the consumer, personnel were encouraged to undertake rudimentary ethnographic research and interviews. Unusually, there is oscillation in the way power relations between marketer and customer were described. While relational themes are present, so are military metaphors.

This is the first systematic reading of The Knack of Selling that has been produced. It is an important contribution to the literature inasmuch as this book set is not in wide circulation. The material itself was significant as an input into scholarship subsequently hailed as seminal within sales management.

This paper aims to introduce a special issue of the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing which includes autobiographical sketches by leading scholars in the history of marketing and consumer research.

A brief review of the (auto)biographical tradition in marketing scholarship leads to a commentary on the four accounts in this issue.

Highlights of the four portraits are presented and insights into their authors’ lives and careers are offered.

The authors hope this introductory article whets readers’ appetites to learn more about the four contributors whose careers and personal lives are explicated for their consumption.

The aim of this study is to explore the attempts by early twentieth century cyclecar manufacturers in the UK and USA to segment the personal transportation market and to position early cyclecars through the development of unique product attributes and advertising. More specifically, the authors speculate about early twentieth century British cyclecar marketing strategies that implicitly recognized a sports car segment and positioned cyclecar brands to meet the needs of that segment.

The primary source material for this research is a sample of 205 print ads and articles from the early twentieth century (1912-1921) specialty magazines devoted to cyclecars in the UK and USA. We combine the content analysis of the sample of ads with a critical reading and interpretation of a sub-sample of those same ads.

Between 1910 and 1921, a new form of personal transportation was developed that combined the technology of motorcycles with the utility of automobiles. Known as “cyclecars”, these vehicles were typically constructed from off-the-shelf motorcycle parts and assembled in small batches by a myriad of manufacturers. Current scholarship suggests that the cyclecar craze of the 1910s ended with the introduction of low cost “real” automobiles such as the Ford Model T, Austin 7 and Morris Oxford. We use the content analysis of cyclecar advertisements to construct a brand-positioning map of this emerging segment of the transportation market. We argue that while the core cyclecar positioning was in direct competition with small economically positioned cars such as the Ford Model T, a significant part of the market, primarily centered in the UK, could be considered as for sports cars. That segment of the cyclecar market, along with the development of cyclecars into urban delivery vehicles, continued over time and has re-emerged today in a range of three-wheeled sports cars, including the updating and continuation of the British Morgan 3 Wheeler model which was launched during the heyday of cyclecars.

The authors can only speculate about the impact of the Ford Model T in this study. Further research on that issue is needed.

This is the first historical study of cyclecar marketing. Most of what little has been published about cyclecars focuses on their design and technology.

This paper reviews autobiographical accounts of thought leadership in the marketing discipline and draws out pertinent insights for senior, mid-career and junior academics alike.

This narrative is based on a close reading of the pertinent material.

To be a pioneer in marketing takes considerable hard work, tenacity, serendipity, and a high tolerance for risk.

This manuscript can be used by junior scholars to legitimize the challenges they pose to more established colleagues. It helps contribute to the reversal of extant power relations in academic practice.

Increasingly businesses are using Facebook to communicate and engage their customers. However, there is a dearth of research as to why and how customers interact with businesses on social media in the grocery sector. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the roles played by online brand communities and social customers in the creation as well as the destruction of value.

Netnography was adopted as an approach to gain insight into the various ways customers engage with grocery stores on their official Facebook pages. Messages posted on Tesco’s and Wal Mart’s Facebook pages are thematically analysed and critical discussion is linked back to the extant contemporary debate on social media.

This study shows that customers respond to company posts for the following reasons: to communicate with the stores, to converse with other customers, to express their emotions, to share their experiences as employees of the stores with customers and to share their positive or negative actions with members of the online communities.

This study further highlights the role of social media in the co-creation and co-destruction of customer, consumer and supermarket value and builds contemporary theory and informs practice.

Retailers should use social media to enrich the customer experience by encouraging customer engagement, co-creation of value and responding efficiently to customer needs in real time.

This paper contributes to knowledge by uncovering the various ways customers react with the business. The social customer is both a curse and a blessing to Tesco and Walmart as they can create or destroy value for the business.