Rethinking Advertising

With more mediums than ever across which to advertise, businesses are facing increasing marketing costs even as customers continue to turn toward services offering ad-free entertainment. These changes mean the advertising ecosystem is undergoing dramatic alterations, with massive online companies like Facebook and Google capturing a majority of advertising dollars and smaller advertising agencies failing. Against this rapidly-shifting backdrop, this edited volume showcases current academic perspectives and research cases on advertising from scholars representing a wide range of disciplines. The contributions in this book create a comprehensive overview of the current state of advertising—across many media—while highlighting conversations concerning the ethics of advertising and the most effective ways to advertise.

Interdisciplinary by nature, this book includes perspectives from academics in marketing, communications, law, rhetoric, and business. It will be of great interest to scholars and students seeking a thought provoking debate

Kathleen Vandenberg is a Master Lecturer in Rhetoric at Boston University, USA. She has published many articles on visual rhetoric and advertising, as well as presented on and written works about the rhetoric of urban design and the nonfiction work of Joan Didion. Her first book, Joan Didion: Substance and Style was published in February 2021 by SUNY Press and was selected as one of the Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of that year. Her second book, Built Design and the Rhetoric of  Cities, was published in May 2023 by Lexington Press. 

Mariah Tinger is pursuing a doctoral degree in Management at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She lectures part-time in the Strategy and Innovation Department of the Questrom School of Business, Boston University, USA. Her research focuses on resource conservation, sustainability, and climate communication and she has published widely on the subject, including two books, Protecting the Planet: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (2016) and Coming Full Circle: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America (2022).