BU Research Blog

Chris Miles, Senior Lecturer in Marketing & Communication in the Faculty of Media & Communication, has just published Marketing, Rhetoric and Control: The Magical Foundations of Marketing Theory (ISBN: 9781138667273). The 216 page monograph is the first book to be published in the new Routledge Studies in Marketing series.

Marketing, Rhetoric and Control investigates the tensions that surround the place of persuasion (and, more broadly, control) in marketing. Persuasion has variously been seen as an embarrassment to the discipline, a target for anti-marketing sentiment, the source of marketing’s value in the modern organisation, a mysterious black box inside the otherwise rational and logical endeavour of enterprise, and a rather insignificant part of the marketing programme. This book argues that this multifarious reputation for persuasion within marketing stems from the influence of two quite oppositional paradigms – the scientific and the magico-rhetorical – that ebb and flow across the discourses of its discipline and practice.

Constructing an interface between original, challenging close readings of texts from the beginnings of the Western rhetorical tradition and an examination of the ways in which marketing has set about describing itself, this text argues for a Sophistic interpretation of marketing. From this perspective, marketing is understood as providing intermediary services to facilitate the continuing exchange of attention and regard between firm/client and stakeholders. It seeks to manage and direct this exchange through an appreciation of the changing rational and irrational motivations of the firm and stakeholders, using these as resources for the construction of both planned and improvised persuasive interactions in agonistic (or competitive) environments.

The book is aimed primarily at researchers and academics working in the fields of marketing, marketing communications, and the related disciplines of marketing theory, critical marketing, and digital marketing. It will also be of value to marketing academics in business schools, including those working in the areas of media and communication studies who have an interest in commercial and corporate communication, brand use of interactive media, and communication theory.

One early review rave review from Prof. Stephen Brown of Ulster University states:
“There is nothing “mere” about rhetoric. Long demonised and often misrepresented, rhetoric is an ancient artform whose time has come. As Miles shows in this exemplary text, rhetoric is central to the modern marketing condition. Marketers’ seemingly magical ability to cast spells of delight, desire, distinction over delirious consumers is rooted in their rhetorical acumen. A sagacious review of the principal rhetorical traditions and a brilliantly-written reading of marketing principles and practices, Miles’ book is a rhetorical triumph. In a word, it’s magic!”

Link to the book’s page on the Routledge website:

https://www.routledge.com/Marketing-Rhetoric-and-Control-The-Magical-Foundations-of-Marketing-Theory/Miles/p/book/9781138667273

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 A History of Rhetoric for Marketers

Chapter 2 Marketing Scholarship and Rhetoric

Chapter 3 Control and the Discourse of Marketing Science

Chapter 4 A Rhetorical Approach to Marketing as Exchange

Chapter 5 Marketing and Sophism – a comparison

Chapter 6 Magic, Sympathy, and Language

Chapter 7 The Magical Roots of Rhetoric

Chapter 8 Magical Persuasion and Marketing

Chapter 9 A Sophistic Marketing

Chris Miles was co-convenor of the 1st International Symposium on Marketing (as) Rhetoric which was held last year at Bournemouth University. His research deals with the discursive construction of marketing theory and practice, particularly as it relates to communication and control. He also publishes in the areas of rhetoric, cybernetics, and alternative religion.