The governmentality of marketing discourse

This paper provides a reading of mainstream academic marketing discourse based upon Foucault's concept of governmentality. Three periods of marketing thought are identified, described and analyzed—‘early marketing thought’ (c. 1900–1960), ‘marketing management’ (c. 1950–1985) and ‘service management’ (c. 1975–present). For these three periods, respectively, our focus is on analyzing what marketing seeks to govern, how marketing governs, and who we become when governed by marketing. It is argued that customer orientation has become the dominant governmental discursive practice in marketing—it has embedded marketing discourse more and more deeply over time. By exposing the governmental rationality of marketing, this paper provides a basis for resisting and deconstructing marketing discourse.