This paper examines visual representation from a distinctive, interdisciplinary perspective that draws on ethics, visual studies and critical race theory. Suggests ways to clarify complex issues of representational ethics in marketing communications and marketing representations, suggesting an analysis that makes identity creation central to societal marketing concerns. Analyzes representations of the exotic Other in disparate marketing campaigns, drawing upon tourist promotions, advertisements, and mundane objects in material culture. Moreover, music is an important force in marketing communication: visual representations in music (...) promotions are also explored as data for inquiry. Offers an alternative to phenomenologically based approaches in marketing and consumer research scholarship that use consumer responses to generate data. Contributes additional insight into societal marketing and places global marketing processes within the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and representation. (shrink)

This article investigates conceptual and strategic relationships between corporate identity, organizational identity and ethics, utilizing the Benetton Corporation as an illustrative case study. Although much attention has been given to visual aspects of Benetton's renowned ethical brand building efforts, few studies have looked at how Benetton's employees, retail environments and trade events express ethical aspects of their well-known corporate identity. A multi-method case study, including interviews at retail outlets and trade events, sheds light on several important yet under-studied components of (...) corporate identity, including stakeholders such as retail managers and contract employees. Analysis of Benetton's operations revealed disconnection and inconsistency, as well as a failure to communicate ethical values and socially responsible attributes throughout organizational identity. Operational identity emerged as a useful complement to models of corporate identity. We demonstrate the way in which organizations may fail to capitalize on positive aspects of their organizational identity by neglecting their operational identity. (shrink)

This article investigates conceptual and strategic relationships between corporate identity, organizational identity and ethics, utilizing the Benetton Corporation as an illustrative case study. Although much attention has been given to visual aspects of Benetton's renowned ethical brand building efforts, few studies have looked at how Benetton's employees, retail environments and trade events express ethical aspects of their well‐known corporate identity. A multi‐method case study, including interviews at retail outlets and trade events, sheds light on several important yet under‐studied components of (...) corporate identity, including stakeholders such as retail managers and contract employees. Analysis of Benetton's operations revealed disconnection and inconsistency, as well as a failure to communicate ethical values and socially responsible attributes throughout organizational identity. Operational identity emerged as a useful complement to models of corporate identity. We demonstrate the way in which organizations may fail to capitalize on positive aspects of their organizational identity by neglecting their operational identity. (shrink)

This article investigates conceptual and strategic relationships between corporate identity, organizational identity and ethics, utilizing the Benetton Corporation as an illustrative case study. Although much attention has been given to visual aspects of Benetton's renowned ethical brand building efforts, few studies have looked at how Benetton's employees, retail environments, and trade events express ethical aspects of their well-known corporate identity. Operational identity emerged as a useful complement to models of corporate identity. A multi-method case study, including interviews at retail outlets (...) and trade events, sheds light on several important yet under-studied components of corporate identity, including stakeholders such as retail managers and contract employees. Analysis of Benetton's operations revealed disconnection and inconsistency, as well as a failure to communicate ethical values and socially responsible attributes throughout organizational identity. We demonstrate the way in which organizations may fail to capitalize on positive aspects of their organizational identity by neglecting their operational identity. (shrink)

Human skin, photography, and consumer culture combine to produce striking images designed to promote visions of the good life. Branding and marketing imagery mobilize skin to resonate and communicate with consumers, which influences the meaning-making possibilities of skin more broadly. Representations of skin in consumer culture, including marketing communications, are anything but ‘blank’ backgrounds or ‘neutral’ meaning spaces. We analyse how skin ‘appears’ to work, and how its appearance in consumer culture imagery reveals ideological and pedagogical aspects of skin. Building (...) upon psychodynamic and interdisciplinary understandings of skin, we discuss dimensions of the body that feed marketing communications and branding. We highlight representational fetishization and the epidermal schema as conceptual tools to interrogate the commodification of skin and as constitutive elements in processes of skin commodification. We provide theoretical insights to address the ways in which skin is implicated in new and emerging concerns of digital representational practices. (shrink)