THE ROLE OF MARKETING LABOUR IN VALUE CREATION: LEVERAGING CUSTOMER DATABASES AND CO-CREATIVE DIGITAL INTERACTIONS

Year 2026, Volume: 16 Issue: 2 , 699 - 712 , 01.04.2026

Yeşim Akmeraner-Kökat

https://doi.org/10.7456/tojdac.1857159

https://izlik.org/JA59TK85TG

Abstract

This paper examines the role of marketing labour in value creation by drawing on analyses of the post-Fordisation of labour. It argues that value generated from customer databases depends not only on the analytical work of disassembling and reassembling consumers as data points, but also on the informatisation of creative production, which increasingly requires the convergence of analytical and creative labour. The paper further suggests that value co-creation relies on the virtuosic (performative) labour of marketing practitioners who collaboratively design the creative and technical arrangements that enable co-creative interactions on digital networks. Virtuosic labour refers to a form of labour whose outcome is not a tangible product but a performative and relational process inseparable from the worker’s own enactment. Conceptualising contemporary communication practices as forms of work, the paper theorises this process as an asymmetrical interdependence between the labour of consumers and that of marketing practitioners. It contends that this interdependence produces value along the increasingly blurred boundaries between production and consumption, thereby illuminating how post-Fordist labour shapes contemporary marketing practices. The paper contributes to the literature on value creation that examines the production of consumers as commodities through databases and the co-creation of value.

Keywords

co-creation , database marketing , creative work , marketing labour , post-Fordism

DEĞER YARATIMINDA PAZARLAMA EMEĞİNİN ROLÜ: MÜŞTERİ VERİTABANLARI VE ORTAK YARATIMA DAYALI DİJİTAL ETKİLEŞİMLERİN KULLANIMI

https://izlik.org/JA59TK85TG

Abstract

Bu makale, emeğin post-Fordist dönüşümüne ilişkin kuramsal tartışmalardan hareketle pazarlama emeğinin iki temel değer yaratma sürecindeki rolünü incelemektedir: müşteri veritabanlarından elde edilen değer ve değerin ortak yaratımı. Çalışma, müşteri veritabanlarından üretilen değerin, tüketicilerin veri noktaları olarak oluşturulmasına dayanan veri analitiği faaliyetlerinin yanı sıra, yaratıcı üretimin enformatikleşmesine de bağlı olduğunu ileri sürmektedir. Bu dönüşümün, yaratıcı ve analitik emeğin giderek yakınsamasını beraberinde getirdiğine işaret edilmektedir. Bunun yanında, değerin ortak yaratımının, dijital ağlarda gerçekleşen etkileşimleri mümkün kılan yaratıcı ve teknik düzenlemeleri kolektif biçimde tasarlayan pazarlama profesyonellerinin virtüöz emeğine dayandığı ortaya konmaktadır. Virtüöz emek, sonucu somut bir ürüne değil, üreticinin icrasından ayrışmayan performatif ve ilişkisel bir sürece dayanan emek biçimini ifade eder. Güncel iletişim biçimlerinin birer çalışma ilişkisi olarak ele alınmasıyla, söz konusu süreç tüketici emeği ile pazarlama emeği arasındaki asimetrik bir karşılıklı bağımlılık şeklinde kavramsallaştırılmakta ve bu ilişkinin, çağdaş pazarlama pratiklerini karakterize eden üretim ile tüketim arasındaki giderek bulanıklaşan sınırlar boyunca değer ürettiği ileri sürülmektedir. Çalışma, tüketicilerin veritabanları aracılığıyla birer meta olarak üretilmesini ve değerin ortak yaratımını inceleyen değer yaratımı literatürüne katkıda bulunmaktadır.

Keywords

değerin ortak yaratımı , veritabanı pazarlaması , yaratıcı emek , pazarlama emeği , post-Fordizm.

