ideology and critical marketing studies

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accumulation. Accordingly, subaltern groups are derealized and made into ungrievable lives through practices that keep violence unchecked. In such a context ...
G.M. Eckhardt, R. Varman, and N. Dholakia Ideology and critical marketing studies

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IDEOLOGY AND CRITICAL MARKETING STUDIES Giana M. Eckhardt, Rohit Varman, and Nikhilesh Dholakia

Introduction Within mainstream marketing, the domains of ideology and marketing are seldom seen in a holistic frame. For mainstream scholars, ideology and marketing are from the distinct domains of politics and economy, respectively, and are rarely analyzed and discussed with reference to each other. In contrast, this chapter argues that ideology and marketing have a complex palette of relationships. In exploring the ideology–marketing nexus, we focus on three places on this palette. First, we take a brief look at the mainstream marketing view that holds – along with mainstream business disciplines in general – an instrumental view of marketing: that the discipline simply provides a toolkit, which is ideologically neutral, and employable in the service of any ideological position that is of interest at a particular point in time (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Next, we provide a detailed look at the range of nuanced views that acknowledge the innately ideological character of marketing concepts and practices, including a farreaching position that characterizes marketing as the prevailing ideology of the Zeitgeist, i.e., exploring ‘marketing as ideology’ rather than ‘marketing and ideology’. In pursuing this objective, we not only examine some of the important writings in marketing (e.g. Eckhardt, Dholakia & Varman, 2013; Dholakia, 2016; O’Reilly, 2006), but also draw upon some of the seminal works on ideology in critical theory (Althusser, 1971; Eagleton, 1991; Gramsci, 1971; Adorno & Horkheimer, 1989; Marx, 1968; Žižek, 1989). In particular, we examine the political economy underpinning the contemporary neoliberal marketplace, exemplified in areas of marketing involved in

the production of culture, such as advertising agencies (Eckhardt & Bradshaw, 2014), and ‘new markets’ such as the sharing economy (Eckhardt & Bardhi, 2016). Third, we engage in an exploration of the functioning of contemporary capitalism on a global scale, and delve into how businesses deploy extra-ideological violence against subalterns. Indeed, in subaltern imagination, naked use of force reduces marketing ideology to a mere tool for accumulation of capital; in essence a turned-onits-head radical return to the instrumental view of marketing. In many oppressive subaltern settings, marketing is not just an illusion or dreamlike state of brand bonhomie; rather, it is one of the blunt instruments to advance corporate profits. This section draws attention to the extra-ideological violence that is commonly present in the Global South. We conclude with suggestions as to how researchers interested in the nexus between marketing and ideology can further this nascent research agenda.

Ideology Ideology is a set of ideas that can be false and deceptive, which emerges from the material structure of society. We do not attribute ideology to any one particular group or a class of actors but understand ideology as the systemic necessity in any socioeconomic order. Although a functionalist reading is misleading, ideology can be unifying, rationalizing, legitimizing, universalizing, and naturalizing in a social setting. Despite its significance in any social order, ideology does not inform every social practice and is not present everywhere. We concur with Eagleton (1991, p. 8) that, “the force of the term ideology lies in its capacity to discriminate between those power struggles which are somehow central to a whole form of social life, and those which are not.” As Giddens (1984) observes, reification of social relations and the discursive naturalization of the historically contingent circumstances are some of the main dimensions of ideology. Geuss (1981) describes three distinct interpretations of ideology in social theory. According to the first interpretation, ideology is descriptive and creates a shared sense of purpose for a social group. In this form, ideologies are universal and present in every social setting. Second, ideology in its programmatic sense is about creating delusions that allow dominant interests to prevail. Such a usage is pejorative and reflects a critical reading of ideology. Third, ideology is used positively to indicate how alternative sets of ideas can be used to mobilize people and to raise their consciousness. An example

