ABSTRACT
Consumer marketing as a discipline today covers a variety of areas, which together put the consumer at the center, regardless of whether it relates to mass marketing, relationship marketing, service logic, consumer behavior, or branding. This chapter analyzes and discusses the historical development of marketing as a theoretical discipline as well as management practice with a focus on consumers. The dominating theoretical ideas established in the research and literature, namely transaction marketing, relationship marketing, and service logic, are addressed in depth. In particular, the differences between these approaches with respect to the relevant concepts, models, and theories are discussed to understand the development of consumer marketing in theory and practice. A fundamental theoretical basis of marketing as a scientific discipline has been the business exchange between the sellers and the buyers when it has related to a physical product or a service in exchange for money.
