48 to underwrite the established order; themselves* Smith (1981)

is again appropriate*

"The liquidation of the Herbert holding involved BSA in a loss of several million £s* This loss broke BSA for it needed funds desperately* This incident, one of several over the last two decades, reflects the special size and product diversity of the BSA group and the interests of its top directors in success outside motorcycles. This allowed attention and finance to be directed auay from motorcycles although these remained the main profit centre in the group and required proper attention and investment if they were to remain so."

49

Olins (1978) appears to be offering a similar point of view in an analysis of United Parcels Service, a privately owned rival to the U.S. Mail.

"U*P.S. with its own language, uniforms and specifically adapted vehicles is in many ways, a private world, carefully developed uith the intention of making people behave predictably*"

The deliberate creation and use of such corporate identities, as a means towards encouraging the endowment of corporations with

desirable characteristics is a reflection of managerial authority for theirs are the criteria against which potentially "desirable”

characteristics are measured* Thus when Uarnock feels that evidence of the nature of the ford Motor Company may well have slipped away

50

since the 1950*s (see Chapter 5) Olins (1978) can be seen to disagree*

”So far as the visual identities of companies are concerned, there has for the most part been little change during the past 10 or 15 years* All the traditional aggressive tribal markings with which companies have surrounded themselves in the past - the war paint they have to put on to terrify the outside world - have remained almost untouched*”

Olins1 statement contains two points of importance for he not only believes that corporations are visibly preoccupied with self preservation but that visual evidence, of the sort he cites, is, in fact, a more reliable guide to a companyfs intentions than any talk of changing to meet the demands of the market* Two threads of this

argument are worth emphasising for whilst Olins may concentrate on the deliberate manipulation of corporate imagery, the case also applies uhen there is no such policy* Secondly, these visually significant aspects are an unavoidable part of commercial activity and will arise no matter what the company or its lifespan.

In summary, then, it is felt that the nature of marketing management, the significance of mass production and the asymmetries of industrial organisations can all be demonstrated and appreciated in visual terms* There would also seem to be support for the argument that common sense understandings of the visible play a vital part in both the determination of everyday reality and the reinforcement of social and industrial structure* The following is a case in point*

Geoff MacAvoy worked in a machine shop which he also ran* He had been a toolmaker for a well known motor car manufacturer but left their Merseyside factory because he felt that there uas no real challenge in the job nor any sign of his skills in the finished product* His business was not only a response to this personal frustration but also a medium for the abilities of several other highly capable crafts­ men* The recent closure of the car factory did however mean that a number of the newer employees had known and trusted Geoff before

The machine shop produced specialised and unique items for engineering concerns and vehicle restorers throughout Britain. Most of the demand seemed to come from a grape vine of satisfied customers. Geoff was clearly proud of this.

“Therefs a little bit of us in everything that goes out of here and ue don*t like to think of it going to a bad home.1*

These sentiments uere readily echoed by his uorkraates uho uere eager to join in the conversation. It uas obvious that everyone concerned uith the organisation felt some real commitment to the uay it uorked and uhat it did. They uere, houever, uorried that the

delays caused by the steel strike (sarly 1980) uould sour relationships uhich had taken a long time to develop into trust. There uas also an undertone of uncertainty about the costs involved for no one made a lot of money out of the business and they uere afraid that, even uith this de facto subsidy, the standards they uere so keen to maintain might prove too much for the market to bear.

“It*s really fucking bitter. If ue don*t get a steady run of uork ua'll have to lay someone off... see, there*s no reserves in a firm this size and that means a mate on the dole. It hardly seems right that no one is uilling to pay for good stuff anymore but the trouble is ... even rubbish is expensive

nouadays, innit?

This question from the shop floor uas clearly more of a declar­ ation of faith for despite the apparently marginal nature of Geofffs business it seemed that everyone uho uorked there felt that ths risks uere uorth taking. It could also be argued that ths machine operators sau the quality of their uork as a refuge from their commercial vulnerability.