of such an effort is Lenin’s ‘What is to be done’ that delves into how a revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat can be created. In this chapter, we confine our reading of ideology primarily to the second form in which it is used to create distorted representations of capitalism and to disguise the destruction caused by corporations. The second reading of ideology as a form of delusion goes back to Karl Marx (1968) and subsequent developments in critical theory. Although Marx uses ideology in multiple ways, the most overwhelming usage of ideology is as constitutive naivety, as it becomes a form of misrecognition of power structures and social domination. Therefore, ideology creates a gap between a social reality and its representations. A dominant ideology expresses the material interests of a ruling social class, and which are useful in promoting its control. Two key Marxist scholars who inform our understanding of ideology are Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser. In the early 20th century, Gramsci (1971) advanced Marx’s idea of ideology with his emphasis on the role of civil society in creating consent of the under-classes in producing structures of their exploitation. However, Gramsci does not use ideology in a pejorative manner. According to Gramsci (1971, p. 707), “one must therefore distinguish between historically organic ideologies, those, that is, which are necessary to a given structure, and ideologies that are arbitrary, rationalistic, or ‘willed’.” Instead of ideology, Gramsci (1971) uses the idea of hegemony, which means a ruling elite wins consent to its rule from those it subjugates. Drawing upon the work of Gramsci, Althusser (1971) questions the rationalistic theory of ideology that interprets it only as a collection of distorting representations of reality and false propositions. Accordingly, ideology is chiefly about lived relations and materiality of existence. Althusser (1971) differentiates between theoretical ideology and practical ideology of social life and emphasizes the significance of material expression of ideology. An ideology makes its belief system appear natural and self-evident in the everyday lives of its subjects. Moreover, ideology interpolates or hails individuals to single them out as uniquely valuable subjects. Therefore, for Althusser, ideology is not just about a distortion or a false reflection, but a form of creation of subjectivity. Scholars from the Frankfurt School in attending to critical analyses of ideology have further contributed to our understanding. According to these critical theorists, reality cannot reproduce itself without ideological mystification (Adorno, 1960; Adorno &

Horkheimer, 1989). In this interpretation, the mask of ideology is not hiding a reality, but distortion is the very essence of the capitalist social world. In an important development in critical theory, Adorno (1960) reads ideology as a form of identity thinking that homogenizes the world and tries to repress differences. Furthermore, Adorno and Horkheimer (1989) argue that reason has become violent and manipulative, which is best reflected in the ideological control exercised by the culture industry. Taking this further, Marcuse (1964) suggests that capitalist ideology is a totalitarian system that has managed all social conflicts out of existence to create a one-dimensional subject. A problem with the early Frankfurt School, particularly in the writings of Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse, is that they take ideology at face value and assume that a capitalist society languishes in the grip of an all-pervasive reification (Eagleton, 1991). In this view, a dominant ideology is apparently devoid of contradictions. They overlook several important writings on ideology from a critical perspective that challenge such a view. For example, Gramsci (1971) notes that an ideology is rarely pure and unitary because it exists in relation to other ideologies. A dominant ideology has continually to negotiate with the ideologies of its subordinates. Similarly, Williams (1977), in highlighting the three forms of residual, dominant, and emergent consciousness, emphasizes past, present and future ideologies, respectively, in terms of their domination at a given point in time in any society. Based on Williams’ emphases on resistance and counter-hegemony, it is essential to situate any society in an interideological space within which ideologies and counter-ideologies are constantly struggling for control. As Eagleton (1991, p. 45) observes, a successful ruling ideology … must engage significantly with genuine wants, needs, and desires; but this is also its Achilles heel, forcing it to recognize an “other” to itself and inscribing this otherness as a potentially disruptive force within its own form. Therefore, Eagleton (1991) maintains that an ideology is never a monolithic entity and is often fraught with contradictions and social dissent of various forms. Within the domain of critical theory, Habermas (1981) offers a corrective to such a reified understanding by interpreting ideology as a form of communication systematically distorted by power. Habermas suggests that to move to an order that overcomes

