Relationship marketing and the order of simulation

This paper applies Jean Baudrillard’s order of simulacra to further investigate the paradigm of relationship marketing (RM). A brief overview of RM is given, followed by a summary of the main critical perspectives taken towards the approach. We argue that Baudrillard’s theories of simulation and post-industrial culture provide a useful analytical approach through which to resolve some of these critiques. Relationships are simultaneously ‘real’ and ‘imagined’. In the culture of simulation all cultural forms, including relationships, are open to critical analysis and interrogation. They are a construct that results from the complex interplay between signs, code and programme, which for our purposes are manifest as the market, marketing institutions and marketing technologies.