this chapter.
2.5.3 Legitimising performative marketing practice
A study which contributed to considering if proficiency in marketing activities could be carried out by individuals other than recognised marketers has been considered in research carried out by Dibb et al. (2014). In their empirical study of the ‘doing’ of marketing or undertaking of tasks and activities identified by participants as belonging to ‘marketing’ they found that these activities were frequently undertaken by people in roles outside the marketing team (p. 395).
Investigating the scope of micro level marketing activities and the range of who might contribute to marketing in an organisation, Dibb et al. acknowledged some dispersal of these activities, besides confusion within the organisation as to who should carry out marketing practice. Uncertainty about who could, or indeed should, carry out marketing practice within an organisation was, similarly, found in research by Hagberg and Kjellberg (2010) who identified several ‘nonprofessional’ (p. 1029) organisational actors ‘doing’ marketing and accomplishing tasks and activities regarded as the responsibility of marketing in their study of two Swedish retailers. Hagberg and Kjellberg (2010) concluded that it had been beneficial for an organisation not to exclude non-‐professional marketers from making their contribution to the organisation and that
allowing their involvement in what was considered as marketing activities had
been shown to make an effective contribution to the overall success of this Swedish furniture manufacturer (p. 1029).
Interrogating what constitutes expertise, suggesting a less homogenous and more dispersed conceptualisation of marketing knowledge, recognising
‘capabilities’ which might be classified as tacit and considering how these may be formed queries not only the practice of marketing but the status of
marketing practitioners. If marketing knowledge can be tacit, unstated and implicit or explicit, covert and formally recognised, then it follows that marketing knowledge is not confined to and possessed only by those
‘designated’ as marketers within an organisation. Accordingly, this challenges the need for an organisation to resource specific marketing teams within an organisation, threatening the role, authority, and furthermore, the
sustainability of marketing as a practice as well as a discipline. Here what emerges is that valuable and effective contributions, what Lyotard (1984) saw as value of the production of the ‘right’ kind of knowledge, can be recognised from the involvement and the activities of people who do not appear to possess what Hackley (1999) would regard as explicit marketing knowledge. This is significant because should effective marketing expertise emerge from those embedded in teams within organisations but outside marketing, because they either have tacit marketing knowledge or have acquired explicit expertise, this questions what form of marketing practice may be more useful, valuable and effective for organisations. Here two possibilities and directions can be
proposed: firstly, marketing within marketing teams, and the version or form of
knowledge which has been normalised through the repeated activities of the marketing team and may be based on marketing tools, frameworks and concepts, or secondly, a more tacit form undertaken by other organisational actors.
The importance of examining what forms marketing knowledge foregrounds the discussion of why marketing activities may be undertaken and the
suggestion made earlier that marketing practice may be undertaken for other purposes. Examining the legitimisation or the processes undertaken to justify the continual resourcing and existence of marketing practice and a role for a marketing team within an organisation, Marion (2006) suggested that, in some instances, the role of marketing practitioner has become to defend the
marketing realm which they have established and the expertise they hold. Here marketing expertise is threatened by any effective practice of non-‐marketers and, in turn, might encourage those who carry out the designated role of marketing, the marketing experts, to direct activities to defend and protect existing projects, whilst, at the same time trying to grow and expand areas of influence or a marketing ‘territory’.
Referring to the use of tools such as segmentation Marion (2006) discussed STP and other marketing practices which he saw as deployed by marketers to create and secure an acknowledgement for effective and recognisable marketing practices. Venter et al. (2015) described these as the actions of actors marshalling the performative practice of marketing to marginalise other
potential alternative discourses suggesting that legitimacy building is a process which needs to be continually refreshed by those who have a vested interest in maintaining their authority (p. 77). Considering the suggestions of both Venter et al. and Marion within an organisational context the proposal is that
indiscriminate activities and the application of marketing tools and concepts may be undertaken by those in marketing purely in the pursuit of increasing the area of influence for marketing in an organisation. Here the alternative purposes of marketing practice are emerging, that of protecting individual roles and teams rather than the pursuit of strategic organisational objectives.
Emerging from the study of marketing expertise is the possibility of a twofold effect or consequence of performative marketing knowledge, firstly in the day-‐
to-‐day work of marketing and secondly in confirming their professional status.
Referring to ‘the magic of performativity’ Cochoy (2015, p. 134) explained such further consequences of performativity as what he called the ‘double promise’, giving the example of a poster campaign in France that was the work of an advertising agency to secure a reputation for the effectiveness of its work rather than the response to a creative brief from one of their clients. Cochoy
suggested that this campaign was staged to reinforce the capabilities and authority of the advertising medium of posters, not to raise awareness of the product which featured on the posters. Returning to the earlier suggestions in market practices of both translation and transformation, in this study of a provocative advertising campaign, micro level practices are shown to have influence at a macro or sector level, ultimately bringing about a claim by the
advertising agency that this advertising medium remained relevant and effective. Here recognised marketing tools and concepts have been employed to secure effective practice but also to bolster the reputation of the practice itself.
To summarise this final section an ‘expert’ can be described in many ways:
through the intentional and indiscriminate application of performative marketing tools and concepts, the employment of tacit knowledge in
marketing or as an individual with an explicit understanding of sector specific issues. These expressions of knowledge and examinations of the formation of marketing understanding share in questioning the theorising of marketing practice as constituted as a rational and objective process. Examining expertise in marketing opens the possibilities for a range of individuals involved in marketing activities, not all of whom will be recognised as marketers, therefore questioning the idea of a marketing expert and who or what constitutes
organisational expertise in this area. Here the background has been provided to consider who and what is undertaking marketing and why, an area which is developed as the thesis progresses.