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Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 10, 1735–1756, 2002

Marketing Mardi Gras: Commodi�cation,

Spectacle and the Political Economy of

Tourism in New Orleans

Kevin Fox Gotham

[Paper �rst received, August 2001; in �nal form, December 2001]

Summary. Recent urban scholarship on the rise of the tourism industry, place marketing and

the transformation of cities into entertainment destinations has been dominated by four major

themes: the primacy of ‘consumption’ over ‘production’; the eclipse of exchange-value by

sign-value; the idea of autoreferential culture; and, the ascendancy of textual deconstruction and

discursive analyses over political economy critiques of capitalism. This paper critically assesses

the merits of these four themes using a case study of the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans.

The analytical tools and categories of political economy are used to examine the rise and

dominance of tourism in New Orleans, explore the consequences of this economic shift and

identify the key actors and organised interests involved in marketing Mardi Gras. ‘Marketing’

is the use of sophisticated advertising techniques aimed at promoting fantasy, manipulating

consumer needs, producing desirable tourist experiences and simulating images of place to

attract capital and consumers. The paper points to the limitations of the ‘cultural turn’ and the

‘linguistic turn’ in urban studies and uses the concepts of commodi�cation and spectacle as a

theoretical basis for understanding the marketing of cities, the globalisation of local celebrations

and the political economy of tourism.

Introduction

The city historically constructed is nolonger lived and is no longer understoodpractically. It is only an object of culturalconsumption for tourists, for aestheticism,avid for spectacles and the picturesque(Henri Lefebvre, 1996, p. 148).

This paper examines the marketing of MardiGras by public actors and corporations andconnects the on-going commodi�cation ofthis celebration to the rise of the place mar-keting industry around the world. In the past

two decades or so, urban boosters and eliteshave worked to transform place promotionfrom a relatively amateur and informal ac-tivity into an increasingly professionalised,highly organised and specialised industry toencourage the growth of tourism within cities(Holcomb, 1993; Hannigan, 1998; Fainsteinand Judd, 1999). Indeed, in many cities,tourism has become the main strategy ofurban revitalisation as local governments andthe tourism industry have forged close insti-tutional and �nancial ties to ‘sell’ the city to

Kevin Fox Gotham is in the Department of Sociology, Tulane University, 220 Newcomb Hall, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA.Fax: 504 865 5544. E-mail: [email protected] . The author wishes to thank David Redmond, Vern Baxter and anonymous reviewersof Urban Studies for comments on an earlier draft.

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/02/101735-22 Ó 2002 The Editors of Urban StudiesDOI: 10.1080/004209802200000293 9



KEVIN FOX GOTHAM1736

potential ‘consumers’ and invest in costlyinfrastructure to support tourism (Eisinger,2000; Judd, 1995). Mass tourism is morethan just the movement of large numbers ofpeople. It encompasses the consumption of acomplex array of tangible goods including,among others, souvenirs, food and drink,transport and physical facilities in the formof lodges, hotels and convention centres.Moreover, as one of the largest industries inthe world, tourism sustains a large number ofoccupations, advertising campaigns, recog-nisable attractions and diverse forms of�nancial investment.1 In addition, place mar-keting, the use of imagery and theming, andthe selling of places have become centralcomponents of the political economy oftourism and the revitalisation strategies ofcities (Gottdiener, 1997; Gold and Ward,1994; Reichl, 1997; Zukin, 1996; Strom,1999; Short, 1999).

A number of scholars have developed ty-pologies of tourism and theories of touristexperience, and have examined the role ofculture in marketing tourism, among otherconcerns. One can �nd conceptualisations oftourism as a sacred crusade, pilgrimage orsearch for authenticity (MacCannell, 1976); aform of leisure and performative identity forthe post-modern consumer (Urry, 1995); aform of colonialism, conquest and imperial-ism (Krippendorf, 1984; Crick, 1989); a typeof ethnic relation (van den Berghe, 1980); anacculturation process (Cohen, 1984); a forcefor historical and cultural commodi�cation(Boyer, 1992; Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, 1998);a form of migration (Cohen, 1972); and soon. Despite much research, only recentlyhave scholars begun to examine the effect oftourism on patterns of social inequality incities, the economic consequences of tourismand the organisation of the industry and easeof entry to it. Around the world tourism-ori-ented urban regeneration remains a source ofmuch debate and controversy. On the onehand, proponents claim that tourism im-proves urban aesthetic, enhances leisure fa-cilities for residents and democratises travel.Opponents, on the other hand, maintain thattourism promotes the growth of low-wage

jobs with few bene�ts, diverts public moniesfrom addressing crucial local problems and isa form of mass seduction that leads to moreharm than good (for overviews, see Fainsteinand Judd, 1999; Kearns and Philo, 1993).Interestingly, some condemn tourism for pro-moting inauthentic cultural representationsand distorting history (MacCannell, 1976)while others celebrate tourism as a mechan-ism to combat ethnocentrism and to foster anappreciation of different and diverse cultures(for an overview, see Law, 1993).

The scholarly diversity and richness ofaccounts of tourism show that the subject hasbeen of intellectual concern for some time.Yet differences in theoretical orientation,methods and analytical techniques have ledto alterative ways of conceptualising tourism,assessing consequences and delineating theeffects of tourism on quality of life andsocial organisation. Many scholars have ex-amined the effect of tourism on personalexperience and modes of consumption (see,for example, MacCannell, 1976; Urry, 1995;Ritzer and Liska, 1997). Few scholars, how-ever, have provided a theoretically sophisti-cated account of the diverse ways in whichpolitical and economic elites use tourism totransform space. More rarely have scholarsconnected their empirical work on tourismwith a broader analysis of capitalism andpolitical economy. Drawing upon the analyti-cal categories of political economy, I exam-ine the marketisation of local festivals andcelebrations such as Mardi Gras and specifyconnections between tourism and its attend-ant cultural manifestations. The concepts ofcommodi�cation and spectacle provide thetheoretical basis for understanding the mar-keting of cities, the globalisation of localcelebrations and the political economy oftourism.

Commodi�cation and Spectacle in Urban

Tourism

References to commodi�cation and spectacleabound in recent urban studies of tourismand the marketing of places (for overviews,see Judd and Faintsein, 1999; Watson and



MARKETING MARDI GRAS 1737

Kopachevsky, 1994; Britton, 1991). The con-cept of commodi�cation refers to the domi-nance of commodity exchange-value overuse-value and implies the development of aconsumer society where market relationssubsume and dominate social life. In thecontext of urban tourism, local customs, ritu-als, festivals and ethnic arts become touristattractions, performed for tourist consump-tion and produced for market-based instru-mental activities. As different touristattractions and cities increasingly competewith each other to attract tourists, the need topresent the tourist with ever more spectacu-lar, exotic and titillating attractions increases.In The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord(1973) developed the concept ‘spectacle’ torefer to the domination of media images andconsumer society over the individual whileobscuring the nature and effects of capital-ism. The spectacle is a tool of paci�cation,depoliticisation and massi�cation that ‘dis-tracts’ and ‘seduces’ people using the mecha-nisms of leisure, consumption andentertainment as ruled by the dictates of ad-vertising and commodi�ed media culture.Building on these insights, diverse thinkersimply that the process of commodi�cationand spectacle are producing widespread so-cio-cultural change, but they disagree over itsform, impact and periodisation. I stress fourthemes that have been important focal pointsof debate and crucial contexts underlying therise and dominance of urban tourism, and theattendant social and spatial changes.