References

• Ariztia, T. (2015). Unpacking insight: How consumers are qualified by advertising agencies. Journal of consumer culture, 15(2), 143-162. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540513493204
• Ariztia, T. (2016). Bringing the world into the creative studio: The ‘reference’ as an advertising device In A. W. Ignacio Farias (Ed.), Studio studies: operations, topologies & displacements (pp. 40-55). Routledge.
• Ariztia, T. (2017). Manufacturing the consumer’s truth: The uses of consumer research in advertising inquiry. In Markets and the Arts of Attachment (pp. 38-54). Routledge.
• Ariztía, T. (2014). Housing Markets Performing Class: Middle-Class Cultures and Market Professionals in Chile. The Sociological Review, 62(2), 400-420. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12144
• Arnould, E. J., & Cayla, J. (2015). Consumer Fetish: Commercial Ethnography and the Sovereign Consumer. Organization Studies, 36(10), 1361-1386. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840615580012
• Arsel, Z., Zanette, M. C., & da Rocha Melo, C. (2024). Sponsored Content as an Epistemic Market Object: How Platformization of Brand–Creator Partnerships Disrupts Valuation, Coproduction, and the Relationship Between Market Actors. Journal of Marketing, 00222429241296459. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241296459
• Arvidsson, A. (2005). Brands:A critical perspective. Journal of consumer culture, 5(2), 235-258. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540505053093
• Beauvisage, T., Beuscart, J.-S., Coavoux, S., & Mellet, K. (2023). How online advertising targets consumers: The uses of categories and algorithmic tools by audience planners. New Media & Society, 0(0), 14614448221146174. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221146174
• Brierley, S., Hardy, J., MacRury, I., & Powell, H. (Eds.). (2018). The Advertising Handbook (4th ed.). Routledge.
• Brouard, M. (2024). Setting sail in a tokenized world: An exploration of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and the co-created consumer experience. International Journal of Research in Marketing. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2024.03.002
• Charitsis, V., Yngfalk, A. F., & Skålén, P. (2018). ‘Made to run’: Biopolitical marketing and the making of the self-quantified runner. Marketing theory, 19(3), 347-366. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593118799794
• Charitsis, V., Zwick, D., Bradshaw, A. (2018). Creating Worlds that Create Audiences: Theorising Personal Data Markets in the Age of Communicative Capitalism. tripleC (16(2)), 820-834. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v16i2.1041
• Cluley, R. (2022). Interesting numbers: An ethnographic account of quantification, marketing analytics and facial coding data. Marketing theory, 22(1), 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931211039001
• Cluley, R. (2025). Marketing Work and Labour. In K. M. Susi Geiger, Neil Pollock, Philip Roscoe, Annmarie Ryan, Stefan Schwarzkopf, & P. Trompette (Eds.), Market Studies: Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action (pp. 416-427). Cambridge University Press
• Cluley, R., Green, W., & Owen, R. (2020). The changing role of the marketing researcher in the age of digital technology: Practitioner perspectives on the digitization of marketing research. International Journal of Market Research, 62(1), 27-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470785319865129
• Cova, B., & Dalli, D. (2009). Working consumers: the next step in marketing theory? Marketing theory, 9(3), 315-339. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593109338144
• Cova, B., Dalli, D., & Zwick, D. (2011). Critical perspectives on consumers’ role as ‘producers’: Broadening the debate on value co-creation in marketing processes. Marketing theory, 11(3), 231-241.
• Dholakia, N., Ozgun, A., & Atik, D. (2021). The unwitting corruption of broadening of marketing into neoliberalism: a beast unleashed? European Journal of Marketing, 55(3), 868-893. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2018-0688
• Fuat Firat, A., & Shultz, C. J. (1997). From segmentation to fragmentation. European Journal of Marketing, 31(3/4), 183-207. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000004321
• Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2004). Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. . The Penguin Press.
• Hearn, G., & McCutcheon, M. (2020). The creative economy: the rise and risks of intangible capital and the future of creative work. In The future of creative work (pp. 14-33). Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Hesmondhalgh, D., & Baker, S. (2010). ‘A very complicated version of freedom’: Conditions and experiences of creative labour in three cultural industries. Poetics, 38(1), 4-20.
• Hesmondhalgh, D., Baker, S. (2011). Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries. Routledge.
• Humphreys, A., & Grayson, K. (2008). The Intersecting Roles of Consumer and Producer: A Critical Perspective on Co-production, Co-creation and Prosumption. Sociology Compass, 2/3, 963–980. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00112.x
• Hung, H.-Y., Kumar, A., Kumar, V., Lin, C.-C., & Tan, K. H. (2024). Exploring player cocreation dynamics on the gaming platform: Interplay of goal fulfillments, orchestration actions, and platform affordances. International Journal of Research in Marketing. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2024.12.003
• Jacobi, E. S., Freund, J., & Araujo, L. (2015). ‘Is there a gap in the market, and is there a market in the gap?’ How advertising planning performs markets. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(1-2), 37-61. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2014.943675
• Kelleher, C., N. Wilson, H., Macdonald, E. K., & Peppard, J. (2019). The Score Is Not the Music: Integrating Experience and Practice Perspectives on Value Co-Creation in Collective Consumption Contexts. Journal of Service Research, 22(2), 120-138. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670519827384
• Lazzarato, M. (1996). Immaterial Labor. In M. H. Paolo Virno (Ed.), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (pp. 133-150). University of Minnesota Press.
