The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing

Without marketing there is no business. This is the simple axiom which lies at the heart of this book. The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing offers new insights into the changes in interpretation of marketing and the evolution of marketing strategies during the twentieth century.The focus is on the development of mass marketing in the United States and the way in which more flexible and adaptable forms of marketing have increasingly been taking over in the late twentieth century. The chapter by Ken'ichi Yasumuro on Japan offers new insights on how advanced Japanese companies from the 1970s developed flexible and highly successful manufacturing and related marketing systems. Other chapters provide detailed analysis of the marketing of a range of products, including motor cars, washing machines, food retailing, Scotch whisky, computers, financial services and wheat.The essays in this book range over the twentieth century up to the present day. The approach is innovative and offers new ways of thinking about the study of marketing. The chapter by Mark Casson, for example, explores the economic theory of marketing, a subject which is only just beginning to receive attention.This highly international volume draws contributors from the United States, Europe and Japan, and from a variety of academic disciplines, including marketing, economics and business history. It will be of particular interest to students of marketing, management and business history.