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The purpose of this article is to advance biographical work in marketing, to summarize the status of biography in marketing, and to illustrate the process with an example of a developing study.

The article is based on a literature review of biography and a brief review of biography in marketing; the article illustrates biographical research and writing.

The discussion introduces approaches for undertaking marketing biography, especially the challenges of developing information, assessing its quality, as well as methods for telling the story.

Biography is a “flawed process”. It is difficult to fully elaborate the scope of biography in a journal length article let alone apply the principles. Some topics are shortened, others are hinted at, and others are omitted but the discussion points the way to undertaking biography.

This article introduces contemporary elements for the development of marketing biography illustrated with elements from the life of E.T. Grether.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Conferences on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) from their inception in 1983 through 2007 focusing on the influence of Stanley C. Hollander, who co‐founded the CHARM conference and whose drive and determination fueled its growth for the first 20 years.

This study uses traditional historical narrative based on personal interviews, archival research, and content analysis of CHARM Proceedings.

The history of CHARM is described and Hollander's role in developing the conference is highlighted.

There is no written history of CHARM. This story is a major part of Hollander's legacy.

This paper aims to provide a close reading of Daniel Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman. It makes a case that many of the themes that Defoe engages with are consistent with later arguments offered by relationship marketing scholars.

This is a close reading of one of Defoe’s most popular texts, The Complete English Tradesman. It links this discussion with relationship marketing tenets.

Defoe pays considerable attention to key relational ideas, including the cultivation of a public perception of business honesty, the need to cater to customer requirements, treating the customer as the “idol” of the practitioner and undertaking a variety of actions to ensure that consumers trust the words and actions of the tradesman.

This paper highlights how ahistorical debates surrounding relationship marketing have been and calls for a return to the archives.

This paper supplements existing research that charts the implications for marketing thought of Defoe’s work, extending this via a juxtaposition of his writing with relational tenets.

The purpose of this paper is to be more than a book review essay on the work by Tadajewski and Jones, The History of Marketing Thought. It reviews the literature on marketing history and thought, and includes suggestions for additional research on that topic.

The research relies heavily on previously published articles and on databank searches.

A more complete time line of the history of marketing thought is presented. It is also shown that more biographical historical research is needed, especially on those pioneer practitioners of marketing whose legacy has influenced marketing thought and practice.

Knowing more about the history of marketing thought will prove useful both to academics and to practitioners. Biographies are also practical because we learn more about both the scholars and the times that have transformed this discipline.

The essay offers a brief but succinct summary of the history of marketing thought over millennia while at the same time reviewing a readings book on the topic.

Brand stories are often created around the company’s humble beginnings as an underdog. The authors explore the effects of who is telling the underdog story and thus draw attention to the nature of the brand source by differentiating between family and non-family firms. The authors expect that who is telling the underdog story impacts consumers’ attitude toward the brand in terms of brand authenticity and trustworthiness perceptions.

The authors conducted an online experiment with a 2 × 2 between-subject design and an overall sample size of 314 respondents.

Most importantly, the authors find that the family-firm nature of the brand storyteller significantly impacts the underdog effect. The positive effects of underdog biographies on brand attitude in terms of authenticity and trustworthiness loom significantly larger for family firms compared with non-family firms.

The authors find that the underdog effect is significantly stronger for family firms that tell the underdog story. Managers of family firms with underdog roots should take advantage of this finding by integrating underdog stories into their marketing concepts. The findings of this study show that the communication of a company’s roots can serve as a valuable tool to build and maintain a positive brand image and help to increase purchase intentions, which is particularly true for firms capitalizing on their family nature when telling the underdog story.

The authors combine research on brand stories using the underdog effect with research on the consumer’s perception of family firms, further exploring the role of the brand storyteller in underdog narratives, resulting in important theoretical as well as practical implications.

Previous work by the author has focused on examining the limitations of the marketing concept and its associated frameworks, processes and prescriptions focusing on a planned, strategic, linear, lower risk future for the firm. Emerging research has shown that such frameworks are now dated, despite being continually taught at business schools. Recent research at the interface between Marketing and Entrepreneurship has shown that, as a result of the inadequacies identified, there is hope for the entrepreneurial marketer (practitioner and academician alike) through the generation of alternative perspectives, and ultimately the formation of competing paradigms of marketing enquiry. Small firm marketing research shows that theories of networking, creativity, opportunity recognition and word of mouth marketing are much more valid in terms of their explanation and understanding of how such a firm behaves, rather than to endeavour to fit the square pegs of traditional marketing theory into the dynamic holes of the smaller firm operating environment. Drawing on alternative methodologies from outside the realms of marketing, this paper presents some thoughts on the merits of embracing the philosophy of researchers and practitioners in the arts and other creative fields in order to reach a more valid understanding of smaller firm behaviour.

