A novel investigation of pro bono marketing and the relationship
between goods, exploring the complex moral dimensions of philanthropic
advertising.
The advertising industry may seem like one of the most craven
manifestations of capitalism, turning consumption into a virtue. In
Tangled Goods, authors Iddo Tavory, Sonia Prelat, and Shelly Ronen
consider an important dimension of the advertising industry that appears
to depart from the industry's consumerist foundations: pro bono ad
campaigns. Why is an industry known for biting cynicism and cutthroat
competition also an industry in which people dedicate time and effort to
"doing good"?
Interviewing over seventy advertising professionals and managers, the
authors trace the complicated meanings of the good in these pro bono
projects. Doing something altruistic, they show, often helps employees
feel more at ease working for big pharma or corporate banks. Often these
projects afford them greater creative leeway than they normally have, as
well as the potential for greater recognition. While the authors uncover
different motivations behind pro bono work, they are more interested in
considering how various notions of the good shift, with different
motivations and benefits rising to the surface at different moments.
This book sheds new light on how goodness and prestige interact with
personal and altruistic motivations to produce value for individuals and
institutions and produces a novel theory of the relationship among
goods: one of the most fraught questions in sociological theory.
