ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of a consumer research and data collection odyssey culminating in a satisfaction measure, provided by consumers, representing marketing's overall performance for consumers. After the conceptual and methodological essentials of the project are described, a review of over a quarter-century of results yields meaning for the present and future of the institution of marketing. The findings are rather equivocal, but pregnant with societal import. The chapter's concluding section offers these derived implications for the relation between marketing practice and the “common good.” One fair interpretation: The field of marketing appears to deserve at least a grade of “I” for improvement.