ideological distortions there is a need for a rationality that is based on collective selfreflection. However, consistent with the critical tradition, Habermas (1981) interprets ideology as a distortion that leads to thought control of under-classes. Some scholars question such a reading of ideology as a system of thought control and its role in creating false consciousness. For example, Sloterdijk (1987) believes that under-classes do not have a false consciousness because they have the ability to create distance and see through dominant ideologies. Calling this keynicism, Sloterdijk becomes an advocate of the end of ideology thesis. According to Sloterdijk (1987, p. 110), “the power of the underdog comes into its own individuality as that cheekiness that constitutes the core of power in keynicism. With it those who are disadvantaged can anticipate their own sovereignty.” Such a conclusion can be misleading as ideology continues to influence our social imagination and practices. Rising consumerism and popular support for markets across the world are examples of how dominant neoliberal ideology continues to shape the behaviors of under-classes. Therefore, we agree with Žižek (1989) that ideology influences social practices by safeguarding dominant interests in different life situations. According to Žižek (1989, p. 29), “the cynical subject is aware of the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality but he nonetheless insists upon the mask.” In other words, one is aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, still one does not renounce it. “It is therefore a kind of perverted ‘negation of negation’ of the official ideology” (Žižek, 1989, p. 30). In this manner, ideology is not a matter consciousness, false or otherwise, but its distortions are inscribed in our everyday life situations of reading, writing, teaching, or publishing. Drawing upon these developments, several marketing scholars have highlighted the importance of ideology in markets (Crockett & Wallendorf, 2004; Eckhardt & Bradshaw, 2014; Hirschman, 1993; Kozinets & Handelman, 2004; Thompson & Haytko, 1997; Thompson & Tambyah, 1999; Varman & Belk, 2009; Zwick & Cayla, 2011). Crockett and Wallendorf (2004) describe the role of normative political ideology in consumer behavior and suggest that African American political ideology plays an important role in determining black consumption practices. Although the emphases on Black Nationalism and ideology in consumption are significant, in treating ideology as a “world view” it takes a “benign stance” toward the concept (Crockett & Wallendorf,

2004, p. 512). Similarly, Marion’s (2006) interpretation also situates ideology in the rather sterile domain of ideas, stripping it of its deeper systemic roots and ramifications. We are more in agreement with O’Reilly (2006, p. 266), who contends that “a deeper engagement with the imagination and with quotidian practices is necessary for an understanding and critique of ideology.” This leads to a more nuanced, critical, and deeper understanding of ideology like that of Kozinets and Handelman (2004), who are concerned with the processes through which anti-consumption activists represent their goals, themselves, and their adversaries. For example, Varman and Belk (2009) examine the role of a nationalist ideology in an anti-consumption movement and show that its deployment is linked to the experiences of colonialism, modernity, and globalization in India. And Varman and Saha (2009) point to the role of postcolonial epistemic ideology in shaping marketing thought in India as it becomes an appendage of the West. In a similar critical tradition, Hirschman (1993) draws upon the Gramscian conceptualization of hegemony to uncover the ideologies of capitalism and patriarchy inherent in much consumer research theorization. In concurrence with Heath and Potter’s critique (2004), O’Guinn and Muniz (2005) demonstrate the co-optation of brand communities with alternate beliefs and ideologies into the larger process of consumption. Similarly, Thompson and Haytko (1997) and Thompson and Tambyah (1999) further our understanding by offering a post-structuralist critique and in highlighting the role of ideology in the consumer identity-building process. In some other works Thompson demonstrates the influence of ideology in consumer risk perceptions and in the development of resistance to cooptation of alternate beliefs (Thompson, 2005; Thompson & Coskuner-Balli, 2007). Finally, Zwick and Cayla (2011) look behind the curtain of marketing practice to reveal how marketing works as an ideology; looking particularly at how marketing has shaped how we think about modernity, and how marketing appropriates the creativity of consumers for profit. Similarly, Eckhardt and Bradshaw (2014), using Adorno and Horkheimer’s (1989) cultural industry thesis, conclude that the ideological consequence of the non-problematic use of music in advertising is an enactment of the industrialization of culture. In this chapter, we specifically seek to understand the role of ideology in the context of mainstream marketing thought that has largely ignored critical writings. We find that

