The intensification of marketing activities in recent years has led the public to become much more aware of its role as consumers. Yet, the increased visibility of marketing materials and associated messages in everyday life is in contrast with the often little understood inner workings of the marketing profession itself, despite the widespread recognition of marketers as key agents in shaping the face of global capitalism. Inside Marketing offers a theoretically informed critical perspective on contemporary marketing practice and its growing cultural, economic, and political influence worldwide. This book brings together leading scholars and practitioners from the fields of business, history, economic sociology, and cultural anthropology, to analyse the inner workings and outer effects of marketing as a material social practice, an ideology, and a technique. Their work raises some important and timely questions. How has marketing transformed the pharmaceutical industry and what are the consequences for our lives? How does marketing influence the way we think of progress and modernity? How has marketing changed the way we think of childhood? And how does marketing appropriate the creativity of consumers for profit? This book offers scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners a theoretical and conceptual understanding of how marketing works as a cultural institution and as an ideology.
Reviews
Review from previous edition For 30 years fundamental social science theory has been diffusing into the marketing domain via the efforts of academics, consultants, corporate researchers, and social critics, often working separately or with few opportunities for cross-fertilization. This consistently insightful volume constitutes a turn towards greater dialogue among these disparate tendencies featuring strong established voices and flourishing newer contributors all drawing on the rich wellspring of twentieth-century social thought. * Eric Arnould, Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Business Practices, University of Wyoming *
The enduring contrast between the pervasive presence of marketing and the lack of empirical studies on its tools and practices has prevented us from understanding its effects on society. Inside Marketing fills the gap. Because they chose to follow marketers at work, contributors of this book show us how societies are ineluctably transformed into market societies and ordinary citizens into insatiable consumers. A must-read for anyone who worries about our future. * Michel Callon, Professor of Sociology, Ecole des Mines de Paris *
Combining practical knowledge of marketing as a profession, practice, and ideology with a critical social science perspective, this astute collection takes the reader inside the truly global phenomenon of marketing. It will undoubtedly enhance your perspective of how marketing happens and the effects it has when it does happen. * Celia Lury, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London *
This innovative collection of essays promises to move thinking in marketing in new, more integrative and more critical directions. The book represents an important contribution to helping us move away from thinking in narrow disciplinary terms and toward more unified thinking (with sociology and anthropology in particular) about marketing and business more generally. * George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland *
Critical knowledge of marketing has profited enormously from the new dialogue between business school academics and scholars across the rest of the academy. Inside Marketing is the best interdisciplinary collaboration of this type that I have read; the book is filled with trenchant and original insights from some of the world's sharpest critics of marketing. * Douglas Holt, CEO and Co-Founder of Cultural Strategy Group and author of How Brands Become Icons and Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build Breakthrough Brands *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199655830
Author Detlev Zwick
Format Paperback
Page Count 376
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 602g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 158mm * 20mm