Marketing and consumerism : A response to O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy

Purpose – This paper aims to examine O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy's response to accusations about marketing's detrimental impact on society. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the empirical research on consumerism and materialism to date. Findings – Indicates that consumerism is associated with reduced personal wellbeing and that the rise of consumerism parallels the rise of modern marketing to a remarkable extent, although in both cases the causal direction is unclear. Research limitations/implications – The paper proposes further research to help understand to what extent it is possible to work within the current market economy structures to reduce the incidence and harms of consumerism. Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper is that it shows that the association between marketing practice and the harms of consumerism may be greater than it is generally believed to be by marketing academics.