distorted representations of corporate interests and capitalist relations are evident in mainstream marketing theory. These distortions take two forms in the discipline. First, early scholarship sanitizes the discipline internally by marginalizing discussions on the harmful impact of capitalist enterprises. In this process, the discipline uncritically adopts the dominant ideology of capitalism and claims to be a-ideological. Second, governments, non-governmental organizations, and corporations deploy marketing tools to shape institutions, state policies, and private behaviors. In this form, marketing becomes ideology as it serves the function of an ideological veil to disguise dominant interests outside the discipline. It is to these readings of ideology in mainstream marketing theory that we turn next in our analysis.

Marketing as bereft of ideology The notion of scrubbing ideology from the conceptual repertoire and managerial toolkits of marketing was not a part of the early development of marketing concepts, but the early marketing theorists were quite sensitive in terms of portraying marketing concepts in salutary rather than objectionable ideological frames; and paved the way for later ideology-masking representations of marketing. For example, Wroe Alderson, writing in the third issue of the inaugural volume of Journal of Marketing, offered a strong justification of marketing in essentially ideological terms, claiming that marketing methods and practices offered benefits of quick adaptation to changing conditions, strong operating efficiencies, and general economic welfare (Alderson, 1937, p. 190): Semi-permanent pairings grow up between each segment of the market and certain specialized suppliers … [Unfortunately, such] (s)emi-permanent pairings have been called quasi-monopoly or monopolistic competition, terms which are misnomers since entrenchment of specialized suppliers in separate segments of the market is a great obstacle to the growth of true monopoly … The specialized supplier in the segmented market does not behave like a monopolist [but rather] … seeks profits of adaptation, which are profits of efficiency but broader in scope, involving not only the idea of doing a job well but also that of picking the right job to do … The firm which seeks profits of adaptation is obliged to serve general economic welfare more directly and less wastefully than under orthodox [economic] analysis … Market research, cost analysis and consumer advertising

receive proper recognition under such a view as important tools of business adaptation … Price adjustments are also a basic aspects of business adaptation. Although the article from which the quote above is drawn is only two pages long, it is evident how much ideological punch Alderson packs in this short article. He is: (a) setting up the evil strawman of “true monopoly” and arguing that marketing is a bulwark against it; (b) rejecting the use of then-prevalent (and negatively valenced) economic terms ‘quasi-monopoly’ and ‘monopolistic competition’ as descriptors of marketing practices and institutions; (c) introducing salutary terms such as ‘adaptation’, ‘efficiency’, and ‘welfare’ as descriptors and consequences of marketing actions; (d) enshrining the strategic pre-eminence and superiority of marketing actions as focused on the ‘right job’ rather than the wrong job; and (e) justifying and advocating the greater use of marketing tools such as market research, cost analysis, product differentiation, consumer advertising, and price adjustments. A few years later, Wroe Alderson and Reavis Cox, the pioneering scholars who wrote the first major theoretical treatise on marketing (Alderson & Cox, 1948), were well aware that many marketing practices fitted closely with the type of economy that was called ‘monopolistic competition’, and that this term had ideologically negative connotations. They argued instead for giving prominence to product differentiation practices and the concept of ‘heterogeneous competition’; ideas that reflected the increasing sophistication of marketing practices, and were ideologically more palatable than concepts that invoked the idea of monopoly: Certainly the last word has not been said on product differentiation as a factor in … heterogeneous competition – a term, incidentally, which well might replace “monopolistic competition” as being more descriptive [of prevailing marketing practice] and not so weighted with objectionable connotations … it may be said that differentiation is a basic function which is carried out primarily through channels of distribution and which is intimately related to the problem of efficiency in marketing. Alderson & Cox, 1948, p. 48 In this important pioneering paper, Alderson and Cox provide many useful linkages to a wide range of behavioral and social science theorists. The ideological stance,

