Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

Witkowski, Terrence H.

2016 Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

doi: 10.1108/JHRM-07-2015-0026

PurposeThis article investigates the history and distribution of trade ceramics in Southeast Asia over a thousand year period stretching from the 9th to the early 19th century CE. Design/methodology/approachThe study takes a material culture approach to the writing of marketing history by researching the ceramics trade from the starting point of artifacts and their social context. It draws from literatures on Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics art history and archaeology. It also is informed by first-hand experience inspecting surviving artifacts in shops, talking to dealers, and taking in museum displays. FindingsAfter a brief historical overview of the ceramics trade in Southeast Asia, the research further explores topics in physical distribution (transportation routes, hubs, and local marketplaces; ships, cargo, and packing) and product assortments, adaptation, and globalization of consumer culture. Research limitations/implicationsThe art history and archaeological literatures provide a good overview of the ceramics trade and analysis of surviving material artifacts, but only limited information about distribution and consumption. Many questions remain unanswered. Originality/valueThis study contributes to international business and marketing history by documenting a thousand years of trade among China, mainland, and insular Southeast Asia, and a long-standing cultural exchange facilitated by seaborne commerce. It also shares a marketing perspective with the fields of Southeast Asian art history and archaeology. Research in marketing history has neglected this region. To fully understand the development of marketing in the pre-industrial era, accounts from civilizations outside the West must be included.

Martin, James W.

2016 Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

doi: 10.1108/JHRM-01-2015-0004

PurposeThis paper examines the tourist business and marketing strategies of a U.S. agribusiness giant, the United Fruit Company (UFCO), between its incorporation in 1899 and 1940. It considers how tourist marketing served the company’s public-relations interest and tourism’s broader connection to narratives of U.S. ascendancy in the Caribbean Basin.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on original research in a series of published company materials, including annual reports and a wide variety of marketing materials, as well as a variety of rare primary sources documenting the experiences of U.S. tourists on UFCO cruises.FindingsFrom its incorporation in 1899, the UFCO developed a Caribbean cruise business as a vital part of its strategies of vertical integration and expansion around the region. Marketing tropical travel at a time when tropical disease dominated U.S. perceptions of such places required a thorough conceptual makeover, and UFCO publicity played an important part in this process. The company advertised Caribbean destinations first for their therapeutic possibilities, but by the 1920s a framework of anachronistic space and picturesque primitivism predominated in marketing campaigns. The structure of this narrative naturalized the company’s, and more broadly, U.S., hegemony in the region. While on cruises, tourists became witnesses to and participants in a series of spectacles and activities highlighting the company’s technological prowess and benevolence.Originality/valueThis analysis centers on a largely overlooked dimension of the famed banana company’s enterprise. It is grounded in a wide collection of primary sources largely untapped by researchers, a source base that brings tourist perception and experience into the story of this company’s marketing efforts. This research brings tourism and leisure into the historical discussion of U.S. power in early-twentieth-century Latin America.

Moore, Jonathan Allen

2016 Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

doi: 10.1108/JHRM-07-2015-0023

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to explore how the Empire Marketing Board utilized enhanced marketing tools and approaches to reduce British consumer bias against foreign products. The article asks: "How have marketers historically increased foreign exports to domestic markets?"Design/methodology/approachThe article comprises an historical account of the Empire Marketing Board during the 1920s and 1930s. Applying a qualitative approach, it relies on: archival materials gathered by the author in the United Kingdom – including official and personal papers; newspaper and poster advertisements of the Board; and existing scholarship for its information. FindingsThe Board Employed three strategies in its advertisements: collaboration, showing how domestic and overseas markets were linked in mutually beneficial ways; globalization, emphasizing the expansive “home” market and the benefits of removing borders; and producer profiles, narrating the producers of imperial products in order to create the desire to benefit producers. Practical implicationsThe strategies of the Board are not dissimilar to fair trade campaigns utilized by the private sector today, notably in coffee. Looking forward, these approaches could be valid ways for companies today to reduce consumer bias against foreign goods, and this article hopes to be a stepping-stone for future research.Originality/valueAnalyzing underutilized archival sources, the article illuminates the complex processes and ideologies embedded within the Board’s campaigns. The Empire Marketing Board played an important role in the interwar British consumer conceptualization of the relationship between Britain and her Empire, construction of a global British “home” market, and the familiarization of imperial producers.

Thomas, Patricia Ann

2016 Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

doi: 10.1108/JHRM-11-2015-0044

PurposeThis article offers an example of a comprehensive mid-nineteenth century branding strategy in practice.Design/methodology/approachThe article follows an historical research methodology using archival resources and secondary sources within a conceptual framework of present-day branding theory (Bastos and Levy) and communication theory (Perloff). It interrogates visual and material data to construct a production-led examination of the development of a company brand.FindingsThe examination of the material suggests first, that the company developed a sophisticated, multi-dimensional, multi-functional, and materially coherent branding system. Second, it demonstrates that such a system represents an early example of a strategic practice that many scholars have considered to have arisen only in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Third, it provides evidence that the origin, if not always the implementation, of the strategy lay with one man, Edward Gibbon Wakefield.Originality/valueThis article is novel in its use of visual and material culture artifacts to demonstrate the intentions of those who produced them. It also offers an example of practice in an area that is often only explored in theory. It will be of interest to cultural, marketing, and visual and material culture historians.

Tadajewski, Mark

2016 Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

doi: 10.1108/JHRM-03-2016-0003

PurposeThis paper reviews the contributions of Harry Tosdal, a pioneer of sales and marketing management. It serves to puncture a variety of marketing myths and illuminate a completely neglected concept of the consumer.Design/methodology/approachThis account is based on a close reading of Tosdal’s publications. FindingsTosdal articulated a highly nuanced interpretation of marketing management, market research and sales force management. Each of these elements was keyed into fostering goodwill between firm and customer. Perhaps most importantly, he provides a counterpoint to the idea that the consumer is sovereign in the marketplace. Instead, he makes a case that the ontology of the market is riven by compromise. Originality/valueThis paper highlights the concept of the compromising consumer. Arguably, this is a much more empirically realistic conception of the agency we possess in the marketplace than the idea that we move markets in ways absolutely consistent with our desires.