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.
Aspers, P.Markets in fashion: A phenomenological approach. Stockholm : City University Press, 2001.
4.
Baxandall, M.Painting and experience in fifteenth century Italy. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1972.
5.
Becker, H.Art worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
6.
Bogart, M.H.Artists, advertising, and the borders of art. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
7.
Bourdieu, P.The field of cultural production. Cambridge: Polity, 1993.
8.
Bourdieu, P.The state nobility: Elite schools in the field of power. Cambridge: Polity, 1996.
9.
Caves, R.Creative industries: Contracts between art and commerce. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
10.
Dale, K. & Burrell, G.The spaces of organisation & the organisation of space: Power, identity & materiality in work. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
11.
Douglas, M. & Isherwood, B.The world of goods: Towards an anthropology of consumption. New York: Basic Books, 1979.
12.
Garsten, C.Apple world: Core and periphery in a transnational organizational culture . Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 33, 1994.
13.
Garsten, C. & Lindh de Montoya, M. (Eds). Market matters: Exploring cultural processes in the global marketplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
14.
Goffman, E.The presentation of self in everyday life. Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1959.
15.
Goffman, E.Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1986/1974.
16.
Goldman, K.Conflicting accounts: The creation and crash of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising empire. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
17.
Grabher, G.The project ecology of advertising: Tasks, talents, and teams. Regional Studies, 2002, 36, 245-62.
18.
Hackley, C.Tacit knowledge and the epistemology of expertise in strategic marketing management . European Journal of Marketing, 1999, 33, 720-35.
19.
Hertz, E.The trading crowd: An ethnography of the Shanghai stock exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
20.
Hopkins, C.C.My life in advertising & Scientific advertising. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books, 1998.
21.
Hower, R.M.The history of an advertising agency. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939.
22.
Ingold, T. & Hallam, E.Creativity and cultural improvisation: An introduction. In E. Hallam & T. Ingold (Eds), Creativity and cultural improvisation. ASA Monographs 44. Oxford: Berg, 2007, pp. 1-24.
23.
Jackall, R. & Hirota, J.M.Image makers: Advertising, public relations, and the ethos of advocacy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
24.
Kemper, S.Buying and believing: Sri Lankan advertising and consumers in a transnational world. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2001.
25.
Kunda, G.Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation, 2nd edn. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006.
26.
Lien, M.Marketing and modernity. Oxford: Berg, 1997.
27.
Malefyt, T. de Waal.Models, metaphors and client relations: The negotiated meanings of advertising . In T. de Waal Malefyt & B. Moeran (Eds), Advertising cultures. Oxford: Berg, 2003, pp. 139-63.
28.
Malefyt, T. de Waal & Moeran, B.Introduction: Advertising cultures - advertising, ethnography and culture . In T. de Waal Malefyt & B. Moeran (Eds) Advertising cultures. Oxford: Berg, 2003, pp. 1-34.
29.
Marshall, A.Principles of economics. London: Macmillan, 1961.
30.
Mayer, M.Madison Avenue, U.S.A. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books, 1991.
31.
Mazzarella, W.Shoveling smoke: Advertising and globalization in contemporary India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
32.
McCreery, J.L.Creating advertising in Japan: A sketch in search of a principle. In B. Moeran (Ed.), Asian media productions. London: Curzon, 2001, pp. 151-67.
33.
Miller, D.Capitalism: An ethnographic approach. Oxford: Berg, 1997.
34.
Moeran, B.A tournament of value: Strategies of presentation in Japanese advertising . Ethnos, 1993, 54, 73-93.
35.
Moeran, B.A.Japanese advertising agency: An anthropology of media and markets. London: Curzon, 1996.
36.
Moeran, B.The business of ethnography. Oxford: Berg, 2005.
37.
Moeran, B.Ethnography at work. Oxford: Berg , 2006a.
38.
Moeran, B.More than just a fashion magazine. Current Sociology, 2006b, 54, 725-44.
