Promotional Cultures: The Rise and Spread of Advertising, Public Relations, Marketing and Branding

In the twenty-first century, promotion is everywhere andeverything has become promotable: everyday goods and organizations,people and ideas, cultures and futures. This engaging book looks atthe rise of advertising, public relations, branding, marketing andlobbying, and explores where our promotional times have takenus.Promotional Cultures documents how the professions andpractices of promotion have interacted with and reshaped so much inour world, from commodities, celebrities and popular culture topolitics, markets and civil society. It offers a mix of historicalaccounts, social theory and documented case studies, includinghaute couture fashion, Apple Inc., Hollywood film, Jennifer Lopez,the Occupy movement, Barack Obama’s election campaigns, newsproduction and the 2008 financial crisis. Together, these show howpromotional culture may be recorded, understood andinterpreted.Promotional Cultures will appeal to students and scholarsof media and culture, sociology, politics, anthropology, social andindustrial history.