Algorithmic classifications in credit marketing: How marketing shapes inequalities

Abstract

While critical marketing studies have discussed algorithm-driven marketing’s role in governmentality, subjectivity formation and capitalist accumulation, its role in shaping class inequalities is less studied. Drawing on the performativity of marketing, ‘classification situations’ and critical algorithm studies, this paper uses the case of credit marketing to propose a twofold framework to analyse how algorithmic marketing shapes the cultural and economic inequalities of class. First, algorithms used for categorizing consumers and matching them with marketing messages and products provide access (1) to different symbolic resources and (2) to credit products with different financial consequences to different consumers depending on their categorization, which contribute to the creation of cultural and economic inequalities, respectively. Second, algorithms of financial advice devices overtake parts of consumer choice. Insofar as different financial preferences and rationalities are scripted into the devices for different client groups, these technologies constitute an additional process that affects social divisions.