Advertising Cultures (review)

Noting a convergence of anthropology and advertising research, the editors of this collection of eight ethnographic studies of global advertising industries have dual purposes: to inform marketers about how anthropologists think about the ways they conduct research, and to inform academics about how marketers increasingly use ethnography in their market research. Although it is aimed at other audiences, business and economic historians will benefit from this book, as well.

Editors Timothy deWaal Melefyt and Brian Moeran begin the book with an essay explaining the advertising industry to anthropologists and the anthropological method of field work and ethnography to marketers. Advertising is not just about social communication, they argue, but about social, personal, and financial networks among suppliers, clients, advertising personnel, and consumers. The book focuses on industries and the production of advertising, rather than on campaigns or their consumption.

A few examples demonstrate the range, both geographic and topical, of the ethnographic studies included in the text. Steven Kemper's chapter on Sri Lanka includes a discussion of the career of Lilamani Dias, who created ads featuring generically Sri Lankan women—neither urban nor rural, both modern and innocent—in order to transcend the traditional division between city and country (a distinction also imbued with class implications). Barbara Olsen's contribution is a narrative ethnography recalling her own work promoting Warner's brassieres in a campaign that led to permanent change in the way women purchased the product in the United States. Warner changed its image from "stodgy" to market leader by introducing self-service in upscale department stores. Marianne Elisabeth Lien's examination of a Norwegian company's promotion of convenience foods shows how the character of a campaign can change in unexpected and unwanted ways; in this case, a problem with the manufacturing process held up the release of one item in the company's line, thereby delaying the launch of a television ad featuring the item. The only ad released, then, featured a well-known male spokesperson, making the entire promotion more male-oriented than intended.

Despite the array of subjects, a number of common themes emerge. Several of the studies note that the client is the most important consumer of advertising images, as in Moeran's analysis of a proposal prepared by a Japanese agency for a campaign in Germany and the United States, and Malefyt's review of a brainstorming workshop held for clients by a small New York agency; they echo Roland Marchand's similar discussion in Advertising the American Dream (1985). Another theme involves global versus local advertising. Kemper, Moeran, and others show that local agencies can compete with global ones because of their understanding of local images and preferences (Lilamani Dias's generic Sri Lankan woman is one example). Perhaps most important, the book's authors urge scholars to take advertising seriously, in the words of William Mazzarella, "because the practice of advertising is so deeply implicated in the general contemporary movement towards both the 'marketization' of public life and the 'imagification' of the market" (p. 63). The collection's focus on production also is instructive.

Although some of the ethnographic studies provide historical context, this book is neither historical nor aimed at historians. Yet it has much to offer, providing information about how agencies and marketing departments work, cross-cultural comparisons, and a clear picture of advertising as a social process. Its greatest value to historians, though, is its emphasis on the relationship between advertising and culture. Daniel Miller's case studies of three soft drink campaigns in Trinidad best makes this point. People "who regard the world as having distinct worlds of the economic and the cultural," Miller asserts, "are talking as though advertising didn't exist" (p. 78). In short, advertising is not just part of both the economy and the culture, but it is the most important link between the two.