What Your Consumer Wants

Business-to-business advertising as a mechanism of market change

Bibliographic Data

ID2181338
AuthorsDavid Schleifer (0000-0002-7341-6897, Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author), Michaela Desoucey (0000-0003-1183-402X, Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume8
Issue2
Pages218-234
Publication date2015-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Cultural Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1753-0350 • E-ISSN: 1753-0369
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17530350.2013.861356
OpenAlexW1805286785
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited53

With what mechanisms and cultural resources do market actors pursue change? Based on an analysis of business-to-business advertisements in two US food industry trade publications, we show the generative influence of social movements on perceived market opportunities. Building on recent scholarship on market-making, we find that market actors articulate and reshape critiques of their own industry by making claims about what consumers ostensibly want and about how their products can satisfy those desires. We find that business-to-business food ingredient advertisements selectively articulate precepts of the emergent 'good food' movement by urging manufacturers to develop healthy, natural, and 'clean' foods. While 'good food' advocates typically portray processed and packaged food as inherently unhealthy, suppliers and trade associations' advertisements transform this critique by claiming that products will be more marketable to consumers if they are made with ingredients designed to provide specific health benefits and to comply with federally mandated product labeling regulations. As such, we find that these business-to-business advertisements mediate between imagined demands and pragmatic constraints while serving as a conduit for the influence of social movements on industry practices and products

Advertising · Business · Business model · Economics · Food industry · Political science · Product (mathematics · Public relations · Scholarship · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification · Environmental Sustainability in Business · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture · Marketing