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Welcome to the first edition of the International Journal for Construction Marketing.

The launch of any new journal has excitement about it. The response to the call for papers since last July has been very good and it is with confidence that we can all look forward to subsequent editions of this journal. I hope the contents of this first edition have something for the academic and industry audience, but more about that later.

This journal has arisen out of the interests of a few academics primarily, although not exclusively, in the UK. There was awareness of a growing amount of work in the area of marketing, selling and promoting of construction and professional services. Some were beginning to specialise in the area and there was a need to share information and ideas. With that in mind the 1^st National Construction Marketing Conference was held at Oxford Brookes University in association with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group. That has run successfully on an annual basis and last year the 1^st International Construction Marketing Conference was held at Leeds University. The academic market is growing in this field as people share their research and as others are encouraged to contribute. Thank you for those who have already contributed to this edition. We hope many more will do so and that the International Journal for Construction Marketing becomes a prime outlet for research in the field.

The same cannot be said for construction. Whilst each market and nation is slightly different in the character and timing of the economic cycle, the general trend has been to see some improvement in the market since the depths of recession, although there are some predicting, at least in the UK, that growth will tail off. Therefore the importance of marketing is very much to the fore, yet it is an overhead in accountancy terms. What may be the implications of this in a downturn?

The recession of the early 1990s provided a marvellous opportunity for contractors especially, and consultants too, to cut back their organisations so that the slim line version was truly client orientated. This did not happen. A model of cutting the so-called "deadwood" was used followed by the hierarchical approach of cutting costs and delayering the management, in line with general business thinking. This became a lost opportunity to embrace marketing.

The current trend has been towards relationship marketing, for example using tools such as partnering. Yet investment is needed to build relationship and maintain continuity of work. That may fly in the face of cost cutting in a downturn. Cost cutting this time round will be from a lean production and service position at best and a position of being an anorexic corporate body at worst. Will organisations be able to maintain existing marketing and sales efforts? Can partnering and other initiatives survive or will they wither on the vine? It is impossible to answer that question at present. If the answer in the future can be seen as, "No", then partnering and other relationship marketing processes will be consigned to the basket of fickle fads in construction. Competition will be cut throat and the quality of services will go down. The initiatives and influences of investing in technologies, procurement and marketing advocated by many, such as Latham and Egan in their UK reports, will be in tatters.

If the answer is, "Yes", survival will lead to healthier companies and higher levels of client satisfaction. In practice, the situation may vary from organisation to organisation and thus the industry will become more highly differentiated, if not polarised. It is hoped that this journal may help industry to address the marketing issues and sustain a progressive drive. We do not always fly our own flag high enough, after all contracting, project management and consulting carries out some of the most complex tasks and projects of any industry, usually in the virtual organisation of the project team.

I believe that marketing has a key role to play here. I suspect many, who come to this website and read this journal, will be in sympathy with this view. I am sure we all hope that this initiative can help build a means by which those in practice can more confidently argue their case – invest in marketing and sales in a serious manner.

This first issue begins to address some of these issues. There are two articles examining the markets in different countries: China and Botswana. A third article looks at measures and opportunities that exist within the UK. The fourth article focuses upon promotion in the industry, drawing upon case material from the British construction industry. The edition concludes with a review article, which happens to involve one of the authors of the papers, Chris Preece. In my own view the book reviewed and the article with which he is both involved are extremely complimentary. The article sets out research findings that add weight to the thrust of the book.

Hedley Smyth
Editor