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Relationship marketing is now commonly acknowledged as an alternative marketing paradigm. However, despite the use of the relationship metaphor in marketing contexts for many years, recently there have been criticisms of this cross‐fertilization of theory into consumer marketing contexts. The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it attempts to explore and elucidate how consumers' assessments of the extent of intimacy between themselves and their service providers affect their interpretation of relational ties. A second aim is that it will generate insights into consumer attitudes towards relationship marketing.

Taking an exploratory approach and using qualitative methods to allow for depth of research, this paper uses 30 semi‐structured interviews with consumers to investigate the role of intimacy in service relationships.

The findings reveal five forms of intimacy; no relationship, social intimacy, physical intimacy, emotional/psychological intimacy and sexual intimacy.

This is a qualitative study, now that some insight of the relevance of intimacy in relationship marketing has been gained, testing a model of the framework using quantitative analysis in order to make wider assertions would be beneficial.

This paper demonstrates that organizations need to be able to facilitate multiple approaches to customers. They need to be able to allow customers to engage with them, should the customers wish to do so but also allow the customers to opt out of relational interactions.

Scant research has explored the role of intimacy in service relationships; this study addresses that gap in the literature.

Given the dramatic changes in the business environment, the purpose of the paper is to stimulate readers to challenge their mental models of business and industrial marketing, and consider the implications of the blurring of the lines between industrial and consumer marketing.

The paper is a reflection on the evolution of the discipline of industrial marketing since the author's first publication in this area 40 years ago, and an analysis of the impact on this discipline of five interrelated forces of change including: the convergence of B2B and B2C driven by the advances in the internet and rise of small businesses; the prevalence of outsourcing and creation of value networks across firms and countries; the opening of corporate R&D, manufacturing and marketing to the involvement of empowered customers; bridging the functional silos within the firm; and the movement from an “industrial” to a “knowledge” based society and the blurring of products, services, and customer experience.

The lines between consumer and business marketing are increasingly blurred by new technologies and business models. Researchers and practitioners need to re‐examine their mental models of business and industrial marketing in light of these changes.

The blurring of the lines has many implications, including moving from focusing on buyers to stakeholders, recognizing new forms of relationships with empowered consumers, re‐examining the role of outsourcing, bridging disciplinary silos, recognizing the importance of brand equity, utilizing information and communications technology, focusing on the total customer experience, addressing emerging markets, re‐examining the role of marketing research and modeling, and rethinking the use of dashboards. By recognizing these changes, one can build upon the foundation of the field to develop innovative approaches to both business and consumer markets.

A call to debate the need to redefine and rethink the discipline, and even rethink the title and focus of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.

Arguing that increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is shifting market power from suppliers to consumers, the ensuing consumer empowerment is presented as an unintended consequence of marketing. Marketing implications arising from this consumer empowerment are examined in terms of a process where control and management by suppliers over consumer access and enablement are increasingly difficult.

Consumer empowerment is examined historically, using quality gap analysis to capture an ongoing power struggle between consumers and suppliers. This draws out the limitations of current marketing and management strategies. The different forms of marketing challenges in this new environment are discussed.

The role of marketing strategies in fostering controlled consumer empowerment is reflected in the development of information‐based consumer‐centric marketing strategies that seek to enable and control delegation. In designing such strategies, consumers' familiarity with and use of ICT are both strengthened and widened, emphasising the uncontrolled nature of the consumer empowerment process.

The approach is literature‐based, focussing on the ICT enabled process. It does not address the psychology of empowerment. Since, consumer empowerment may imply switching suppliers in search of better value propositions, business cannot afford to ignore it, justifying the need for further research of both elements.

Marketing strategy rests on a control premise and the analysis of the consumer empowerment process implies that current customer‐centric strategies are operating under a false premise. There is a need to regain control over the marketing process, that is, to either manage the technological empowerment of consumers, or to devise new strategies cognisant of the possibility that such technological empowerment cannot be managed. The valuation of consumer loyalty in this environment rises significantly.

An historical perspective to consumer empowerment exposes the tensions between suppliers and consumers arising from ICT usage. A separation of consumer access and enablement from control and management by suppliers is shown to have important marketing strategy design implications.

This chapter examines the concept of dual marketing using Quelch's tools for marketing to individual and business customers. The benefits, opportunities and risks involved in the practice of dual marketing in emerging economies are discussed. The need for organisations to strategically utilise dual marketing to satisfy both categories of customers is further illustrated.

This chapter describes the main issues in scientific literature related to industrial branding. First, we set the background focusing on industrial branding, followed by brand equity and measurement, and brand orientation in business markets. The second section relies on controversies and problems inherent in the gaps in theory and implementation of branding. The third section proposes several solutions and recommendations for academics and practitioners, followed by proposals for future research directions and conclusions. We also present a case study and several case questions arising.

