ABSTRACT
A t first sight the advertising industry of the early twenty-first century seems aplayground for the talented. Advertising employees think of themselves asmembers of a profession, chosen without fear or favour as the people best able to perform as the vanguard of consumer capitalism. They were encouraged in this view by an intellectual apparatus that put them among the leaders of the ‘creative class’ (Florida, 2003). In this context the key advertising workers were not salespeople, account managers or client relations developers, but the people who wrote copy, designed layouts or directed and cut television and film promos. These ‘creatives’ were among the key manipulators of symbols in a world in which the manipulation of information was the key to the creation of new business.
