Promotional Cultures

The Rise and Spread of Advertising, Public Relations, Marketing and Branding.

The economic and cultural role of the `creative industries' has gained a new prominence and centrality in recent years. These worlds are explored here through the most emblematic creative industry: advertising. Advertising Cultures presents a case-study of the social make-up, informal cultures and subjective identities of these creative practices.

The rapid growth of promotional material through the internet, social media, and entertainment culture has created consumers who are seeking out their own information to guide their purchasing decisions. Promotional Culture and Convergence analyses the environments necessary for creating a culture of collaboration with consumers, and critically engages with key areas of contemporary promotional development, including: promotional culture’s primary industries, including advertising, marketing, PR and branding, and how are they informed by changes in consumer behaviour and market conditions how industries are adapting in the digital age to attract both audiences and advertising revenue the evolving dialogues between ‘new consumers’ and producers and promotional industries. Ten contributions from leading theorists on contemporary promotional culture presents an indispensable guide to this creative and dynamic field and include detailed historical analysis, in-depth case studies and global examples of promotion through TV, magazines, newspapers and cinema.

"This edited volume seeks to redress the lack of scholarly work that takes promotion seriously as a form of social, cultural, political, and economic exchange. It unpacks the vernacular, the institutional structures, and the practices and performances that make up promotional culture in everyday life, offering diverse critical perspectives on how, as citizens, consumers, and users, we absorb, navigate, confront, and resist its influence. Contributions from both renowned scholars and emerging intellectuals make this book a timely and valuable contribution to the fields of media and communication studies, political science, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology." --BOOK JACKET.

This book argues that we are witnessing the emergence of ‘commercial democracy’ in which public relations, promotional culture and the media play a new, central role. As the conventional democratic promise of political representation loses traction with the public in many countries, commercial culture steps into this vacuum by offering mirror forms of democracy. Commercial democracy promises representation, voice and agency to the public and in doing so creates new forms of social contract. Based on empirical material, this book examines the Public Relations (PR) produced by corporations and communications produced by charities in an intensely mediatized society. It presents a novel analysis of the shifting significance of brand and reputation. It analyses the ascendancy of commercial speech, PRs’ relationship to post-truth politics, and the transformation of cultural intermediaries into ‘social brokers’. As PR and promotional culture come to inhabit the realm of the social contract and new forms of politics, ‘the public’ and the very idea of ‘publicity’ are transformed.

Contemporary gendered identity." --Book Jacket.

The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture provides an essential guide to the key issues, methodologies, concepts, debates, and policies that shape our everyday relationship with advertising. The book contains eight sections: Historical Perspectives considers the historical roots and their relationship to recent changes of contemporary advertising and promotional practice. Political Economy examines how market forces, corporate ownership, and government policies shape the advertising and media promotion environment. Globalization presents work on advertising and marketing as a global, intercultural, and transnational practice. Audiences as Labor, Consumers, Interpreters, Fans introduces how people construct promotional meaning and are constructed as consumers, markets, and labor by advertising forces. Identities analyzes the ways that advertising constructs images and definitions of groups -- such as gender, race and the child -- through industry labor practices, marketing, as well as through representation in advertising texts. Social Institutions looks at the pervasiveness of advertising strategies in different social domains, including politics, music, housing, and education. Everyday Life highlights how a promotional ethos and advertising initiatives pervade self image, values, and relationships. The Environment interrogates advertising’s relationship to environmental issues, the promotional efforts of corporations to construct green images, and mass consumption’s relationship to material waste. With chapters written by leading international scholars working at the intersections of media studies and advertising studies, this book is a go-to source for those looking to understand the ways advertising has shaped consumer culture, in the past and present.