First, the idea that ‘consumption’ is takingprecedence over ‘production’, one of themost widely debated facets in urban studiesand tourism analyses, maintains that the ex-pansion and deepening of commodity mar-kets has transferred the logic and rationalityof ‘production’ to the sphere of ‘consump-tion’. Several scholars describe a broad shiftfrom production-centred capitalism, rooted inwork and coercion, to consumer capitalism,based on leisure, market ‘seduction’, andspectacle (for overviews, see Miles and Pad-dison, 1998; Bauman, 1992; Ritzer, 1999;Urry, 1995). For Gottdiener (2000, 1997),the historical development of consumer so-

ciety is an organised extension of productionrelations with the ‘new means of consump-tion’ as a crucial productive force of capitalitself. Focusing on the increasing com-modi�cation of reality, other scholars arguethat we have moved from society organisedon the basis of an “immense accumulation ofcommodities”, to quote Marx, to a societydominated by “an immense accumulation ofspectacles”, according to Debord (1973,p. 1). Framed as style, taste, travel and ‘desti-nation’, the world of tourism and tourist ex-perience is one in which image, advertisingand consumerism take primacy over pro-duction per se. Thus, tourism has decentredand localised consumption, replacing workwith entertainment and lifestyle as the piv-otal facets of socio-cultural life (Lloyd andClark, 2001; Urry, 1995; Featherstone,1991). Stressing the emergence and central-ity of new forms of consumption, thinkersdraw attention to the role that tourism playsas a form of commodi�ed pleasure, tourism-as-spectacle that de�nes individual travellersand tourists as consumers, and the impact ofthe tourism ‘industry’ in using advertisingand marketing to constitute and then exploitconsumer desires and needs for pro�t.

A second theme—the eclipse of exchange-value by sign-value—maintains that com-modi�cation has reached a stage whereimages have become commodities them-selves and operate according to their ownautonomous logic within a chain of free-�oating signi�ers. In Jean Baudrillard’swork, the commodity radiates with signvalue in which the value of images, objectsand practices is organised into a hierarchy ofprestige, coded differences and associativechains and symbols that “bears no relation toany reality whatsoever: it is its own puresimulacrum” (Baudrillard, 1983, p. 11). ForMacCannell (1976, pp. 19–23), contempor-ary tourism is a manufactured signi�er that isan expression of the “semiotics of capitalistproduction”. According to Watson andKopachevsky, the idea of sign-value takesresearchers

closer to the reality of the current period,where modern men and women seem far




more fascinated by, and interested in, the‘spectacle’—the chaotic �ow of signs andsimulated images so carefully purveyed bythe mass media, than by any supposeduse-value of commodities (Watson andKopachevsky, 1994, p. 647).

Re�ecting the increasing interest in sign-value, many scholars argue that what diversetourist spaces such as Disneyland, Las Ve-gas, Times Square in New York City, heri-tage sites, downtown ‘festival’ marketplacesand ‘theme parks’ share is a decontextualisa-tion/recontextualisation of place that blursthe distinction between signi�er andsigni�ed, copy and original, and past andpresent (Gladstone, 1998; Soja, 2000). Thisscholarly focus mirrors a broader interest inthe transformation of public spaces into pri-vatised ‘consumption’ spaces and the latestattempts by tourism entrepreneurs and othereconomic elites to provide a package ofshopping, dining and entertainment within athemed and controlled environment—a de-velopment that scholars have called the ‘Dis-neyi�cation’ of urban space (Eeckhout,2001; Reichl, 1999; Sorkin, 1992). In theprocess, tourism interests and advertisingagencies thematise local traditions, famousbuildings, landmarks and other heritagesights to the point that they become ‘hyper-real’, by which people lose the ability todistinguish between the ‘real’ and ‘illusion’.

A closely related theme, autoreferentialculture, holds that culture operates accordingits own autonomous logic free from the ma-terial referents or the constraints of socialstructure (for a paradigmatic statement, seeHarrison and Huntington, 2000). Proponentsof the ‘cultural turn’ in urban studies, forexample, maintain that cultural imagery,symbols and motifs are the fundamental or-ganising principles of society rather thanclass or capitalism (for an overview, seeStorper, 2001). As a complex of signs andsigni�cation (including language), ‘culture’meshes into codes of transmission of socialvalues and meanings that have a ‘materialeffect’ on urban growth and decline (see, forexample, Zukin et al., 1998; Zukin, 1996,

1997; King, 1996). For example, severalscholars have identi�ed several ‘cultural’strategies of tourist-oriented urban revitalisa-tion, including the development of conven-tion centres, art shows and galleries, operahalls, museums, festivals, symphony halls,professional sports stadiums and casino gam-bling. Other cultural analyses have focusedon how cities are emphasising the aestheticor historical value of their architecture, rede-veloping their river and canal waterfronts,designating areas of the city as artistic quar-ters and preserving or reconverting old build-ings and archaic technology (Bassett, 1993;Boyer, 1992; Reichl, 1997, 1999; Strom,1999; Kearns and Philo, 1993; Short 1999).What unites these otherwise diverse studiesis that they imply that the rise of tourism andthe creation of spaces of ‘consumption’within cities have emerged from widespreadcultural and aesthetic changes including theemergence of style as identity, the prolifera-tion of visual images and electronic media,and development of sophisticated marketingschemes. Yet critics have charged that propo-nents of the cultural turn have failed to de�ne‘culture’ systematically and have left unclearthe ‘causal’ connections between culture andpolitical economy (for example, see Gottdi-ener, 2000; Scott, 1997, 2000, pp. 204–215).Few cultural accounts have explored the roleof capitalist pro�t-making in the productionof tourist spaces or examined how spaces oftourist consumption connect to the pro-duction of space (see Imrie et al., 1996,p. 1259).

A �nal theme stresses textual deconstruc-tion and semiotic analyses over politicaleconomy critiques of capitalism. Problema-tising the relationship between the ‘objec-tive’ and the ‘discursive’, proponents oftextualism, deconstruction and semioticsproclaim an end to ‘grand narratives’ and‘totalisations’ that attempt to explain theworld in terms of patterned relationships.These concerns are highlighted in the urbanscholarship of Liggett (1994), King (1996),Zukin et al. (1998), Watson and Gibson(1995) and others who emphasise ‘texts’,‘images’, and ‘stories’ as units of analysis.




More recently, a number of contributions toUrban Studies have attempted to develop a‘linguistic turn’ that supersedes the ‘culturalturn’ and focuses on the role of language usein determining meaning in the process ofurban change (see especially, Hastings, 1999;Collins, 2000). In his review of the literature,Collins (2000) contends that early linguisticaccounts tended to eschew Marxian critiques,dismissing political economy analyses as ‘re-ductionistic’ accounts that suppress import-ant differences between cities. More recentaccounts, however, have attempted to focuson substantive concerns and empirical ques-tions about inequality and power relations(see Hastings, 1999, p. 7). Yet despite anemphasis on critical analysis and the import-ance of contextualising language withinbroader social relations, critics remain scepti-cal of linguistic approaches in urban studies(see Collins, 2000, p. 2028). Empirically,critics charge that linguistic perspectives failto clarify concepts, interrogate evidence sys-tematically and address discon�rming evi-dence forthrightly. Theoretically, criticscontend that linguistic perspectives fall preyto cultural determinism, semiological ideal-ism and lame storytelling that gives licenseto undisciplined, whimsical and partisanpoints of view (for example, see Sayer, 1994;Imrie et al., 1996).