however, is clear: to scrub the odious idea of monopolistic positions and actions from marketing theory, and to inject edifying and reinforcing notions of ‘efficiency’, ‘balance’, and ‘welfare’ into the discipline’s theoretical foundation. It is interesting to explore why early marketing theorists, while not dwelling on ideology, were at least trying to associate salubrious ideological ideas with marketing; while the post-World War II theorists felt no such compulsions. The latter period – when, eventually, neoliberalism achieved high ascendancy and indeed even stranglehold – is discussed in the next section. The 1930s and 1940s, the formative years of marketing theory, fell in the historically anomalous phase of America that Cowie (2016, p.9) has called “the great exception”: [T]he political era between the 1930s and 1970s marks what might be called a “great exception” – a sustained deviation, an extended detour – from some of the main contours of American political practice, economic structure, and cultural outlook. During this period, the central government used its considerable resources … on behalf of non-elite Americans. Cowie is especially emphatic about the exceptionalism of the 1930s and 1940s. A juggernaut-like combination of power and political vulnerability … burst upon the national stage in the 1930s and 1940s. The New Deal alliances seemed to come together in an all-powerful force capable of implementing progressive liberal policies with limited regard for conservative opposition. Cowie, 2016, p. 10 Perspicacious marketing theorists such as Alderson and Cox must have been well aware of this juggernaut-like (but, in retrospect, highly fragile and exceptional) progressive force; and they ensured that – by bleaching out monopolistic competition notions – marketing would not fall prey to excessive regulation (see especially Alderson, 1937, p. 189). From the end of World War II to the 1970s (and beyond) – what can be called the Kotler era of marketing (Kotler, 2005) – the threat of radical progressive reforms and regulation was gone, aided in great part by the intense Cold War against communist USSR. In the United States, especially, only general notions of public and consumer

welfare remained; which found some receptivity in the ideas of social marketing (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971). Indeed, the powerful appeal by Kotler and Levy (1969) to broaden the concept of marketing was, in a sense, the closing argument to shut out anyone who still thought of marketing in an ideological commercial-capitalist way. Although the practices of marketing had started seeping into non-commercial domains by the late 1950s (Cohen, 2004; Schwarzkopf, 2011; Gordon, this volume), the conceptual frames of marketing were still welded to commercial settings. Kotler and his associates set a blowtorch to melt away these welds: they argued forcefully that not only were marketing methods spreading beyond commercial domains, but such a conceptual centrifuge – to diffuse marketing tools and concepts widely – should be revved up and accelerated. Indeed, if marketing methods could be employed equally well to sell goods and to do good then, ipso facto, marketing had become a-ideological. Marketing approaches could inject rational planning and responsive, caring service to non-commercial, oft-bureaucratic fields, and – like good screwdrivers and wrenches – had become neutral tools. In a very short period, the ‘broadening movement’ had become a practical success worldwide and conceptually deeply ingrained in marketing books and articles (Fox & Kotler, 1980). The obvious – and intended – side effect of this was to strip any residual ideological trappings away from marketing, and to make the field a universally appealing source of tools and techniques to serve humanity (Kotler, 1972).

Marketing as innately ideological There is a paradox – perhaps somewhat understandable from the viewpoint of locations and politics of disciplines within the university – in the discussion of marketing and ideology. While most disciplines outside of the business school are quite clearly – and plainly and simply – aware of the ideological character of marketing, and some of these scholars openly discuss this issue (e.g. Aronczyk & Powers, 2010), there is either a studied silence or an active denial of this issue within the marketing discipline (Hunt, 2002). Located in business schools that are often dependent on capitalist corporate patronage and largesse, marketing departments cling to the a-ideological view of marketing that emerged from the 1950s and was reinforced strongly from the 1970s. In marketing departments and their published outputs, discussions of marketing and