The apparently universal assumption that “their” share of the market uas too big for the uhole enterprise to fail did little to

disguise the damage that an enforced laying off of skilled labour uould do to both morale and professional pride. Uhilst the experiences of individual failure and frustration uere still too recant to be easily overlooked Geoff felt that the uorst uas over.

"People have only to look at something ue've done and they can see it's class. The can see ue get it right and ue're

doing more and more so the uord must be out*, tiie'll soon have the other problem of telling people ue can't take any more or standards uill suffer. Host of them are pretty patient

though, especially the vehicle restorers. But then you've

got to be if you're uaiting for the gearbox to a 1926 Mercedes.” Uhen asked if selling such equipment, on the strength of its finish, uasn't a someuhat limited and difficult market, in that the product uould only be fully appreciated by otherrengineers, Geoff uas quite determined.

”Sometimes, it feels like that but I don't mind. If engineers are buying our stuff it means ue're getting it right, not like those big bastards uho can't or uon't be bothered. Christ, ue make mistakes too but ue don't try and sell ours. Look ••

ue got a contract a uhile back for some rachets and so on, fittings for a neu seuage farm. The bloody things uouldn't fit.'

They'd not been easy so Baz uent doun to check on the

installation. He uas there for ages before he noticed that the i bloody platforms uere out of true and the frame uasn't square. So., it's nothing to do uith us but the trouble is., the mob uho cobbled this lot together do more in a ueek than ue do in a year so uho's the site manager going to bollock? Right, but still, ue keep on 'cos some people believe in us. It's not just ourselves.”

Sadly it seems that there uere too feu to make any difference for uhen a cancelled appointment at a nearby crisp factory presented the opportunity of a return call there uas no one on the site and a 'For Sale or Rent* notice on the gates. After piecing together a number of very second hand stories it uould seem that the firm had gone

through a brutally extended erosion of its business before being uound up in the midst of a uelter of unpaid bills and collapsing friendships. This distress raised a number of problems not least of uhich uas the

/ \51

unsought after proof of Brittan's (1973) argument that certain of the characteristics uhich are essential to human interaction are frequently overlooked.

"One of the surprising aspects of the discussion of social inter- action among recent sociologists is the paucity.of their interest ~ in and discussion of sympathy and emotional identification."

A noteuorthy parallel can be draun betueen this and the marketing theorists uho insist that trade is a form of social interaction in

uhich 'commendable' decisions are based upon economic grounds and not 'emotional' ones. These same commentators also accept that marketing

is the commercially managed process whereby consumers needs and desires are uncovered and then satisfied.

Uhilst *emotional identification* i3 vital to methodologies like the ‘rolling* interview, which depends upon empathy and

evocation, there are certain difficulties involved. It is therefore to be hoped that the traditions of storytelling, which relayed the

closure of MacAvoy*s Engineering, were also responsible for the reported­ ly coincidental discovery that Geoff and his wife would be unable to

i 52

have their own children. Brunvald (1983) is explicit.

’’The vast amounts of human interchange from casual daily conversations to formal discussions in business or industry, law or teaching, rarely constitute straight oral folklore. However, all such "communicative events" are punctuated routinely by various units of traditional material that are memorable, repeatable, and that fit recurring social

situations well enough to serve in place of original remarks."; Brunvald*s analysis does provide a caveat to the research for whilst these "memorable, repeatable" phrases may well give a

conversation the appearance of ritual they are nevertheless intended 53

to evoke an individual and specific meaning. Brunvald (Gp.cit) goes

on to observe that

"Tellers of these legends, of course, are seldom aware of their roles as "performers of folklore”. The conscious purpose of this kind of storytelling is to convey a true event, and only incidentally to entertain an audience. Nevertheless, the speaker*s demeanour is carefully orchestrated, and his or her delivery is low-key and soft-sell. Uith subtle gestures, eye movements, and vocal inflections the stories are made dramatic, pointed and suspenseful ... Passive tellers of urban legends may just report them as odd rumours, but the more active legend tellers re-create them as dramatic stories of suspense and, perhaps, humour."

