Marketing in Context: Setting the Scene by Chris Hackley

Author:Chris Hackley [Hackley, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781137297129
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2013-11-14T14:00:00+00:00

CONTEXT AND CULTURAL CRITIQUE

My logic, here, is that if urban spaces, including architecture, planning, street furniture, signage, shop frontage, and interior design, are ideologically linked to capitalism, that is, if they are inflected with the values of marketing, then this insight should be at the very centre of marketing study and practice. The place of cultural critique is not at the sniping periphery of academic critical theory, but at the centre of a candid and inclusive appraisal of contemporary marketing. True, urban design is not generally under the control afforded to the architects of Bicester Village or the designers of visitor experiences at Disneyland, Alton Towers, or Universal Studios. Real cities evolve as the products of many competing interests, and do not succumb to a simplistic, totalizing logic. That is their fascination. However, there is connection between my experience of rummaging the cheap shelf at Bicester Ralph Lauren, that of my fellow shoppers, and the wider environment that frames our sense of meaning. The fact that Bicester is so successful tells us something not only about the eternal desire for a bargain, but of the cultural landscape in which paying £400 for a jacket can be seen as a steal. In an era of economic crisis, a visit to Bicester any day of the week shows that there is still a lot of money around to spend on fun, and not just by tourists.

Much of marketing focuses resolutely on the micro instead of the macro. The cognitive psychology of buying decisions is often conceived as if our cognitions occur in a cultural vacuum. This is no more true of our interpretation of the meaning of an advertisement, than it is of our interpretation of, and response to, our physical and spatial environment. For example, I have touched on the role of alcohol and drunkenness in UK policy debates. The ways we drink, though, are cultural constructions. Research suggests that the way people behave when drunk is culturally primed more than chemically determined. In the UK, being drunk is often associated with the transgression of social norms, and especially with violence that is seemingly out-of-control. Yet, the way we drink, and the ways we behave when drunk, vary greatly amongst different cultural and ethnic groups. Societies that report greater alcohol problems are not necessarily those with higher overall consumption levels or lower abstinence rates. Even when drunk, behavior is culturally constructed according to internalized norms and cultural predispositions.

This book is about trying to understand marketing practice, techniques, and effects. It isn’t a cultural critique, but I feel that cultural critique is implied, and made possible, through a more candid appreciation of the cultural marketing mise-en-scéne. Critical psychogeography is useful for conceptualizing the dynamism of environmental influence in marketing. It enriches the mise-en-scéne metaphor with sense of the way the urban environment psychologically influences moving crowds. Bicester Village has generated jobs, income and development on a considerable scale. No doubt, residents have differing views on whether that has been positive, or negative, for the area.

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