ideology are essentially absent (for an exception, see Brownlie & Saren, 1995; cf. Tadajewski, 2010). Despite its efforts – more accurately, the pretense – to be non-ideological, marketing, and especially its practices, turned intensely ideological from about the same juncture when the ‘broadening’ movement was launched in marketing. The tidal wave of Reagan–Thatcher neoliberal ‘reforms’ (Hacker & Pierson, 2010; Harvey, 2005; Mirowski & Plehwe, 2009) engulfed and incorporated the relatively modest moves by marketing practitioners and academics to spread marketing ideas to non-commercial fields (see also Gordon, this volume). Marketization and consumerization – not because of the proselytizing and evangelizing efforts of marketing academics but because of globe-spanning changes in political economy and culture (Hardt & Negri, 2001) – turned into key pillars of the ascendant neoliberalism, with punitive consequences for those resisting such ascendance. The drivers of neoliberalism are economic and financial, with the growing financialization of all institutions at the core. While Finanzkapital is in the driver’s seat and the global puppet master (Dholakia, 2011, 2012), most public-facing institutions in the West feel the need to put a softer, humane-appearing veneer on the hard, harsh, efficiency-seeking, ambiguity-intolerant juggernaut of neoliberal strategies and actions. In other words, neoliberalism – powerful and pervasive as it is – requires actions that legitimize it (Harvey, 2005). Marketing concepts offer some of the ready, handy forms of legitimizing neoliberalism and mask its harsh edges. Marketing concepts and ideas such as customer focus, consumer orientation, market orientation, customer relationship, and customer intimacy serve very well in handmaiden roles with respect to Finanzkapital-driven neoliberalism. Such ideas from marketing provide the silken, soft swaths to swaddle the unflinchingly harsh financial-economic core of neoliberalism. As we have noted elsewhere: Bedecked in the floral metaphors that marketing and branding provide, the advancing neoliberal behemoths look less like threatening army tanks and more like delighting Rose Bowl parade floats. Marketing theories and practices often provide a soothing layer of fantasy to hard-edged neoliberal agendas. Eckhardt, Dholakia, & Varman 2013, p. 8

Indeed, as Žižek (1989, p. 45) observes, “ideology is not a dreamlike illusion that we build to escape insupportable reality; in its basic dimension it is a fantasy-construction which serves as a support for our reality itself.” In all this, the consumer role – which is in essence a crassly transactional mode of human interaction – is lifted up to become noble, autonomous, infused with ideas of freedom and awesome power over the corporate sector (e.g. Vargo & Lusch, 2004). To ennoble and hold aloft the consumer role, a well-established older role, that of the democratic citizen – one with a history going back to the Enlightenment, and with an unshakeable, built-in legitimacy – had to be invoked. Leading members of advertising and market research fields worked hard to build a false equivalence between the consumer role and the citizen-voter role: Advertising agencies in particular were at the forefront of attempts to revive and popularize the concept of the consumer as sovereign voter in a market structure that resembled the political process. These attempts to culturally and socially legitimize advertising communication received political-philosophical credibility from a new generation of economists spearheaded by the Hayek-pupil William Harold Hutt. Both advertising and market research practitioners and academics for different reasons reinforced the myth that capitalism and “free markets” were merely the economic equivalent of democracies. Schwarzkopf, 2011, p. 15 A mythical ‘consumer-citizen’ role was crafted, a role that – prima facie – appears nobler and loftier than the crassly transactional consumer role (Jubas, 2007). Individual consumers usually cannot counter the intense demands of the ascendant consumer culture, and even collective attempts at anti-consumption and resistive strategies remain feebly at the margins of the market (Devinney, Auger, & Eckhardt, 2010). From a critical perspective, within the marketing discipline, the insights into, as well as the solutions to, such issues need to be sought at systemic, macro levels (Zwick & Cayla, 2011). Are marketing theorists beginning to tackle such challenges? In the large mainstream, the answer is that they are not. There is, however, definite hope, springing from the fact that at the critical and – in our view – the leading edge of marketing theory,

