Psychoanalysis as a marketing theory

This commentary reviews the use of psychoanalysis in marketing theory. It breaks this application into three epochs. The first was driven by commercial interests in marketing practice. The second saw psychoanalysis as a critical and cultural theory to understand the symbolic aspects of consumer society. The most recent deploys psychoanalysis to explore the perversions, pathologies and secret pleasures of contemporary consumption. From here, the commentary briefly identifies the institutional, theoretical, methodological and political challenges posed by psychoanalysis as a marketing theory and proposes paths for the future development of marketing and consumer psychoanalysis.