Marketing in contemporary world: situational vs. postmodern paradigm

This paper points to the need for understanding consumer behavior and a variety of factors that influence consumer behavior, which is explained through situational and postmodern paradigms. The situational paradigm is based on the concept of impulse buying and focuses on the situational factors as dominant consumer behavior motivators, underlining the importance of external factors. On the other hand, this paper also underlines the inevitable existence of the postmodern paradigm which has its roots in hyperreality, fragmentation, a change in the roles of production and consumption and consumer decentralization. It stresses the need for reconsidering various factor categories that model consumer behavior, instead of relying on any single category. Consumer behavior is analyzed through the postmodern paradigm that includes customization, allowing the consumer to shape marketing elements and adjust them to his needs so that he becomes an active participant and an experience producer. Considering consumer behavior as a little known marketing field leads to the conclusion that it rests on both these paradigms, even though they are contradictory. Such a contradiction lays the foundation for an integrated exploration of consumer behavior with no exclusion of either paradigm, one that will accept various influences forming the backbone of the postmodern era, and of marketing in the contemporary world.