Influence of Sociological Factors on Marketing Trends

This chapter discusses the connections between the fields of sociology and marketing as well as the potential and actual contributions of sociological elements to consumer behavior. It is well known that various academic fields, including sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics, assist marketing science in comprehending and explaining consumer behavior. One could argue that a key driving force behind the marketing discipline is understanding the market and consumer behavior. The relationship between sociology and marketing is shaped by the sub-components of these subjects. Marketing draws on the study areas of sociology to understand consumption motivations and behavior. Although marketing books address sociological issues through concepts like social class and reference groups that influence consumption, as well as cultural, social, and personal factors, it could be argued that there are few studies that explore these two fields together, examine their similarities and differences, and consider how they might support one another. Within this framework, the aim of this section is to address the two questions that follow: how does the field of marketing science relate to sociology currently, and what possible impact or contribution can sociology science make to marketing? This approach involved first discussing the general relationship between marketing and sociological factors, then discussing market and consumption issues from the perspectives of the two disciplines—marketing and sociology—and finally focusing on the question of what could be discovered if consumption was examined from a dominant sociological perspective. After discussing culture, which is considered a distinct field for understanding the connection between sociology and marketing, the topic of brands, regarded as an important area within this field was covered. The last section includes a list of recent topics of study that integrate sociology and marketing, along with brief descriptions of each. All these topics are given as an overview of the literature. In the conclusion section, a brief review is offered, and future study areas are elaborated.