This study aims to examine how perceptions of the globalness or localness of a brand affect the purchase intentions of consumers through the building of consumer–brand identification (CBI). This paper also explores the moderating effect of brand positioning (underdog vs top dog) on the relationship between perceived brand globalness or localness (PBG or PBL) and purchase intention.

The proposed hypotheses were tested in two experimental studies. Data were collected through a set of structured questionnaires and analyzed using PROCESS modelling and analysis of variance.

The results show that CBI mediates the effect of PBG/PBL on purchase intentions. Moreover, the findings of Study 2 reveal that participants show greater purchase intention for PBL than for PBG in response to underdog positioning. However, in top dog positioning, the difference in purchase intention for PBL compared to PBG is attenuated.

This research investigates how CBI influences purchase intentions of consumers in regards to a brand’s perceived globalness or localness, which adds to the growing body of international branding research. This paper also addresses the effects of interaction between brand localness (globalness) and underdog (top dog) brand positioning on purchase intentions. Finally, this study concludes with a discussion of practical actions that international brand managers can take to enhance the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

In the past three centuries in India, outsiders have dominated economic fortunes. Yet, for a brief interlude for two decades (i.e. in the 1830s and 1840s), the Bengalis from Eastern India played a dominant role in the modern business sector of the economy as partners of the British. The singular reason behind this phenomenon was the role of Dwarkanath Tagore (DT) in building multiple multiracial business partnerships in a myriad of businesses. This study aims to demonstrate how all of these activities were synthesized in an integrated marketing approach and how DT was the catalyst in forging these partnerships with the British East India Company and other enterprises.

A historical research method is used in critically examining the business practices of DT. Resources include a few biographies about him as well as several print sources, including several publications owned by him.

DT’s approach to an integrated marketing approach in the nineteenth century, involved the traditional production, distributional and promotional components, and he understood the significance of using all tools at his disposal to reach his market using these synergies, each reinforcing his main self-identify was that of an entrepreneur. He used forward integration techniques in running other operations, e.g. distribution, publishing, advertising and promotion of his products. His multiracial social networks for business and social activities are also identified.

This study synthesizes different sections of DT’s businesses and illustrates how he used integrated marketing to build an enterprising, profit-making business, which was good for both the economy of Bengal and that of the British East India Company and his other partners. The study also establishes him as a pioneering Indian entrepreneur and identifies major social networks with other business partners (both Indian and British).

This paper aims to be a reflection on the production of The History of Marketing Thought.

Historical review.

Marketing has been largely ahistorical. Hopefully with the production of this collection, it will become less so as students and scholars alike engage with the history of marketing thought.

Some possible limitations of the collection are outlined.

The major work articulates the value of historical research for marketing and management practice.

This paper reflects a personal perspective on the production of a collection of scholarly articles.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the connections between art and marketing in order to develop enhanced insight into how visual art and the art world can inform marketing theory and practice.

An indepth analysis of a range of relevant literatures is carried out in order to heighten understanding of art as a way of knowing within the marketing discipline. A range of meanings of art and marketing are considered and an analysis of their intersections is carried out.

A number of useful concepts are developed, including that of the marketing manager as an artist. Viewing marketing through visual art is seen as an avant garde response to addressing the continuing theory/practice gap.

Following an art‐based way of knowing in marketing has the potential to challenge more mainstream paths of thinking by opening up the ways in which we visualise marketing theory and practice. Thinking about marketing through art should not be seen as a general panacea for addressing current inadequacies of marketing theory, but should instead be viewed as an alternative mechanism in which contemporary marketing theory and practice can be enriched by the transference and juxtapositioning of art‐based thought with long established ways of thinking about marketing.

Artistic creativity is seen as a key factor in stimulating marketing decisions. Viewing the marketer as artist also mirrors the actual behaviour of the marketing manager by providing insight into intuitive thought processes and visualisation techniques.

Arts marketing research in general is making progress in terms of its theoretical and practical contributions to the wider marketing discipline. It is believed that papers such as this will contribute to the ongoing research agenda by stimulating much needed critical debate.