The marketing manager as a jazz musician

Abstract

Purpose – Recently, organizational theorists and business thinkers have discovered the jazz metaphor and have employed this trope as an analogy to infer and describe best practices in the areas of organizational innovation and business strategy. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – The present paper extends and amplifies this insight in the area of marketing practice and compares the marketing manager to the jazz musician with special attention to the problem of introducing new offerings during the mature stage of the product life cycle – namely, the strategic issue that concerns most marketing managers most of the time. Findings – Ultimately, the author is struck by the rather profound ways in which – true to the jazz metaphor – the marketing manager during the mature phase of the product life cycle resembles an improvising musician. Originality/value – The present paper pursues this theme in connection with one particular aspect of marketing strategy – namely, the design and introduction of new offerings during the mature phase of the product life cycle.