Marketing, the past and corporate heritage

Abstract

We argue for a more expansive conceptualization of the past’s relevance in, and for, marketing. Such a differentiated approach to the past is pregnant with possibilities in terms of advancing scholarship apropos temporal agency in marketing along with consumption practices. Symptomatic of this perspective is the increased mindfulness of the rich palate of past-related concepts. Significantly, the corporate heritage notion – because of its omnitemporal nature – represents a distinct and meaningful vector on the past by coalescing the past, present and future into a new type of temporality. As such, the authors reason this expansive conceptualization of ‘the past-in-marketing’ is both timely and efficacious. While sensitive of the importance of the historical method in marketing and the history of marketing scholarship and practice per se, this broader marketing approach to and of the past highlights the ideational and material manifestations of the past-in-the-present and an envisaged past-in-the-future.