Has Marketing Advanced Beyond the 17th Century?

19 September 2006 at 9:46 pm Peter G. Klein Leave a comment

| Peter Klein |

The Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-58) could teach an MBA course in marketing:

Know how to sell your wares, Intrinsic quality isn’t enough. Not everyone bites at substance or looks for inner value. People like to follow the crowd; they go someplace because they see other people do so. It takes much skill to explain something’s value. You can use praise, for praise arouses desire. At other times you can give things a good name (but be sure to flee from affectation). Another trick is to offer something only to those in the know, for everyone believes himself an expert, and the person who isn’t will want to be one. Never praise things for being easy or common: you’ll make them seem vulgar and facile. Everybody goes for something unique. Uniqueness appeals both to the taste and to the intellect.

OK, a bit of a cheap shot against marketing theory, I admit. Then again, if it weren’t for the marketing department — with its “Five Ps” approach to analysis — who would the other business-school departments have to look down on?

Seriously, some of the best work in transaction cost economics has been done by marketing scholars such as Erin Anderson and George John. Erin’s papers “The Salesperson as Outside Agent or Employee: A Transaction-Cost Analysis” (Marketing Science, 1985) and “Integration of the Sales Force: An Empirical Examination” (with David Schmittlein, RAND Journal, 1984) are classics. (HT to Jordan Ballor for the Gracián quote.)