How marketers argue for business – Exploring the rhetorical nature of industrial marketing work

• Published in: Industrial marketing management Vol. 80; pp. 233 - 241
• Main Author: Nilsson, Tomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01-07-2019
• Subjects: Discourse; Ethnography; Marketing; Marketing work; Marknadsföring; Rhetoric; Sophists; Discourse; Ethnography; Sophists; Rhetoric; Marketing work
• ISSN: 0019-8501; 1873-2062; 1873-2062
• DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.10.004

This paper takes a rhetorical approach to the study of everyday marketing work. It seeks to understand how marketers make sense of the work they do, what discourse is used, and with what rhetorical effect. The study is based on interviews, observations and daily interaction with five marketers involved in marketing and selling of consulting services. It was found that these marketers draw on relationship discourse and customer need discourse – among others – when arguing for business. These discourses could be understood as contradictory discursive forces used by marketers to talk up suitable rhetorical selves, by means of which they accomplish their work. As a whole, this paper provides an illustration of the rhetorical nature of marketing, and discuss theoretical implications, aiming to expand the intellectual agenda for future studies of marketing work that takes marketers' use of language seriously.
•A rhetorical analysis of the work undertaken by professionals involved in marketing of consulting services•Marketers use contradictory discourse to talk up suitable rhetorical selves, by means of which they accomplish their work•Introducing a sophistic perspective to discourse-based studies of industrial marketing work