The Consumer Rules? : An Examination of the Rhetoric and “Reality” of Marketing in Financial Services

Abstract

Marketing has traditionally deployed the rhetoric of consumer sovereignty and the efficiency of market relations to legitimize its role as an academic discipline and as a management practice. Draws on theoretical reflections and empirical field work in financial services to question elements of this rhetoric. It is only in recent years that, as a result of dramatic changes in the regulation and structuring of the industry, financial services has begun to subscribe to marketing as a basis for distribution and sales. Even then there is some question as to how prevalent the use of marketing concepts is in financial services. In deconstructing the rhetoric of marketing, also provides a fresh and sceptical view about its potential to deliver the benefits it claims, except perhaps in a limited sphere of the financial services. Many of the limitations of marketing, it is argued, revolve around the problematic nature of its assumptions about the consumer and the contradictory tension between claims to satisfy consumer needs while ensuring high levels of profitability.

Citation

Knights, D., Sturdy, A. and Morgan, G. (1994), "The Consumer Rules? : An Examination of the Rhetoric and “Reality” of Marketing in Financial Services", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 42-54. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090569410057281