ABSTRACT
Outside of sociology and cultural studies, of course, there lies a whole field of commercial research which is concerned with issues of taste and consumption that are similar to those raised in Bourdieu’s Distinction. Even though market researchers are motivated by a desire to identify potential purchasers for commodities and business services – rather than by an academic or political interest in providing accounts of cultural power and social reproduction – I want to propose that the work they do may still be of relevance to academics engaged in the analysis of consumer practices. In fact, marketing discourses can be read as signs of quite fundamental shifts in capitalist modes of production and consumption during the twentieth century. The growth of marketing as a profession parallels the movement from an era of so-called ‘mass consumption’ to newer, flexible and specialized, forms of production – with correspondingly more diverse and fragmented consumer subgroups. It is highly appropriate that in the jargon of recent debates on the Left of British politics, this has come to be known as a transformation from ‘Fordism’ to ‘Post-Fordism’, because the car industry shows clear evidence of the changes taking place. When the Ford Motor Company once said of its famous ‘Model T’ that buyers could have any colour they wanted so long as it was black, few foresaw the day when, counting all the multiple combinations of engine and optional accessories, one type of car would be available in over 69,000 varieties. Car advertising campaigns are increasingly targeted at specific audiences – promoting the spacious saloon for family use,
sports performance for the young executive or a stylish hatchback for the independent woman about town.