Despite much heterogeneity, most scholarswho privilege culturalist and linguistic ap-proaches lack a sophisticated theory or set ofconcepts to illuminate the deep-level connec-tions between tourism’s cultural manifesta-tions and impact on urban form. I use theanalytical tools and categories of politicaleconomy to examine how key actors, or-ganised interests and powerful groups con-struct images of the city and strategicallydeploy discourse and language to legitimisecertain interpretations of reality and trans-form the social and built environment.2 Ac-cording to Babcock (1996) and Sayer (1994),urban studies under the cultural and linguis-tic turn has shifted towards understanding thecity as a space of performance, theatre, andsigni�cation, rather than as a site of con�ictand inequality. In this paper, I follow

Collins’ (2000) recent call for urban scholar-ship “to link an engagement with language-use to a form of political economy” which,according to Imrie et al. (1996, p. 1258),“maintains a critical focus on issues connec-ted to poverty, inequality and systemic struc-ture conditions of people’s existence”. Iapproach the signi�cance of cultural sym-bols, signs and imagery by focusing �rst onthe socio-spatial practices underlying theproduction of meaning and everyday life (seeMele, 2000). I root my examination of themarketing of Mardi Gras, the dominance oftourism in New Orleans and the productionof imagery, spectacle and other signifyingprocesses as an extension of the com-modi�cation of social life under capitalism.Whereas early culturalist and linguistic per-spectives insisted on the causal primacy ofsemiotic over material exchange, I trace theimages back to their sources, to the reality ofcommodi�cation and the social forces behindit. Rather than viewing the city as spaceconstituted by language and discourse, I viewthe city as a site of inequality and struggle,and connect the cultural manifestations oftourism and the marketing of Mardi Gras tolarger spatial and political-economic trends.

Political Economy of Tourism in New

Orleans

The practice of constructing images of townsor cities to make them attractive to capitalistenterprises, travellers, tourists and residentshas a long history in the US and elsewhere(Benjamin, 1978; Eisinger, 2000; Holcomb,1994). During the 19th century, cities in thewestern frontier marketed themselves as sitesof land development opportunities associatedwith the coming of railroads. In the South,cities attempted to court northern investorswith advertising campaigns that portrayedtheir cities as place of pro�table investmentand suitable destination points for hardwork-ing immigrants and entrepreneurs. In 1867,New Orleans city council members commis-sioned a local photographer to create aphotographic survey of the city to present toFrench emperor Napoleon III and for display




at the Paris Exposition of 1867. The purposeof the systematic study of 150 photos was topresent New Orleans as a city of investmentand growth and to encourage, as the displayread, “the capitalist, the artist, the artisan andthe mechanic and laborer” to move to thecity. As the city struggled to revive its econ-omy in the aftermath of Reconstruction, cityleaders undertook promotional efforts to in-crease commercial and agricultural invest-ment in the area and promote populationgrowth. By the early 1900s, river-based com-merce, cotton trade and a growing market forleisure and amusement dominated the NewOrleans economy. During this time, sectionsof New Orleans became oriented towardsleisure and entertainment: public parks,sports grounds, theatres, art galleries, shop-ping and so on. The city’s ‘red light’ districtand jazz culture left an indelible image in theminds of travellers and served for decades asa magnet to draw people to experience the‘sin’ industry. The discovery of oil in the1930s spearheaded a tremendous growth ofthe chemical and petroleum industry and, bythe Second World War, the city had estab-lished itself as a hub for military shipbuildingand manufacturing. Throughout the decades,political and economic elites promoted im-ages of New Orleans as a charming city withbeautiful and historical architecture, out-standing cuisine and excellent music. By the1960s, the economy had a tripartite basemade up of the chemical and petroleum in-dustry, the port industry and the tourismindustry (Lauria et al., 1995; Whelan andYoung, 1991).

While tourism has always been consideredas a major sector of the New Orleans econ-omy, over the past three decades it has be-come the dominant sector, replacing thechemical and petroleum industry and the portindustry as the major source of jobs forpeople in the metropolitan area. Table 1shows total full-time and part-time em-ployees by major industry in Orleans Parishin 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1998. As this tableshows, from 1969 to 1998, the numbers ofworkers employed in construction, manufac-turing, transport and public utilities, whole-

sale trade, retail trade, and �nance, insuranceand real estate jobs have declined, some sub-stantially. In contrast, the table shows atremendous growth in the number of servicejobs, many of them in the tourism sector.

Table 2 shows the impact of economicclusters and sectors in the metropolitan areain 1999. As this table shows, in 1999, whenmeasured in terms of basic employment (thenumber of jobs supported by the export ofgoods and services), the tourism sector ledwith 28.5 per cent of all basic employmentfollowed by the oil/gas sector with 20.2 percent and then by maritime and related indus-tries with 9.2 per cent. However, despite thegrowth in the number of tourism jobs, manyof these jobs are in low-paying positions withhigh turnover rates. Moreover, hiring andlay-offs within the tourism industry are cycli-cal, with fall and spring being peak times,and summer and winter down times. Many ofthese service-sector jobs require minimalskills and education that make staff reduc-tions and lay-offs common throughout theyear. Although the number of jobs in thetourism industry is increasing, they do notcounterbalance the loss of jobs in other sec-tors, especially higher-paying and more se-cure jobs (many with bene�ts) in otherindustries. Unlike most jobs in the port in-dustry, jobs in the tourism industry are non-union jobs.

Throughout the past few decades, cityleaders in New Orleans have interpretedthis shift from a manufacturing- and port-dominated economy to tourism as both avehicle and a symbol of ‘progress’ for thecity and its residents. Yet the shift towardstourism has coincided with losses in popu-lation, increasing poverty and an in-tensi�cation of other social problems,including �scal crises in education and city�nances. From 1960 to 2000, the central cityof New Orleans lost almost 143 000 resi-dents, or 22 per cent of its total population.While the suburban areas grew in population,the population of Orleans Parish droppedfrom a high of 627 525 in 1960 to an all-timelow of 484 674 in 2000. The city lost morethan 34 000 residents during the 1960s, more




Table 1. Total full-time and part-time employees, by major industry for Orleans Parish, 1969, 1979, 1989,1998

Employment 1969 1979 1989 1998

By place of workTotal employment 338 476 366 162 324 561 321 868

By typeWage and salary 313 872 338 742 298 896 289 917Proprietors 24 604 27 420 25 665 31 951Farm 0 0 0 0Non-farma 26 604 27 420 25 420 31 951

By industryFarm 0 0 0 0Non-farm 338 474 366 162 324 561 321 868Private 284 469 308 482 264 859 257 891Agricultural services, forestry, �shing, otherb 781 701 745 1 742Mining 9 151 13 848 13 176 9 118Construction 17 784 15 987 7 880 9 173Manufacturing 32 696 26 293 16 799 13 613Transport and public utilities 38 785 38 318 26 502 21 867Wholesale trade 25 923 26 950 15 895 11 758Retail trade 48 568 55 342 46 969 46 119Finance, insurance and real estate 25 664 33 303 25 906 20 734Services 85 117 97 740 110 987 123 767Government and government enterprisesFederal, civilian 12 462 13 631 13 431 13 082Military 4 982 5 494 7 425 6 081State and local 36 563 38 555 38 846 44 814

a Excludes limited partners.b ‘Other’ consist of the number of jobs held by US residents employed by international organisations

and foreign assemblies and consulates in the US.Sources: Data for 1969, 1979 and 1989 obtained from Center for Business and Economic Research