there are very insightful scholars addressing these challenges. For example, Levy and Luedicke (2012) examine the historical trajectory of a marketing ideology, tracing it from mercantilism to a production ideology, to a consumer ideology, and finally to a branding ideology. Expanding on the current branding ideology so prevalent in today’s marketplace, Bandinelli & Arvidsson (2012) argue that self-branding for the purposes of getting ahead in the workplace is an effect of the neoliberal regime of governmentality. Fitchett, Patsiaouris, and Davies (2014) go even further in terms of their use of ideology as an analytic tool to argue that the domain of consumer culture theory (CCT) is an inherently neoliberal one, as it reifies the ‘consumer as hero’, which reinforces the neoliberal logic of bringing all human action into the domain of the market (Harvey, 2005). Although Askegaard (2014) argues that CCT is trying to understand how and what the consequences are of a neoliberal world in which everyone is a consumer at all times, rather than trying to reinforce that agenda. Finally, Eckhardt and Bardhi (2016) interrogate the political economy of the sharing economy using Polanyi’s (1944/2001) distinction between economic and social exchange. In doing so, they demonstrate that the sharing economy does not encompass social exchange, or sharing at all, but rather is based on economic exchange. The consequence of this is that the sharing economy is not an anti-consumerist revolution that will lead to the end of market capitalism via social collectives and sharing, as argued by Rifkin (2014) for example, but rather serves to prop up today’s neoliberal marketplace. What these papers have in common is that they are openly addressing the innately ideological character of marketing, and exploring the consequences of that, for individuals as well as for society. Recognizing and confronting the innately ideological character of marketing is an imperative, but this does not cover the whole ground of marketing and ideology. In particular, such efforts remain – in epistemic, ontological and teleological terms – oriented to the essentially Western center of Empire (Hardt & Negri, 2001), with only minor attention paid to the numerically vast but politico-economically marginal periphery of the Empire. The next section brings in perspectives on marketing and ideology in subaltern settings.

Marketing as a blunt instrument of ideology In this section, we turn to critical lines of analyses that have begun examining extreme forms of capitalist organization. These focus on totalitarian forms of capitalism that

have taken root as extensions of liberal capitalism (Sassen, 2014). It helps to attend to how marketing as ideology in liberal settings is often based on the use of extraideological forms of coercion against subalterns. According to Žižek (1989, p. 30): Totalitarian ideology no longer has a pretention. It is no longer meant, even by its authors to be taken seriously—its status is just that of a means of manipulation, purely external and instrumental; its rule is secured not by its truth value but by simple extra-ideological violence and promise of gain. Therefore, there is no ideological masking of the real nature of exploitation in such a context and the consent of those who are exploited is not required, as Gramsci (1971) had explained. We draw attention to the idea of necrocapitalism in which death and violence are commonly associated with how businesses operate for the benefit of the upper classes (Banerjee, 2008, 2011; Varman & Al-Amoudi, 2016). In such settings, subaltern lives become unworthy or ungrievable with the normalization of violence against them. As Evans and Giroux (2015, p. 7) have argued, “when violence becomes normalized and decentered, the disposability of entire populations becomes integral to the functioning, the profiteering, and the entrenchment of the prevailing rationalities of the dominant culture.” Varman and Al-Amoudi (2016) draw upon this line of analysis and examine how Coca-Cola uses violence in a village in India for the purpose of accumulation. Accordingly, subaltern groups are derealized and made into ungrievable lives through practices that keep violence unchecked. In such a context of necrocapitalism, markets and marketing may function without any attempt to mystify to subalterns the real nature of accumulation. Socioeconomic participation of subalterns in such a setting may be achieved through the use of violence without illusory masking of social realities. On the other hand, for the massively well-endowed and influential so-called

‘stakeholder’

constituencies

of

major

brand-owning

corporations,

constituencies located in safe, advanced nation settings – including investors and brand consumers – the need for projecting an ideologically pleasant brand-corporate ‘face’ becomes, paradoxically, quite important. In other words, in conditions of or resembling necrocapitalism, there emerge Janus-faced corporate brand strategies – nakedly violent in the practically invisible remote markets but well-groomed and amiable in the moneyed and politically important constituencies of the brand’s home markets.

