CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Cultural Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology

Working Hypothesis

Marketing and advertising has become the defining logic of the era.

It is anybody's guess why consumers were ignored by sociologists for so long. Possibly, consumer behavior was considered to be the province of other academic domains—economics, for example, or retailing and marketing.

According to McCracken (1988:71-89), advertising is a process of transference: Symbols created or taken from the culture are used by advertisers to situate a commodity in cultural space (Ewen, 2007).

The activities of advertisers, including their strategies and negotiations with clients, have been amply discussed. Advertisers meet with manufacturers, identify a market niche in the context of competing products, and then—focusing on particular characteristics of their product—construct a scenario linking their product to a situation that consumer's desire. Products thus gain an identity, and competing products with similar uses are differentiated in meaning. Does this work—that is, do ads sell? This is generally true (Campbell, 2008). Ads carry information, but consumers are not blank slates; they have much information and are subject to multiple influences.

Referring to all the factors that contribute directly to the process of material production, the “forces of production” include both the means of production (natural resources, tools, and machinery) and labour power (physical strength, skills, and technical knowledge). Relations of production are human relationships of power over persons and productive forces that regulate production and distribution. Together, the relations and the forces of production comprise the mode of production and form the real basis or the ground on which the superstructure of any social formation rests. The superstructure that arises on this basis comprises the legal and political institutions (Althusser's “ideological apparatuses of the state”), as well as the legal, political, religious, or philosophical ideas, theories, and ideologies that are necessary for maintaining the conditions of material production and overall reproduction of the social formation. Although the superstructure is “in the last instance” (Engels [1845-1846]1972:294) determined by the economy, the relative autonomy of the superstructure is not denied thereby: Althusser has shown that the economic determination allows for the dominance of culture, as was the case in the Middle Ages when religion functioned as the first and main instance of determination.

Countless studies show that individuals are differentially receptive to an ad's message—contingent on things such as their attitude toward a product or their receptivity to new information.

Many of these studies, however, miss the broader influence of advertising on consumers. Branded products illustrate ...