The paper aims to analyse the relationship between marketing and entrepreneurship. It looks at the way in which Web 2.0 technologies are changing the marketing and entrepreneurial landscapes.

The paper explores the impact of Web 2.0 social media for entrepreneurial marketing. It looks at social media as a marketing tool and considers the positive and negative effects it has for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Web 2.0 plays a central part in the functioning and delivery of marketing and entrepreneurship. It empowers individual consumers and provides additional communication channels for comment, feedback, and involvement in shaping product and service development and experience. It is also a tool for human empowerment, liberation and advancing the cause of freedom, including the freedom to start a business.

The paper discusses issues of “real‐world” relevance, which entrepreneurs, small business owners and marketing practitioners can use to inform and develop their practice. It argues that Web 2.0 can be used to liberate and further emancipate consumers and further the cause of entrepreneurship.

The paper aims to investigate the value of a network perspective in enhancing the understanding of the business to consumer marketing of high‐involvement product categories. This is achieved through the analysis of the development of fair trade marketing in the UK.

The paper addresses the research question through an analysis of relevant literatures from both marketing and other disciplinary areas. The paper is thus multidisciplinary in nature. Findings from a series of in depth, semi‐structured interviews with senior representatives of a fair trade wholesaler, of a specialist fair trade brand, of supermarket retailers involved with fair trade and of other fair trade labelling and support organisations are reported and discussed.

The relevance of an actor network theory (ANT) informed interpretation of the development of the fair trade marketing network is revealed. Its emphases on the processes of exchange and the role of human and non‐human actants in enabling interactions within the network are shown to be important. fair trade marketing is shown as occurring within an unfolding network of information exchanges. Analysis of this emerging network highlights a shift of emphasis in fair trade marketing from the fair trade process to fair trade products and, latterly, fair trade places.

The paper highlights the requirement for further conceptualisation of the business to consumer marketing of high‐involvement product categories, and reveals the potential of ANT as one approach to meet this need. The paper also provides a detailed insight into the development of fair trade marketing in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that firms need to reconsider application of the conventional marketing mix at the bottom of pyramid (BOP) because variables exist that impact differently on the interaction between firms and consumers at the BOP.

A mixture of qualitative data collection methods was used comprising multiple case studies using in‐depth, one‐to‐one interviews and ethnographic observations.

Key findings include the identification of social networks as an intervening variable for firms to consider when implementing the marketing mix at the BOP and the need for continuous consultative interaction between firms and customers which is facilitated by social networks.

Firms in the sample used for research were confined to those in the fast‐moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. The research was also restricted to Zimbabwe. Generalisation could be enhanced by using a larger sample of firms drawn from different product and service categories that catered for the BOP in a number of different countries.

Findings from the study provide practical insights for marketing managers to consider when developing a marketing mix to serve the BOP. Primarily, managers could implement a variety of strategies to enhance the way they engage with customers in the BOP market.

The study provides insights into how firms can improve livelihoods of those at the BOP by providing employment and business opportunities through their partnerships with social networks.

The paper expands research agenda of the relatively new area of the BOP. By focusing on a BOP market in Africa, the research expands existing knowledge beyond previous areas of focus in Asia and Latin America.

This study seeks to investigate the interaction between marketers' strategic behaviors, social norms, and societal stakeholders within a particular historical time period, the 1960s and 1970s.

The study's findings are based on an analysis of two dominant retail industry trade publications, Chain Store Age and Progressive Grocer.

The analysis reveals an intriguing array of strategic marketing activity throughout these two decades not captured in considerations of marketing strategy at the time. The retailers examined engaged in two interesting behaviors. First, they responded to a wide range of stakeholder demands in a paradoxical fashion. Second, as retailers were confronted with social norms, instead of conforming to these norms they worked to help influence and shape them to their own advantage. This examination of retailers' behaviors over two decades has allowed the authors to present an intriguing new dimension to the understanding of marketing strategy.

The study found that throughout the 1960s and 1970s, marketers appeared to be actively engaged in a social dialogue. Through this dialogue, they not only responded to norms, but also attempted to shape the norms that came to define legitimate behavior for the marketers. This kind of strategic marketing endeavor was not accounted for in the managerial school of thought that dominated marketing thinking at the time.

Argues that relationship marketing is not a complete paradigm shift. Without effective use of technology, relationship marketing is not an effective strategy. Hence, relationship marketing, based on technological advances, can be considered as a new paradigm. It is demonstrated that everything companies do to build consumer loyalty is affected by technology. It is shown that traditional, relationship, and technologicalship marketing are fundamentally different. The technologicalship marketing allows for different types of synergy effects, solutions, different customers, and different types of interactions and relationships.