Marketing and ideology: discussion

In this chapter, we have introduced what ideology is, and how it has been used in marketing to date. We then traced how the ideological nature of marketing has been portrayed in the marketing literature in three different ways: (1) in mainstream marketing, particularly in the early days of the field, marketing’s inherently ideological nature was scrubbed from literature. Marketing was portrayed as being ideologically neutral, as a tool which can be used by anyone for any purpose. Later it was acknowledged within the marketing literature, although still not the mainstream literature, that (2) marketing is inherently ideological, and we outlined the ways in which this has been recognized and explored. Finally, (3) we pointed out that this acknowledgment tends to stem from a Western perspective, and in the subaltern we can see the results of necrocapitalism, an ideology whereby the subaltern experiences death and violence in order for brands to present a whitewashed front to the Western world. An example of this would be the working conditions and deaths that take place in the Foxconn factories in China to produce Apple iPhones. We would suggest that the Apple brand image of enabling consumers to ‘Think Differently’ cannot be understood without the full picture of what occurs in the subaltern to make this happen. While scholars are beginning to write about this (e.g. Bannerjee, 2011; Varman and AlAmoudi, 2016), this acknowledgment of the Janus-faced nature of how marketing ideology plays out in the subaltern has yet to be explored in the mainstream marketing literature. In pointing out these ways in which the ideological nature of marketing has and has not been acknowledged within the literature, we hope to inspire marketing researchers to explore ideology and marketing, in the West and the subaltern, in more depth in the future. For example, Eckhardt and Bardhi (2016) point out that the ideology behind the sharing economy is one of extreme neoliberalism, in that it promotes the idea that everyone must monetize all aspects of their lives, and be micro-entrepreneurs in order to succeed. Scholars such as Bauman (2000, 2007) and Ritzer (2015) have pointed out that this mentality reinforces alienation, and ultimately exploits consumers, who end up doing jobs that previously have been done by companies. Henwood (2015, p.1) notes that [t]he sharing economy is a nice way for rapacious capitalists to monetize the desperation of people in the post crisis economy while sounding generous, and to

evoke a fantasy of community in an atomized population. The sharing economy looks like a classically neoliberal response to neoliberalism: individualized and market driven, it sees us all as micro-entrepreneurs fending for ourselves in a hostile world. We see this type of engagement with the ideological background and consequences of current market trends such as the sharing economy as an example of how marketing scholars can make further inroads into understanding the nature of the relationship between marketing and ideology. There is evidence that the intersection of marketing and ideology is becoming more topical within the discipline of marketing, with the inaugural Marketing, Capitalism and Critique conference happening at Royal Holloway University of London in 2017.

Conclusion Summing up, we see ideology in liberal capitalism and necrocapitalism in the subaltern as two sides of the same coin. In this way, ideology can be a mask for violence; witness, for example, marketing practices that project ‘lovable’ brands in consumer marketspaces while committing acts of violence in the background value chains. In advancing understanding of marketing and ideology, this chapter examined theoretical positions that offer a range of views and cast in high relief settings in which the role of ideology is deliberately denied, regarded as deeply infused, is limited or callously ignored, or Janus-faced. We want to debunk the disingenuous position that applied disciplines ‘should not bite the hand that feeds them’ and, therefore, marketing practice and theory should steer clear of discussions of ideology. To the contrary, it is not only an intellectual necessity but also a moral duty of marketing academics, and also marketing practitioners, to examine and question the ideological aspects of marketing. Would it be acceptable, for example, for a mechanical engineer to overlook the shady manufacturing practices of an automaker or for a civil engineer to turn a blind eye to the adulteration of cement by a bridge-building authority? It is high time for marketing academics and practitioners to reclaim and stand their moral ground, and to confront ideology head on.

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