(1993). Data for 1998 obtained from US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Regional Accounts Data. LocalArea Personal Income, Table CA25, Orleans, Louisiana.

than 35 000 during the 1970s and more than60 000 during the 1980s. Recently, localnewspapers and politicians have suggestedthat the residential base of the Orleans parishpopulation has stabilised after years of ero-sion (New Orleans Times–Picayune, 3 March2001). Nevertheless, Census Bureau popu-lation �gures for the 1990s show that theparish lost an average of more than 1000people each year while the suburban popu-lation grew. Moreover, since 1960, the racialcomposition of the city has reversed itself. In1960, Whites made up 62.6 per cent of thecity’s population and Blacks were 37.2 percent. As of the 2000 census, Blacks made up

67.3 per cent of the city’s population andWhites were 28.1 per cent.

Local public of�cials, journalists andscholars have acknowledged the deleteriouseffects of the persistent poverty, racialsegregation in housing and schools, urbandisinvestment and job loss, and increasingblight while downtown redevelopment andsuburban growth have been taking place.Since the 1970s, the poverty rate for thecity and metropolitan area has remained stag-nant and the city has had to deal withchronic revenue shortages. In 1969, the pov-erty rate for the metropolitan area was20.1 per cent, 26.4 per cent in the city and




Table 2. Impact of economic clusters and sectors, New Orleans metropolitan area, 1999

Percentage of Percentage oftotal MSA total ‘basic’

‘Basic’ ‘basic’ Total ‘basic’ earningsCluster/Sector employmenta employment earningsa($) by sector

Tourism and related industries 31 970 28.5 366 580 836 10.55Oil/gas and related industries 22 052 20.2 1 049 745 601 30.21Maritime and related industries 10 050 9.2 385 817 691 11.10Ship/boat building and repair 9 397 8.6 249 006 900 7.17Federal civilian and military 9 091 8.3 283 691 820 8.16Education service 8 448 7.7 342 842 482 9.87Legal, business, 7 330 6.7 358 228 437 10.31and professional servicesAerospace Manufacturing 2 520 2.3 149 227 860 4.29State government 2 423 2.2 80 242 844 2.31

Other manufacturing 6 833 6.3 209 278 395 6.02Fabricated plate work 1 111 1.0 32 023 453 0.92Commercial laundry equipment 772 0.7 28 290 922 0.81Coffee roasting and packaging 745 0.7 26 027 100 0.75Conveyors/conveying equipment 594 0.5 20 805 967 0.60Cane sugar re�ning 556 0.5 20 578 084 0.59Oil/gas �eld machinery 564 0.5 19 754 530 0.57Specialty food preparations 757 0.7 15 924 020 0.46Bottled/canned soft drinks 571 0.5 15 113 751 0.43Turbines and turbine generators 396 0.4 13 677 468 0.40Electronic capacitors 145 0.1 5 326 195 0.15Men’s/boys’ furnishings 344 0.3 5 230 349 0.15Gypsum products 156 0.1 3 307 513 0.10Steel foundries 122 0.1 3 019 043 0.09

Totals 109 204 100.0 3 474 662 866 100.00

a ‘Basic’ de�ned as the employment and earnings of industries that exceed the amount that would bepresent in the area as determined by the location quotient—i.e. the amount based on the proportion of thenational population living in the area.

Source: Metrovision.

13.3 per cent in the suburbs. Despite�uctuations in the national and regionaleconomies, these rates have hardly changedthrough the decades. Today, as in the past,the poverty rate for the city of New Orleansis roughly double that of the surroundingsuburban area. As of 1995, more than halfthe children living in New Orleans, 51.6 percent, were living below the federal povertylevel. Interestingly, the rate of poverty forBlack families in the city has remained atroughly 38 per cent from 1970 through 1990,while the poverty rate for White families hasdeclined from 9.5 per cent to 6.1 per centduring the same period. In a recent survey of216 counties and parishes in the US with at

least 250 000 residents, the Census Bureaufound that the Orleans Parish was one of thepoorest, ranking fourth, with 25 per cent ofits working population living in poverty.Only 5 other counties in the nation had apoverty rate of 25 per cent or greater in 2000.In a study of median household incomes inthose 216 counties and parishes, OrleansParish again ranked among the poorest, thirdfrom the bottom at 213, with $27 111 (NewOrleans Times–Picayune, 20 November2001). Interestingly, the intensity and seem-ing intractability of social problems in thecity have prompted the local circulation offacetious slogans such as “New Orleans: thecity that care forgot” and bumper stickers




that proclaim “New Orleans: Third Worldand Proud of It”.

In sum, the transition to a tourism-dominated economy has parallelled popu-lation decline, white �ight to the suburbs,racial segregation, poverty and other a hostof other social problems including crime,�scal austerity, poor schools and decayinginfrastructure. In 1994, New Orleans had thenation’s highest murder rate of large cities—425 murders for the year. Although murderand crime rates have dropped since this time,the image of New Orleans as an unsafe cityremains ingrained in the minds of local resi-dents (New Orleans Times–Picayune, 10March 2000). These negative urban condi-tions make it dif�cult for urban boosters,cultural representers and tourism en-trepreneurs to project an image of New Or-leans as a place of leisure, entertainment andplay. The typical method of neutralising thethreat of negativity is to impart an unthreat-ening and unproblematic representation us-ing themes such as romanticism, nostalgiaand other �attering images. Indeed, the pur-pose of marketing cities is to accentuate thepositive elements of the city and, perhapsdeliberately, to overlook the problems.Brochures and tourist guides convey astylised cityscape composed of neighbour-hoods with famous and architecturallysigni�cant mansions, public landmarks, mu-seums and so on, with a tableau of scenicparks—images that bear little relevance tothe realities of social deprivation and povertyconcentrated in the city’s peripheral neigh-bourhoods. Harvey (1989) and Holcomb(1993, 1999) suggest that place promotion isno longer concerned with informing or pro-moting in the ordinary sense (such as sellingto get the consumer to buy what you have)but “is increasingly geared to manipulatingdesires and tastes through images that may ormay not have anything to do with the productto be sold” (Harvey, 1989, p. 287). The im-plication of this shift from ‘selling’ to ‘mar-keting’ cities and spaces is that tourismentrepreneurs and urban imagineers are notnecessarily engaged in promoting and adver-tising what the city has to offer.3 They are

involved in adapting, reshaping and manipu-lating (i.e. simulating) images of the place tobe desirable to the targeted consumer.