• Lazzarato, M. (2014). Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity. Semiotext(e).
• Lee, P. Y., & Lau, K. W. (2018). A new triadic creative role for advertising industry: a study of creatives’ role identity in the rise of social media advertising. Creative Industries Journal, 11(2), 137-157. https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2018.1434362
• Lee, P. Y., & Lau, K. W. (2019). From an “idea generator” to a “solution facilitator”: A study of the changing roles of advertising professionals in the social media marketing era Available Career Development International(24 (1)), 2–17. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-03-2018-0080 Mallard, A. (2017). ‘You are a Star customer, please hold the line…’: CRM and the sociotechnical inscriptions of market attachment In F. Cochoy, Deville, Joe, McFall, Liz. (Ed.), Markets and the Arts of Attachment. Routledge.
• Marazzi, C. (1994). Il posto dei calzini: La svolta linguistica dell’economia e i suoi effetti nella politica. Edizioni Casagrande.
• Marazzi, C. (2008). Capital and Language: From the New Economy to the War Economy. Semiotext(e).
• McFall, L. (2004). Advertising: a cultural economy. Sage.
• Prahalad, C. K., & Ramaswamy, V. (2000 ). Co-opting customer competence. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 78 No. 1, 79-90.
• Prahalad, C. K., Ramaswamy, Venkat. (2004). Cocreation Experiences: The Next Practice in Value Creation. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 18 (3), 5–14.
• Prahalad, C. K., Ramaswamy, Venkatram. (2000). Marketing Co-opting Customer Competence. Retrieved 27.12.2024, from https://hbr.org/2000/01/co-opting-customer-competence
• Quinn, L., Dibb, S., Simkin, L., Canhoto, A., & Analogbei, M. (2016). Troubled waters: the transformation of marketing in a digital world. European Journal of Marketing, 50(12), 2103-2133. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-08-2015-0537
• Ramaswamy, V., & Ozcan, K. (2016). Brand value co-creation in a digitalized world: An integrative framework and research implications. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), 93-106. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2015.07.001
• Ritzer, G., & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’. Journal of consumer culture, 10(1), 13-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540509354673
• Ryan, A., Stigzelius, I., Mejri, O., Hopkinson, G., & Hussien, F. (2023). Agencing the digitalised marketer: Exploring the boundary workers at the cross-road of (e)merging markets. Marketing theory, 23(3), 463-487. https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931231153194
• Sayer, A. (2000). Realism and Social Science. SAGE.
• Sayer, A. (2003). Method in Social Science: A realist approach. Routledge.
• Scaraboto, D., & Figueiredo, B. (2021). How Consumer Orchestration Work Creates Value in the Sharing Economy. Journal of Marketing, 86(2), 29-47. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429211027777
• Schau, H. J., Muñiz, A. M., & Arnould, E. J. (2009). How Brand Community Practices Create Value. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 30-51. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.73.5.30
• Shah, D., & Murthi, B. P. S. (2021). Marketing in a data-driven digital world: Implications for the role and scope of marketing. Journal of Business Research, 125, 772-779. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.062
• Slater, D. (2002). Capturing markets from the economists. In P. Du Gay, Pryke, M. (Ed.), Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life (pp. 59-77). Sage.
• Slater, D. (2011). Marketing as a Monstrosity: The Impossible Place between Culture and Economy. In D. Zwick & C. Julien (Eds.), Inside Marketing (pp. 23-41). Oxford University Press.
• Tadajewski, M., & Jones, D. G. B. (2020). From goods-dominant logic to service-dominant logic? Service, service capitalism and service socialism. Marketing theory, 21(1), 113-134. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593120966768
• Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004). Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing. Journal of Marketing, 68(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.68.1.1.24036
• Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2008). Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-007-0069-6
• Vargo, S. L., Maglio, P. P., & Akaka, M. A. (2008). On value and value co-creation: A service systems and service logic perspective. European Management Journal, 26(3), 145-152. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2008.04.003
• Virno, P. (1996). Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus (C. C. Maurizia Boscagli, Paul Colilli, Ed Emory, Michael Hardt, and Michael Turits, Trans.). In M. H. Paolo Virno (Ed.), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (pp. 189-209). University of Minnesota Press.
• Virno, P. (2004). A Grammar of Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. Semiotext(e).
• Zeng, J., & Glaister, K. W. (2017). Value creation from big data: Looking inside the black box. Strategic Organization, 16(2), 105-140. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127017697510
• Zwick, D., Bonsu, S. K., & Darmody, A. (2008). Putting Consumers to Work: Co-creationand new marketing govern-mentality. Journal of consumer culture, 8(2), 163-196.
• Zwick, D., & Bradshaw, A. (2016). Biopolitical Marketing and Social Media Brand Communities. Theory, Culture & Society, 33(5), 91-115. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276415625333
• Zwick, D., & Denegri Knott, J. (2009). Manufacturing Customers:The database as new means of production. Journal of consumer culture, 9(2), 221-247. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540509104375
• Zwick, D., & Dholakia, N. (2004a). Consumer subjectivity in the Age of Internet: the radical concept of marketing control through customer relationship management. Information and Organization, 14(3), 211-236. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2004.01.002
• Zwick, D., & Dholakia, N. (2004b). Whose Identity Is It Anyway? Consumer Representation in the Age of Database Marketing. Journal of Macromarketing, 24(1), 31-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146704263920