Journal of Marketing Management

Marketing takes part in shaping societies. For example, advertising imagery reconfigures our ideas of gender, either by reproducing or challenging stereotypes (Zayer & Coleman, 2015), and many commercial marketing practices promote overconsumption rather than sufficiency (Gossen et al., 2019). A rich body of research has explored contemporary marketing practices (see for instance Zwick & Cayla, 2011), and marketing’s impact on society is well-documented in fields such as Macromarketing, Critical Marketing, and sustainability research. Meanwhile, marketing is in flux; it is being re shaped by the digital tools and services on the market (Ryan et al., 2023). To further our understanding of marketing’s impact on society, we propose turning our attention to the ‘markets for marketing’.

With markets for marketing, we refer to the markets that organize the exchange of marketing objects such as marketing services, tools, and audiences. Markets for marketing involve (for example) digital marketing dominated by Meta and Google (Mellet & Beauvisage, 2020), circulation of ‘lore’ on how to succeed in the visibility market of social media (MacDonald, 2021), marketing consultancy and consumer insight work (Nilsson & Helgesson, 2015), the promotion of modern supermarket infrastructure (Kjellberg et al., 2019), and the commercialization of public areas as advertising spaces (Cluley & Nixon, 2019). The practices and arrangements in these markets shape the forms that marketing takes as well as contribute to expanding its domain. This is important in order to understand the development of marketing from a set of discrete techniques of selling products and services into a broader discipline for reshaping social relations more generally.

In recent years, marketing scholarship has devoted increasing attention to the functioning, emergence, and evolution of markets. Notable streams in this area include Constructivist Market Studies (Callon, 1998; Callon & Muniesa, 2005; Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007), market dynamics (Giesler & Fischer, 2017; Humphreys, 2010), and market shaping (Nenonen et al., 2019; Storbacka et al., 2022). This research has often highlighted the performative role of marketing in constituting markets (Araujo et al., 2010; Mason et al., 2015). We expand the remit of this proposition by further suggesting that, likewise, markets play a role in constituting marketing.

Building on this research, we see several benefits in directing attention to the markets for marketing. First, these perspectives bring to light the ways in which marketing is shaped by a multitude of actors including brands, agencies, technology platforms, regulators etc. (Cluley & Nixon, 2019; Gurrieri et al., 2022). Second, these perspectives resist technological determinism and highlight that the way in which new technologies shape marketing practices is not a direct consequence of the technology but is rather shaped by markets for marketing. Finally, these perspectives draw attention to the mundane objects and practices in the markets for marketing, something that often is overlooked but plays an important role in shaping marketing (Neyland et al., 2018).  In this issue, we welcome research drawing on Constructivist Market Studies, market dynamics and market shaping perspectives as well as other methodological and theoretical perspectives that could shed new light on these matters.

Suggested Topics

We invite conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that explore the functioning of markets for marketing as well as their role in shaping marketing practice. Examples of possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• The markets for different types of marketing objects, including marketing services (e.g., market research, advertising planning), tools (e.g., customer relationship management systems, shopping trolleys), and audiences (e.g., media space, online audiences).
- How are marketing services promoted to public and not-for-profit organizations?
- How are new marketing audiences discovered and commercialized (see Diaz Ruiz & Kjellberg, 2020)?
- How are new types of marketing objects, such as ‘fake’ social media followers (Lindquist 2021), introduced to the market?
- How do marketing objects link markets for marketing with other markets?
• Professions and expertise. Changes in marketing practices and in the markets for marketing pose new demands for marketing professionals. Likewise, the entrance of new groups of experts, such as sustainability experts or growth hackers, shapes the marketing field.
- How is professional marketing expertise reconfigured by new technologies and marketing forms (cf. Ryan et al., 2023)?
- How do new marketing forms (e.g., influencer marketing, SEO, data analytics) contribute to reshaping marketing expertise?
- How do new groups of experts imagine and transform marketing practices and processes, and the markets for marketing?
• Market(ing) infrastructures. Markets rely on socio-material infrastructures for their formation and organization (Araujo & Mason, 2021; Kjellberg et al., 2019). Markets for marketing are often in an infrastructural relationship with other markets, e.g., the market for marketing research provides a knowledge-based infrastructure for many other markets (Araujo & Mason, 2021).
- What are the effects of the monopolistic role of proprietary marketing infrastructures (e.g., social media “platforms”)?
- What is the role of algorithms as black boxed market infrastructures in shaping marketing practice?
- How do market actors work to create alternative marketing infrastructures?
• Regulation. Rules and norms shape markets. Government regulation and self-regulation shape the boundaries of acceptable marketing practices in relation to questions such as the collection and use of consumer data and covert advertising.
- How do regulatory and self-regulatory organizations deal with the influx of new marketing technologies and rapid changes in marketing practices? How do they deal with the complications of international jurisdictions?
- How do marketers work to influence marketing regulation and self-regulatory frameworks, e.g., through lobbying?
- What is the regulatory role of platform proprietors such as Meta and Google? How do their advertising policies and tools interact with government regulations?
• Change processes in markets for marketing. Marketing practices, and marketing’s impact on society, are shaped by the day-to-day dynamics of markets for marketing as well as by explicit shaping efforts.
- How do new markets for marketing emerge and develop?
- How do the dynamics of advertising markets contribute to changing conventions of advertising representations, e.g., in relation to representations of gender, race and other dimensions of diversity? (e.g., Coleman et al., 2020; Middleton & Turnbull, 2021; Tuncay Zayer & Coleman, 2015)
- What is the room for activism in markets for marketing? How could markets for marketing support positive social change?
- How are critical discourses such as degrowth and frugal consumption influencing the markets for marketing?

For the full call for papers including reference list see https://www.jmmnews.com/markets-for-marketing/

Authors should submit manuscripts of between 8,000–10,000 words (excluding tables, references, captions, footnotes and endnotes). All submissions must strictly follow the guidelines for the Journal of Marketing Management. Please note the requirements to include a Summary Statement of Contribution, and to place figures and tables at their correct location within the text. Please also read the following guidelines prior to submitting your manuscript:

Use of images: https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-policies/images-and-figures/
Use of third-party material: https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/writing-your-paper/using-third-party-material/
Ethical Guidelines: https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-policies/research-ethics-guidelines-for-arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-journals/

Manuscripts should be submitted online using the T&F Submission Portal for Journal of Marketing Management. Authors should prepare and upload two versions of their manuscript (only use alpha-numeric characters or underscores in the filename). One should be a complete text, while in the second all document information identifying the author should be removed from the files to allow them to be sent anonymously to referees.

When uploading files authors will be able to define the non-anonymous version as “Manuscript - with author details”, and the anonymous version as “Manuscript - Anonymous”. To submit your manuscript to the Special Issue choose “Research Article” from the Manuscript Type list in the Submission Portal. On the next screen (Manuscript Details), answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Are you submitting your paper for a specific special issue or article collection?’. A drop down menu will then appear and you should select the Special Issue Title from this list.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article