Marketing Mardi Gras: Commodi�cation

and Spectacle in New Orleans

The celebration of Mardi Gras originated inFrance and came to the US during the 1700s.In the late 1700s, residents held pre-Lentenballs but later Spanish governors bannedthese celebrations in an attempt to eradicatethe French in�uence in the city. By the early1800s, Mardi Gras returned to the city withthe celebration beginning 47 days beforeEaster, and Fat Tuesday falling on the daybefore Ash Wednesday. During this time,celebrations consisted of maskers, the forma-tion of secret carnival societies (Krewes) thatchose mythological names and the advent ofthemed parades with �oats and tableau ballsat the conclusion of parades. The �rst‘of�cial’ parade took to the streets in 1857and, despite a hiatus during the Civil War, bythe end of century several krewes had or-ganised and were holding wildy extravagantparades and balls. The �rst half of the 20thcentury witnessed the establishment of the�rst women’s and Black parading krewes, anincrease in the number of city and suburbanparades, and greater national and inter-national publicity. In the 1960s, the newlyformed Bacchus Krewe stunned the localestablishment by presenting the largest �oatsin carnival history, having a celebrity ride asits king (Danny Kaye) and broke tradition byoffering a supper dance that both locals andvisitors could attend. The establishment ofthe super-krewe of Endymion in 1974 andOrpheus in 1998 copied the innovations ofBacchus and opened their memberships tonon-residents. In the 1980s, the ‘baringbreasts for beads’ spectacle became popularand camera crews from Japan, Europe andLatin American broadcasted the celebrationaround the world. In 1992, the city councilenacted an anti-discrimination ordinance thatrequired parading krewes to open their pri-vate membership. Several of the oldestWhite-dominated krewes that had been




parading since the 19th century cancelledtheir parades rather than open membership toBlacks. The decade also witnessed a tremen-dous increase in the number of parades in thenewer suburbs, the decline of parades in theolder suburbs, expanded media coverage andsophisticated marketing of the celebration bycorporations.

While the Mardi Gras celebration has beenoccurring annually since 1857 in New Or-leans, the reasons for holding it havechanged. In the past, Mardi Gras developedas a relatively indigenous celebration for lo-cal residents that existed outside the logic ofmarket exchange and capital circulation. To-day, tourism entrepreneurs and urban boost-ers aggressively market Mardi Gras as part ofa larger tourism-oriented strategy to encour-age people to visit and spend money in thecity—a tendency some local residents be-lieve will result in the devaluation of thecelebration for the city. An array of publicand private groups have emerged in recentdecades to ‘market’ Mardi Gras using so-phisticated advertising techniques aimed atpromoting desire and fantasy, manipulationof consumer needs, art and design directed tothe production of desirable tourist experi-ences, and other highly re�ned techniques ofimage production and distribution. Interest-ingly, publishers have produced more booksabout Mardi Gras in the past 20 years than inthe previous 150 years. Corporations andtrade organisations now regularly use MardiGras as a reason to hold conventions in NewOrleans and international media attention islavished on the city with camera crews fromthe BBC, Japan, the Travel channel and othercountries showcasing the festivities to aworld-wide audience. The Discovery andLearning channels now produce documen-taries on the subject. Entertainment Tonight,MTV and the Playboy Channel telecast livereports from New Orleans every year and theInternet now serves as a major source of‘infotainment’.

Three decades ago, Guy Debord and theFrench Situationists drew attention to thetendency within capitalism for symbols, ima-gery and motifs to become severed com-

pletely from their original cultural andreligious roots. Following Marx’s (1867/1978) famous discussion of the ‘mysticalcharacter’ of commodities in Volume I ofCapital, the Situationists described how thespread of commodi�cation turned relationsand experiences into ‘things’ to be boughtand sold (exchanged for pro�t). As a result ofthis fetishisation of reality, ‘abstractions’ canmask the underlying social relations govern-ing commodity production. Debord (1973,pp. 59, 187) held that the direction of capital-ism was towards the commodi�cation of pre-viously non-colonised areas of sociallife—especially culture, religion andleisure—and their corresponding ‘banalisa-tion’, ‘decomposition’ and ‘formal annihila-tion’ under the “shimmering diversions ofthe spectacle”. Parallelling the FrankfurtSchool’s critique of the culture industry, theSituationists described the propensity for cul-tural and religious symbols and images to berecon�gured as a lever for expanding con-sumerism, thereby reconstituting desires,stimulating demand and creating new needs.“When culture becomes nothing more than acommodity”, lamented Debord (1973,p. 193), “it must also become the star com-modity of the spectacular society”. WalterBenjamin (1978) noted that this ‘commodity-phantasmagoria’ of the spectacle began inthe 19th century in the Paris Arcades, whichdisplayed all the radiant commodities of theera. In the case of Mardi Gras, the cel-ebration has shifted from a celebration ofrich symbolism (i.e. Catholicism and Lent) tothe current stage of spectacle divorced fromdeep-level religious symbols.

The annual number of parades and carni-val organisations (krewes), the number ofvisitors that attend Mardi Gras in New Or-leans and the money generated through theannual celebration have increased dramati-cally over the past three decades. Table 3shows the number of parades in the metro-politan area from the mid 19th centurythrough to year 2000. As Table 3 shows,from 1857 to the late 1930s, there wereapproximately 4–6 parades per Mardi Grasseason. The number of parades doubled from 5




Table 3. Number of �oat paradesin New Orleans metropolitan area,

1857–2000

Year Parades

1857 11870 11900 41930 51935 61940 101950 101955 171960 201965 251970 231975 501980 511985 541990 511995 482000 47

Note: No parades were heldduring the �rst World War (1917and 1918) and the Second WorldWar (1942–45).

Source: Hardy (1998, p. 22;2000, p. 120).

in�ation-adjusted spending was more than200 per cent while national price level rose45 per cent. The table shows an overall trendin increased tax revenues and total spending.An increased emphasis by public and privategroups to promote New Orleans as a touristdestination explains the tremendous growthin Mardi Gras, as measured in estimatedspending. Another reason for the growth inthe size of Mardi Gras is the increased num-ber of hotel rooms that hotel chains havebuilt in the city and metro area in the pasttwo decades to accommodate tourists. In2001, the local newspaper, the New OrleansTimes–Picayune, estimated that there weremore than 30 000 hotel rooms in the metro-politan area compared with 28 000 in 1996,19 000 in 1989, and 11 000 in 1977 (NewOrleans Times–Picayune, 4 March 2000).

Three sets of actors market Mardi Gras:local and national businesses that produceand sell Mardi Gras souvenirs and parapher-nalia; multinational companies who useMardi Gras imagery and themes to sell theirproducts; and, public–private organisations(tourism marketing corporations and taskforces) who promote Mardi Gras to supportinward investment and economic growth. Inthe later case, public and private sectorsoverlap and place marketers and tourismboosters increasingly emphasise ‘synergistic’opportunities, otherwise known as ‘tie-ins’,as a key business strategy for creating com-mercial value. Moreover, public and privateagencies co-operate in the production oftourism infrastructure and the creation ofspaces of consumption in the city. Eachof these groups is involved in heavy promo-tional efforts including the use of theming,the production of spectacle and sophisticatedadvertising.

Marketing Mardi Gras Souvenirs and Para-phernalia

The production and selling of Mardi Grassouvenirs and paraphernalia by local and ex-tra-local businesses has a long history. Sincethe 19th century, local businesses have soldan array of different products that display

in 1930 to 10 in 1940. This number increasedto 17 annual parades in late 1940s, declinedduring the Korean War, reached 20 by 1960and 23 by 1970. As the table shows, therewas a tremendous increase in the number ofparades during the 1970s and 1980s, reach-ing a peak of 55 in 1986. Since this time, thenumber of parades has remained between 45and 52 per year.