Brunvald is, in effect, arguing that the skilful "teller of urban legends" will add weight to the intended meaning of a story by encouraging the audience in ‘emotional identification*. These same conversational skills can also be seen as a matter of common practice for whilst the MacAvoy workforce is thought to be divided between the

*dols* and whatever jobs can be had on Merseyside, Geoff and his wife are said to have emigrated to New Zealand.

As this research was originally conceived in terms of the collection and analysis of spoken and written data, it can be argued that developments such as Brunvald*s (Op«cit) "traditional material" or Brittan's (Op.cit) lack of "emotional identification" are still within the scope of the intended methodology* However, Brunvald*s distinction between the reportage of "passive tellers" and the recreations of "more active" speakers does not mean that the former ar8 thereby excluded from either the negotiation of everyday reality

/

*54

or the concomitant determination of social structure* Giddens (1977; is insistent*

"The key to understanding social order - in the most general sense of that term ••• is not the ’internalisation of valuss1 but the shifting relations between the production and reproduction of social life by its constituent actors. All reproduction is necessarily production* however: and the seed of change is there in every act which contributes towards the reproduction of

any 'ordered1 form of social life*"

Uhilst the 'rolling' interviews were designed with this argument in mind, it would appear that Olins (Op.cit) has touched upon facets of the enquiry which are not immediately accessable in these terms; the emphasis being rather more towards the visual aspects of organis­ ational and social existence* The complexity of an analysis based on marketing managers and their day to day understanding is, therefore, more than a matter of those possibilities which have already been mentioned for even if the negotiation of social order is contained by the relationship between spoken and visual langauges, the nature of

/

\55

the process has still to be attempted* Giddens (1977) argues that

"The use of reference to physical aspects of context is no doubt fundamental to the sustenance of an intersubjectivsly 'agreed upon* world within uhich most forms of day-to-day interaction occur* But 'awareness of an immediate sensory environment' as an element drawn upon in the production of interaction,

cannot be radically severed from a backdrop of, largely implicit, mutual knowledge which is drawn upon to create and sustain

encounters, since the former is categorised and 'interpreted* in the light of the latter*"

In methodological terms the problem may be seen to have developed accordingly; ethnographical considerations are still appropriate but no longer adequate in isolation* However, an additional complication arises when stress is placed on the visual aspects of commerce for there are at least two previously unconsidered issues uhich now appear

to be involved* The question of what constitutes the rols of marketing executives has thus to include not only the problem of uhat may be understood as the language of respondents 'accounts1 but also some examination of uhat may be deemed to be sociologically acceptable evidence under these circumstances*

Clearly, such matters can only be approached if the research is uorked around theoretical and methodological contributions uhich make some reference to the visually based disciplines* It is uorth

noting that these amendments, uhich have been made in Chapters 3,4, & 8

of the thesis, are, in fact, innovations and contrary to the outlook encouraged by traditional theorists of marketing such as Gist(1971)^

57

and Kotler (1967)(1976) • Their analyses of organisational or group behaviour seem to be bounded by a rationale based on 'commendable' decisions made for reasons of profit or some other economic variable and not 'emotional* choices uhich drau their small uorth from aspects of design or the psychology of ounership* Lip service may be paid to disciplines such as anthropology or sociology yet no real effort is ever made to discuss either marketing managers or the society they seek to serve in anything approaching these terms. The importance of this criticism is underuritten by but not restricted to Isheruood

56

and Douglas'(i960) uork on the understanding of consumer behaviour demonstrated by marketing professionals*

"The consumption criterion used by market researchers could yield a good idea of uhat social class is like if it uere used systematically* But though it could indeed define social

class, such a definition of social class could not then be used to explain consumption behaviour* Nevertheless, just such a circular explanation of consumer behaviour is often heard* **

So Isheruood and Douglas recognise both market researchers and the importance of consumption as a societal habit but make no allouances for the marketing function uhich is stripped of its pretensions and

59