The organization of creativity in Japanese advertising production

Abstract

This article makes use of the results of ethnographic participant observation to analyze how creativity is organized in the production of Japanese advertising. An ad campaign, like many other creative products, is produced by `motley crews' of personnel from both within an agency contracted to conceptualize the campaign on behalf of its client (an account team) and freelance professionals hired to realize the account team's creative concept (a production team). The concepts of frame analysis and art worlds are used to analyze the symbolic space of the studio and the transformations that occur there, while that of field enables a comparative analysis of advertising's `space of possibles' in which different actors position themselves and their clients' products. Creativity is used to establish relations of power among advertising personnel, as well as over consumers, by means of the constant (re)positioning of advertisers' products. This is the function of advertising's motley crew.

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