Macromarketing as a Pillar of Marketing Thought

This article addresses the appropriate centrality of the macromarketing perspective for the larger field of marketing scholarship. Eight topics are explored: (1) the treatment of the societal domain across the “Four Eras” of marketing thought development, (2) the recent trend to research specialization and an ensuing fragmentation of the mainstream of marketing thought, (3) the loss of knowledge and today's PhD education in marketing, (4) a current concern with the American Marketing Association's 2004 definition of marketing, (5) the challenge posed by the fact that research on marketing and society is itself fragmented, (6) challenges for research from the Brinberg/ McGrath framework, (7) the aggregate marketing system as a potential central organizing concept, and (8) a closing comment on the “pillar” status of macromarketing and the key role played by the Journal of Macromarketing in its first twenty-five years.