Marketing as “the future” of culture

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present marketing as a  new research area for (Polish) cultural studies, a field in which the relationship of culture and marketing practices seems to be “unexplained”. The article discusses the issue of marketing which from the management perspective is defined as a  market practice that developed in response to the demands of the global economy, as well as a  scientific discipline of economics which defines the tools which supply consumers in values. Due to the universality of such practices on a  global scale, marketing is becoming an interesting research area for the social sciences and the humanities as a  particular kind of human activity in postmodern reality which consists in supplying values to communities and individuals through creation and exchange of offers, services and branding. Moreover, the article points to methodological challenges which marketing poses to cultural studies. Many aspects of the relations between culture (taking into account the diversity of its definition) and marketing may remain unnoticed by cultural experts because they occur within the marketing and management paradigms. As an example of a  new, interdisciplinary approach within Polish cultural studies the article presents the analysis of the place brand as a  cultural phenomenon and proposes cultural analysis of the brand of Lublin Voivodship.