What is an advert? A sociological perspective on marketing media

Abstract

This article draws on a conceptual vocabulary developed in science and technology studies to advance a sociological theory of objects in marketing. Analysing a single advertising medium, it shows that marketing objects can exist simultaneously in multiple forms as physical artefacts, political decisions, legal entities and economic values. Armed with this understanding, the article explores the ability of actors to manipulate these realities in their favour and investigates how it is possible to turn public space on a city street into an advertising object. Using John Law’s notion of fractional objects, the article proposes an analytic framework to open up new objects for critical intervention and reflection.