This major reference collection, Critical Marketing Studies, directs its attention to highlighting how marketing as academic discipline and practical endeavour have developed and continue to change. As a practical exercise, marketing is concerned with meeting and satisfying customer needs, provided, that is, such an exercise would benefit the organisation and its stakeholders. Much more than that, marketing has become a highly influential activity in social, political and economic arenas. Consequently, it is now an appropriate time to call attention to marketing theory and practice, revealing those background assumptions that pervade the discipline and the effects of marketing as a societal practice.
Volume I provides the basis from which more critical marketing studies can be introduced and focuses on the ′broadening of marketing′ from its initial focus on business and market exchange, towards the promotion of social and societal wellbeing. Volume II offers contemporary criticism of marketing and consumption, specifically how marketing and advertising allegedly contribute to the production and stimulation of consumer needs, wants and desires. Volume III takes the concerns and issues outlined in the previous two volumes one step further, highlighting how marketing practice and the ′political economy of social choice′ are shaped at levels beyond the control of individual actors.
I have previously taught at the Universities of Leicester, Essex and Strathclyde and my research interests are fairly eclectic. I continue to engage in research related to the history of marketing, with a specific focus on the influence of the Cold War on marketing and advertising theory. An on-going stream of research deals with racism and eugenics in marketing theory, thought and practice. Suffice to say, these are just a sample of what is presently occupying my attention.
Pauline Maclaran is Professor of Marketing & Consumer Research in the School of Management at Royal Holloway. She joined in September 2008, having moved from Keele University where she was Professor of Marketing. She is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Academy ofMarketing and the Association for Consumer Research, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to becoming an academic she worked in industry for many years, initially in marketing positions and then as a founder partner in her own business, a design and marketing consultancy. During this time she worked with a broad spectrum of public and private sector companies. Currently her main teaching areas are Consumer Behaviour and Contemporary Issues in Marketing & Consumer Research. Her research interests focus on cultural aspects of contemporary consumption, and she adopts a critical perspective to analyze the ideological assumptions that underpin many marketing activities, particularly in relation to gender issues. Her work also explores socio-spatial aspects of consumption, including the utopian dimensions of fantasy retail environments, and how the built environment mediates social relationships. In 2002 she co-chaired the ACR Gender, Marketing & Consumer Behavior Conference and in 2010 the European ACR Conference. She has also co-organised two ESRC sponsored seminar series on Critical Marketing and Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption. She has just finished co-editing a book entitled Consumption & Spirituality with Dr Diego Renallo, Bocconi University, Milan and Professor Linda Scott, Said Business School, University of Oxford. Currently she is working with Professor Cele Otnes, University of Illinois, on a book for California University Press entitled, Tiaras, Tea Towels and Tourism: Consuming the British Royal Family.