Table 4 shows revenues and spendingfrom Mardi Gras from 1986 to 2000. Thetable shows the amount of city governmentrevenues from parades, estimated spendingby area residents, overall spending resultingfrom Mardi Gras and the percentage changein overall spending from the preceding year.As Table 4 shows, the estimated economicimpact on New Orleans from Mardi Gras hasincreased steadily since 1986 and hit the $1billion mark for the �rst time in 2000. Esti-mated Mardi Gras spending in the metropoli-tan area increased almost 300 per cent from1986 and 2000. The 14-year growth in




Table 4. Government revenues and area spending resulting from Mardi Gras, 1986–2000 ($ millions)

City of New Orleans Spending by Overall spending Percentage changegovernment revenues New Orleans resulting from from preceding

Year from parades area residents Mardi Gras year

1986 4.3 29.9 239.2 —1987 4.8 35.3 275.3 15.11988 5.6 35.7 309.6 12.51989 5.6 45.2 330.6 6.71990 8.3 50.0 487.9 47.71991 8.9 52.9 499.1 2.31992 10.9 48.4 579.9 16.21993 10.6 49.0 567.7 2 2.11994 12.7 46.5 660.0 16.31995 18.2 43.9 929.1 40.81996 15.8 45.9 810.6 2 13.21997 15.3 39.8 800.8 2 1.21998 17.1 47.3 840.7 5.01999 19.1 49.2 957.0 13.82000 21.6 54.9 1 056.0 10.3

Notes: Total expenditures include an aggregation of all of�cial krewe spending (for example, annualexpenditures by organisations from dues and fund raising), �oat rider spending on parade material (beads,costumes, food and drink), ball and dinner dance spending and parade viewer spending. Total directspending is then multiplied by 2.1 to re�ect circulation of spending through the local economy.

Source: Annual Mardi Gras Economic Impact Study conducted by James McClain (Louisiana BusinessSurvey, Spring 2000).

‘Mardi Gras’, ‘Fat Tuesday’ or similar ima-gery. However, what has changed in recentdecades is the intensity and sophistication ofmarketing and producing Mardi Gras memo-rabilia. Today, businesses that specialise inMardi Gras souvenirs are open year roundand they design, package and sell their com-modities for mass consumption, primarily totourists and non-residents. In the 1990s, localauction houses, art galleries and museumsbegan to showcase Mardi Gras memorabiliaand the Internet has opened a burgeoningmarket for buying and selling souvenirs. Asof March 2000, more than 100 Internet sitessold Mardi Gras products including posters,cakes, clothes and T-shirts, videos, music,�ags, furniture, beads, coffee and beer mugs,plastic cups, decorations and dolls—anythingto entice the consumer not just to buy MardiGras but other New Orleans paraphernalia,commemorative souvenirs and various trin-kets. In particular, the business of producing‘throws’ (beads) has greatly expanded in the1990s with at least six major supply houses

and countless smaller operations pro�tingfrom the multimillion dollar business. InFebruary 1997, bidding at New Orleans Auc-tion Galleries totalled $33 680 for 103 lots ofMardi Gras memorabilia. The industry hasalso begun to produce ‘PartyGras’ packagesthat contain information for consumers toplan Mardi Gras children/classroom parties,teenage/prom parties or adult-only parties. Inshort, the production of Mardi Gras products,souvenirs and memorabilia is no longer theprovince of local craft skills geared towardslocal consumption; it has been appropriated,reimagined and retooled for mass production.

In the Society of the Spectacle, GuyDebord (1973, p. 18) refers to the spectacleas “a tendency to make one see the world bymeans of specialised mediations” through theuse of marketing and advertising. Yet “thespectacle is not a collection of images, but asocial relation among people, mediated byimages” (p. 4). The concept of the spectaclerefers to a consumer-dominated society or-ganised around the production and consump-




tion of images and commodities that, in turn,seduce individuals to believe happiness andful�llment can be found through the pur-chase of ever more commodities. With MardiGras, advertisers and businesses attempt topersuade tourists that by purchasing a sou-venir they are buying a sign of social pres-tige. The purchase of a Mardi Gras souveniris a means to an end: a statement and presen-tation of taste, a demonstration of the pos-session of ‘cultural and symbolic capital’,and a signi�er of status. More important, it isthe appearance of the Mardi Gras com-modity that is more decisive than its actualuse value and the symbolic packaging ofotherwise diverse commodities—clothes,food and so on—generates a Mardi Grasimage industry and commodity aesthetics.

In his book, the Theming of America(1997), Mark Gottdiener draws attention tothe centrality of pro�t-making in the emerg-ence of new strategies of advertising, includ-ing the proliferation of motifs, symbolicrepresentations and commodity fantasythemes during the 20th century. Morespeci�cally, according to Gottiiener, the pe-riod after the 1960s represents a new phasewhere simulation and theming become‘singular aspects’ of an expanding media-driven environment geared towards promot-ing mass consumption. In the case of MardiGras, through a threefold dialectic of use,exchange and sign value, Mardi Gras themesact in concert with other aspects of politicaleconomy, especially production, in the on-going effort of commercial interests to ac-cumulate pro�t, on the one hand, and withcognitive and emotional elements, onthe other, in a quest for identity andself-expression. For example, advertisers andbusinesses that produce Mardi Gras sou-venirs package unfamiliar and unconven-tional signs, sights and objects within acommodi�ed system that attempts to con-struct and then satisfy demand for MardiGras experiences. It also encourages the col-lection of other signi�ers of these experi-ences and the social status they convey. Aspart of the tourist industry, businesses notonly attempt to sell Mardi Gras ‘objects’ but

also ‘experiences’ which are the anticipatedoutcomes of what Urry calls the ‘touristgaze’ where

places are chosen to be gazed upon be-cause there is anticipation, especiallythrough day-dreaming and fantasy, of in-tense pleasures, either on a different scaleor involving different sense from thosecustomarily encountered (Urry, 1995,p. 132).

A variety of non-tourist practices, such as�lm, newspapers, TV, magazines, recordsand videos construct the ‘tourist gaze’ andthe consumer’s anticipation for Mardi Grasexperiences. These non-tourist practices pro-vide the signs by which consumers under-stand the Mardi Gras experience. Whatconsumers see and how they interpret it is�ltered through these pre-given categories.The purchase of a souvenir is a signi�er, anindicator than one has achieved (purchased)the Mardi Gras experience, and intimates thecelebation as a commodity. Each time abuyer wears a T-shirt proclaiming ‘New Or-leans’ or admires a painting or photograph ofa Mardi Gras parade, they can relive theexperience. As Fainstein and Judd put it

even when the commodity is a dress or ascarf that does not proclaim the place itwas acquired, it retains its original associa-tions in the memory of the wearer. If givenas gift, the object becomes the vehicle forsharing the pleasure of travel, the assur-ance that the recipient, though out of sight,was not out of mind. From the point ofview of city government, local retailersand product manufactures, this form ofobjecti�cation is far more valuable than athousand photographs of their belovedcity, for unlike a paper image, it offers thatmuch vaunted economic multiplier that isthe raison d’etre of city marketing(Fainstein and Judd, 1999, p. 14).

In short, city marketing is a production in-dustry organised to create and circulatethemes, motifs and cultural symbols that po-tential consumers must easily recognise forthe advertising to be effective. To paraphrase




Gottdiener (1997), Mardi Gras sign valuescombine with the political economy aspectsof exchange value and the everyday reality ofuse value in the satisfaction of needs tostructure a spectacular environment for con-sumption. This environment remains tied tothe world of commodity production and isintended for the realisation of pro�t.

