Modernist and Postmodern influences on marketing Essay

Modernist and Postmodern influences on marketing - Essay Example Therefore, it is acceptable to claim that consumers would be expected to carry out economic and rational behaviour in choosing products using criteria based on an objective evaluation. However, according to Ellis et al (2011: p45), post-modernist perspectives on marketing, in contrast, adhere to the viewpoint that there exists no single correct and universal scientific method. In contrast to modernity’s subjective â€Å"knowing†, the latter views the consumer as being actively involved in communicating their preferred social reality (Ozuem, 2013: p55), instead of passive inheritance of social reality constructed sans their participation. This increased role of the consumer, however, does not diminish the role of marketing because, as stated by Hunt and Morgan (1995: p5), consumers still have imperfect information about products that might match their tastes and preferences and, thus, their preferred social reality. Consumers in the post-modern era explore a more eclectic product combination to experience inconsistent and tentative identities (Dawes & Brown, 2010: p93). A consumer can purchase a product from an upscale retailer and another from a bargain sale, which acts as an example of fragmentation occurring within the consumers â€Å"self† dependent on varying contexts. Marketers, therefore, would be wasting time in attaching meaning to goods and services they offer to such a fragmented consumer, especially since meanings are contextual. Thus, marketers are being forced to abandon the modernism-era consumer who was goal-oriented and rational for the post-modernism-era consumer who samples and browses, as well as experiments with relationships and identities. As contended by Hirt (2009: p253), the post-modern experience is one of participation, in which creation of product value is done during consumption, instead of during production. The success of marketing