Research project The market makers

The project aims to study the role and importance of the advertising industry (in a broad sense) and marketing professionals in the socio-economic transformation of Sweden in the last decades of the twentieth century. The 1970s was the start of a shift from an older welfare regime to a new one, where exposure to competition and “marketization” became widespread ideals and where actors with knowledge about markets and communication gained increased importance. Important themes that will be studied are the advertising industry’s own idea production during the period, its role in the creation of new markets, and the introduction of marketing thought in sectors in society that were traditionally not exposed to competition.