The Role of Multinational Corporations

A second major force involved in marketingMardi Gras includes multinational corpora-tions who link Mardi Gras imagery, symbolsand motifs to their products to stimulate con-sumption. Since the 19th century, US corpo-rations have used Mardi Gras themes in theiradvertisements for cigarettes, motor oil, skinlotion, alcohol, cola and so on. In the late1890s, major railroad companies referred tothe Mardi Gras celebration in their promo-tional booklets about New Orleans. In 1949,the US Rubber Company advertised its newfall line of Keds tennis shoes with one bear-ing the name ‘Mardi Gras’. During the late1940s, a brewery in Reading, Pennsylvaniabrewed and marketed a beer bearing thename ‘Mardi Gras’. Lucky Strike cigarettesused a New Orleans carnival theme in its1951 advertisements applauding the virtuesof smoking. These and other examples sug-gest that, decades ago, major corporationswere seeking unique ways to promote theirproducts using Mardi Gras.

Until the 1970s, corporate use of MardiGras themes and imagery in advertisingtended to be ad hoc and unco-ordinated, andlacked sophistication compared with the pre-sent. Not only was the socioeconomic con-text different from today, but the intensityand scale of advertising and the organisationof aesthetic production were vastly different.Today, the marketing of Mardi Gras by cor-porations involves technologies of simu-lation, manipulation of signs and the thrill ofthe spectacle. Many Orleans Parish paradesfollow long-standing traditions that discour-age commercialism. However, companiessuch as Coca-Cola, Popeyes, Verizon andZapps potato chips now sponsor �oats in

suburban Jefferson Parish and several subur-ban parades now amount to commercial bill-boards for corporate America. The Argusparade that rolls in Jefferson Parish is themost is blatantly commercial, proclaiming onits website that businesses can sponsor a �oatto promote their business in “front of thecrowds on the street, and the millions of TVviewers in New Orleans and nationwide”(www.acadiacom.net/fpi/). Figure 1 showsan Argus �oat advertising Coca-Cola, whileFigure 2 shows a �oat advertising Popeye’schicken.

Major corporations such as Bacardi rum,Southern Comfort, Coors beer, Koolcigarettes and other companies that specialisein ‘sin’ products—beer, alcohol andcigarettes—pitch their advertisements to abuilt-in audience of consumers. More im-portant, these corporations are increasinglyviewing their New Orleans and Mardi Gras-themed advertising campaigns as key devicesto shape their brands’ images, both region-ally and nationally. According to MarkMayer of Peter Mayer Advertising Inc., alocal advertising �rm

People have a clear sense of what MardiGras is about. It’s about fun, losing yourinhibitions, and celebrating life … Thesecompanies are interested in appendingthose characteristics through their productsto Mardi Gras (New Orleans Times–

Picayune, 25 February 2001, p. F-1).

While there is considerable diversity in thetype and style of themed packaging, what iscommon is that corporations recognise thepro�t potential that comes from connectingtheir products to Mardi Gras, an event knownthroughout the world and rich with easilyidenti�able images. Coors Light andHeineken now produce Mardi Gras com-memorative beer cans and T-shirts that theydistribute nationally. Playboy.com has nowestablished a regular presence in New Or-leans during Mardi Gras beaming images ofelaborate parties and playmates tossing beadsand �irting with tourists. In 2001, CaptainMorgan Spiced Rum sponsored its ‘Bomb-shells from the Bayou’ while Stuff magazine




Figure 1. An Argus �oat advertising Coca-Cola.

presented its ‘Stuff Girls’ entourage on Bour-bon Street in the French Quarter. Yet MardiGras advertising is more than packing funand pleasure to sell commodities (for exam-ple, realise exchange value). In Bacardi’scase, the company hopes that its recent pro-motional campaign in New Orleans willtransform its brand image (for example, en-hance sign value). In 2001, the companysponsored a �oat in a suburban parish, linedup celebrity riders for other parades and dis-tributed promotional material throughout theFrench Quarter. According to John Gomez,group marketing director at Bacardi USA inMiami

Mardi Gras is really a cornerstone eventfor us. We’ve always had a presence there.Obviously New Orleans is a great market.If you think about the type of drinks thatconsumers drink there, the Hurricane is abig rum drink. But we really wanted totake it up a notch (New Orleans Times–

Picayune, 25 February 2001, p. F-2).

Corporations are increasingly using MardiGras advertising to target a nationwide audi-ence on a year-round basis, rather than justduring the carnival season. In 2001, Southern

Comfort employed a staff of ‘brand ambas-sadors’ and hired three stars of MTV’s RealWorld New Orleans to market the beverage.The company also dispatched members of itsmarketing team to Buffalo, San Diego and StLouis to show consumers how they can useSouthern Comfort to make Hurricanes andcelebrate Fat Tuesday. Southern Comfort hasalso attempted to market itself as an ‘auth-entic’ New Orleans tradition by emphasisingthat the Southern Comfort secret formulawas developed on Bourbon Street. As otherparts of the country begin to celebrate MardiGras, corporations have learned that peopleassociate the celebration with fun, hedonismand entertainment. Mardi Gras becomes a‘�oating signi�er’ that corporations attach totheir products to stimulate further consump-tion. This marketing technique leads themincessantly to rede�ne and repackage adver-tisements that they believe resonate with pre-sent trends, audience desires and fantasies,and thus will be attractive to speci�c audi-ences and, as far as possible, mass audiences.In 2000, Bacardi realised the pro�t potentialof marketing Mardi Gras year-round when itsent ‘Bacardi Gras’ kits of hats, beads andHurricane recipes to bars around the nation




Figure 2. An Argus �oat advertising Popeye’s chicken.

and realised that they were still selling longafter the carnival season. As John Gomez,group marketing director at Bacardi USA inMiami, put it

‘Bacardi Gras’ ended up being one of themost successful promotions we’ve everdeveloped. What we found was that eventhough it was intended to be used over FatTuesday, people were actually doing Bac-ardi Gras promotions in July. That’s whenwe started realising that there’s a real con-nection (New Orleans Time–-Picayune, 25February 2001, p. F-1).

The potential for using Mardi Gras for‘brand-alignment’ and ‘brand-extension’ hasnot been lost on large corporations. Unlikethe names ‘Super Bowl’, ‘Sugar Bowl’, orother corporate-sponsored activities, no onehas trade-marked the words ‘Mardi Gras’which means that companies do not have topay money to use the term. While the cityand metropolitan area do not earn revenuefrom the name, the term offers free exposureand publicity through corporate advertising.As Mark Mayer of Peter Mayer AdvertisingInc., a local advertising �rm, put it, “Becausenobody can sponsor Mardi Gras, it becomes

almost a free-for-all to see who can link theirbrands to Mardi Gras imagery”. According toPackard Phillips, a local trademark attorneyand former advertising professional

My theory is that anything you get forfree, all that publicity or promotionaltie-ins, are probably good for the city.Let’s face it, New Orleans’ industry istourism. If I can get my city’s name andevent on Heineken Beer or Koolcigarettes, that’s got to be good for my city(New Orleans Times–Picayune, 25 Febru-ary 2001, p. F-1).

