Abstract
Malefyt offers an intriguing analysis of how commercial advertising operates as a magical network of paradoxes. As an aesthetic art form and also business enterprise, advertising enlists an elite few of advertising creatives to transform ordinary mass products into unique aspirational ideals through idea creation. The process begins with transient idea ephemera but, through networked transformations, it solidifies ideas into human relationships and advertised product goods across contexts and audiences. Malefyt identifies three elements—the magician, formula, and rite (also recognized by Mauss and Malinowski)—as essential to magical production and network connections. The chapter concludes by revealing how symbolic power and authority in advertising are surrounded by contradiction and ambiguity, which enable the manipulation of reality as a key feature of magic, both inside and outside advertising agencies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Appadurai, Arjun. 1986 [2004]. The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition. In Culture and Public Action, ed. Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, 59–84. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bell, Catherine. 2009. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Illuminations, ed. A. Arendt. New York: Schocken.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press.
Callahan, Robey, and Trevor Stack. 2007. Creativity in Advertising, Fiction and Ethnography. In Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, ed. Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold, 267–283. Oxford: ASA Monographs. Berg.
Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger. London: Routledge.
Dusenberry, Phil. 2005. Then We Set His Hair on Fire: Insights and Accidents from a Hall-of-Fame Career in Advertising. New York: Portfolio.
Elliott, John Jr. 1982. Good Advice, in Leonard Safir and William Safire. New York: Times Books, p. 7.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, Erving. 1979. Frame Analysis. Boston: Northwestern University press.
Hackley, Chris. 2000. Silent Running: Tacit, Discursive and Psychological Aspects of Management in a Top UK Advertising Agency. British Journal of Management 11 (3): 239–254.
Hackley, Chris, and Arthur J. Kover. 2007. The Trouble with Creatives: Negotiating Creative Identity in Advertising Agencies. International Journal of Advertising 26 (1): 63–78.
Hallam, Elizabeth, and Tim Ingold, eds. 2007. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg.
Handelman, Don, and Galina Lindquist, eds. 2005. Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation. New York: Berghahn Books.
Jöhncke, Steffen, and Vibeke Steffen. 2015. Introduction: Ethnographies of the Limits of Reason. In Between Magic and Rationality: On the Limits of Reason in the Modern World, ed. V. Steffen, S. Jöhncke, and K.M. Raahauge, 9–39. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
Johnson, Phil. 2012. When One Agency’s Ideas Show Up in Another Agency’s Work. Adage. http://adage.com/print/234207.
Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo. New York: Picador.
Kocek, Chris. 2013. The Practical Pocket Guide to Account Planning. West Chester, PA: Yellow Bird Press.
Kottman, E. John. 2010. Truth and the Image of Advertising. In Advertising: Critical Readings, ed. Brian Moeran, vol. 4, 29–32. Oxford: Berg.
Kover, Arthur J. 1995. Copywriters Implicit Theories of Communication: An Exploration. Journal of Consumer Research 21 (4): 596–611.
Latour, Bruno. 1991. Technology Is Society Made Durable. In A Sociology of Monsters Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, ed. J. Law. Sociological Review Monograph N 38, pp. 103–132.
———. 2010. On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods. Trans. Catherine Porter and Heather Maclean. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. 1986. Laboratory Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University press.
Lukovitz, Kartene. 2012. Fastest-Growing Brands Are ‘Ideal-Driven’. Marketing Daily, January 18. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/165965.
Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2012. Writing Advertising: the Production of Relationships in Historical Review. Journal of Business Anthropology 1 (2): 218–239.
———. 2013. Celebrity Status, Names, and Ideas in the Advertising Award System. In Exploring Creativity, ed. Moeran and Christensen, 191–210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2018. Brands. In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. Hilary Callan. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, and Robert J. Morais. 2010. Creativity, Brands, and the Ritual Process: Confrontation and Resolution in Advertising Agencies. Culture and Organization 16 (4): 333–347.
———. 2012. Advertising and Anthropology: Ethnographic Practices and Cultural Perspectives. Oxford: Berg.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
———. 1954. Magic, Science and Religion, and Other Essays. New York: Anchor.
———. 1965. Coral Gardens and Their Magic. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Mauss, Marcel. 1972. A General Theory of Magic. London: Routledge.
Mayle, Peter. 1990. Up the Agency: The Snakes and Ladders of the Advertising Business. London: Pan Books.
McCreery, John. 1995. Malinowski, Magic, and Advertising. In Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior: An Anthropological Sourcebook, ed. John F. Sherry Jr. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Miller, Daniel. 1997. Capitalism: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg.
Moeran, Brian. 1996. A Japanese Advertising Agency. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
———. 2003. Celebrities and the Name Economy. In Anthropological Perspectives on Economic Development and Integration, ed. N. Dannhaeuser and C. Werner, 299–321. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
———. 2005. The Business of Ethnography: Strategic Exchanges, People and Organizations. Oxford: Berg.
———. 2014. Business, Anthropology, and Magical Systems: The Case of Advertising. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, pp. 119–132
Ogilvy, David. 1965. The Creative Chef. In The Creative Organization, ed. Gary A. Steiner, 199–213. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1985. Ogilvy on Advertising. New York: Vintage Books.
Rosaldo, Renato. 1993. Ilongot Visiting: Social Grace and the Rhythms of Everyday life. In Creativity/Anthropology, 253–269. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Sandiegox. 2017. https://sandiegox.org/2017-american-advertising-awards-winners/.
Schudson, Michael. 1984. Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion. New York: Basic.
Stewart, Pamela J., and Andrew Strathern. 2014. Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion. London: Bloomsbury.
Taussig, Michael. 2003. Viscerality, Faith and Skepticism. In Magic and Modernity, ed. B. Meyer and P. Pels. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
———. 1987. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ Publications.
Weiner, Annette. 1992. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-giving. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1980. Advertising: The Magic System. In Problems in Materialism and Culture. London: Verso.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
de Waal Malefyt, T. (2018). The Magic of Paradox: How Advertising Ideas Transform Art into Business and the Ordinary into the Extraordinary. In: Moeran, B., de Waal Malefyt, T. (eds) Magical Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74397-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74397-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74396-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74397-4
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)