Introducing the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) and its Common-Language Marketing Dictionary : Background,Description,Vision,and Prospects

Abstract

For the benefit of marketing's worldwide academic community, not least this journal's high-end readership, a relatively new, specialized, marketing-focused organization of ascending impact merits formal introduction. The Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB), founded only in 2007, is a group of marketing academics, financial professionals, other business executives, and professional association representatives organized for and committed to improving the financial accountability of the corporate marketing function through enhanced performance measurement. That informational notice is one purpose of this communication. Then, the report segment per se outlines MASB's current initiatives in furtherance of the accountability aim, with special emphasis on one that may first appear a lesser function: creation of an official, authoritative marketing language dictionary. The endeavor's justification is that a common language as embodied in a good dictionary would benefit marketing theory and practice through improved communication, thereby enabling better accountability. Yet the ultimate reach of such a language resource should transcend any impact on financial accountability.