Types of marketing: fad or a necessity?
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the spread of terms describing “marketing types” (e.g. services marketing) in the marketing and non-marketing literature and to determine whether the research into specific terms represents a fashion trend.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 113 marketing terms were identified by content-analysing all the articles indexed in the web of science. These data were used to estimate a panel model, which predicted the number of articles that refer to a specific marketing type over a 20 years’ period.
Findings
The model estimation indicates that the “age” of a marketing term has a significant effect on the number of articles published using that term, after controlling for previous research. This effect is not significant for top-tier journals.
Research limitations/implications
Future research might undertake more comprehensive analyses by including other scientific outlets (e.g. white papers) and databases.
Practical implications
The results offer new insights for researchers interested in bibliometrics and knowledge diffusion. It warns practitioners and academia about a bias in favour of novel terms.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates a “fad effect” that may undermine research into traditional marketing fields. It helps to identify past and current research priorities.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Government of Spain and the European Regional Development Fund (project ECO2017-82103-P), and the Government of Aragón and the European Social Fund (GENERES Group S-54_17R).
Citation
Pina, J.M. (2019), "Types of marketing: fad or a necessity?", European Business Review, Vol. 31 No. 6, pp. 910-925. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-07-2018-0135
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited