Targeted Society: Should Sociology Theorize Marketing?

In this text, I argue that sociology can only really understand the social impact of marketing by theorizing it as a powerful system of practices legitimized by a comprehensive cultural concept. In the first section, I discuss the specific time and place of the birth of marketing. In the second part, I discuss the essence of that truly Copernican revolution (Keith 1960). In the third section, I present the ‘need-related’ industry that emerged in the frame of the founding idea. Finally, I discuss a basic marketing tool: segmentation. Selecting the target group for a branded offer is one of the key marketing commandments and reaching that group is the key marketing task. Hence, marketing engages in (re) creating and bringing to light target groups, which it then supports, talks with, and listens to. This means that marketing has taken the role of advocating and mediating groups’ existence (Latour 2005), engaging in this task over one trillion US dollars annually.