As far as possible, major corporations seekto liquidate referentials, creating a conditionwhere they can recombine and codeself-referential signs, generating furthercodes and ultimately a simulacrum, whichBaudrillard (1983) identi�es as an identicalcopy for which no original ever existed. Bau-drillard decontextualises the analysis of sim-ulacra, fails to go beyond cultural texts andthus obscures the imperatives of pro�t andaccumulation that drive the production ofimagery. Indeed, behind the veil of simulacralies the pro�teering interests of corporatecapital who attempt to build, combine and




then exploit the potential of Mardi Grasthemes, imagery and related symbols. Adver-tising in general, and the marketing of MardiGras in particular, are attempts to produceand expand the commodity sign and com-modity form. The practitioners and agents atwork within this system of advertising andmarketing are well aware of the necessity forpro�t and the rules of capital accumulation.The production of spectacle and simulationrepresent very strategic, calculated and meth-odical campaigns that corporations design toexpand markets and reduce circulation timebetween production and the realisation of acommodity sale. Marketing Mardi Gras be-comes another technique used by corporatecapital to seduce consumers into seeking funand entertainment through the consumptionof spectacles. As an integral part of modernculture, advertising’s main role is to persuadepeople that only in consumption can they�nd not only satisfaction, but social status.

The Role of Public and Private Actors

A third major set of actors involved in mar-keting Mardi Gras comprises an array ofpublic/private groups who use Mardi Grasimagery, themes and motifs to promote econ-omic growth, encourage investment in thecity and produce spaces of consumption. Themajor interests involved include local andregional chambers of commerce, local andmetropolitan planning councils, economicdevelopment agencies, tourism bureaus,planning departments, newspapers, culturalaffairs and mayor’s of�ces. Some groupsrender services to stimulate economic devel-opment in the city of New Orleans. Othersprovide funding to various groups that mar-ket New Orleans as a desirable visitor desti-nation. Still other groups developprogrammes to improve marketing strategiesand co-ordinate the tourism marketing effortsof New Orleans with those of other cities andthe State of Louisiana. Thus, various publicand private actors, especially city govern-ments in the metropolitan area, have increas-ingly assumed a co-ordinating role infostering marketing schemes that use Mardi

Gras themes to raise the pro�le and visibilityof the city and thereby attract conventions,tourists and other businesses. Funding comesfrom general tax revenues, governmental�nancial contributions and other sourcessuch as hotel or guest room taxes, commis-sions from conference or booking servicesand sales from tourist information centres.

The promotion of place and the implemen-tation of policies designed to attract newindustry and travellers to New Orleans hasbeen a mainstay of local economic develop-ment for decades. Nevertheless, several fea-tures distinguish current city promotionefforts from previous practice. First, urbanboosters and advertisers market Mardi Grasfor several reasons (rather than with singleoverriding objective, as is true for capitalaccumulation) including raising the competi-tive position of the city, attracting inwardinvestment and improving New Orleans’ na-tional and international image. Secondly, re-cent decades have witnessed a transformationin ‘how’ the promotion of place is expressed.Speci�cally, New Orleans and other citieshave adopted targeted forms of advertising tobolster directly the process of image con-struction. Cultural entrepreneurs, urbanimagineers and tourism boosters simulateNew Orleans and Mardi Gras using generaland speci�c themes, and fabricating and ma-nipulating symbols and motifs to entice peo-ple to visit and spend money in New Orleans.In turn, city leaders and other elites attemptto refashion New Orleans generally and rede-velop speci�c areas of the city as the fantasyimages prescribe. In marketing and placepromotion, leaders and elites try to enhancethe product for tourist consumption, whichmay or may not be in the interests of cityresidents.

Several scholars have examined the link-ages between commodi�cation, tourism andthe marketing of places (for overviews, seeFainstein and Judd, 1999; Gottdiener, 1997,2000). Clearly, cities and their festivals havebecome commodities that tourism agenciesadvertise, market and sell like any othercommodity (Featherstone, 1991; Kearns andPhilo, 1993; Urry, 1995; Zukin, 1996, 1997;




Strom, 1999). However, what scholars do notusually emphasise is the degree to whichlocal festivals, celebrations and other touristattractions can become a means to sell othercommodities. A trip to New Orleans forMardi Gras, for example, is a desirable goalas far as the city government is concerned,but perhaps more important it is a means forselling other Mardi Gras souvenirs and cor-porate products that use Mardi Gras imagery.Visits to New Orleans help to fuel interest inMardi Gras souvenirs and, more important,New Orleans products, food, movies, books,music, art, architecture, and so on. Accordingto Britton (1991, p. 465), “tourists are the‘armies of semiotics’ for whom theidenti�cation and collection of signs are‘proof’ that experiences have been realised”.In this respect, the marketing of Mardi Gras“experiences” becomes an overt and inten-tional avenue of capitalist accumulation withtie-ins with the buying and selling of otherNew Orleans products. The various actorsand organised interests that market MardiGras and New Orleans give people a choiceof goods and services to consume. Yet whatthey seek to limit, if not eliminate, to quoteRitzer and Liska (1997, p. 143), “is our abil-ity not to consume” (emphasis in original).

The marketing of Mardi Gras goes hand-in-hand with the standardisation, homogeni-sation and subsequent globalisation of thisannual celebration. Today, Mardi Gras cele-brations occur in many US cities and mostareas of the world and it is becoming moredif�cult to distinguish these celebrationsfrom one another. As a fundamental compo-nent of New Orleans tourist-dominated econ-omy and as a globalised festival that peoplecelebrate around the globe, Mardi Gras tapsinto a growing global market for ‘experi-ences’ which would otherwise be unattain-able by virtue of time, space or cost. In 1989,New Orleans �oat-builder Blaine Kernopened Mardi Gras World, which allowspeople to view costumes, shop for gifts, dressup in carnival costumes and “experienceMardi Gras year round”. During Mardi Gras2000, more than a dozen Internet cameraswere set up throughout the city to beam

images of Mardi Gras (and advertisementsfor companies) to viewers around the world(New Orleans Times–Picayune. 24 August2000). Across the country, people now useMardi Gras as a theme for proms, parties andmeetings. Several Las Vegas casinos featurea Mardi Gras motif and Disney World andUniversal Studies regularly schedule NewOrleans-style parades. As more cities adoptMardi Gras celebrations, they become morealike in the adoption of similar marketingstrategies, contrived promotion events andthe sponsorship of exhibits and other money-making extravaganzas (Hannigan, 1998;Fainstein and Judd, 1999).

Conclusion

In his book, on the theory of capitalist urban-isation, David Harvey points out that

capitalism builds a physical and sociallandscape in its own image, appropriate toits own condition at a particular moment intime, only to have to revolutionise thatlandscape, usually in the course of creativedestruction at a subsequent point in time(Harvey, 1985, p. 150).

New Orleans represents a prime example ofthis “creative destruction” as urban leadersand economic elites have attempted to strat-egically deploy Mardi Gras imagery andadvertising to refashion the city into athemed landscape of entertainment andtourism over the past few decades. Thebuilding and ‘revolutionising’ of this urbanlandscape involve a dialectical relationshipbetween socioeconomic, political and cul-tural forces and signify a new and distinctivephase in the development of cultural pro-duction and marketing on a global scale.Today, Mardi Gras is a linchpin of the re-gional tourism industry and a major market-ing device used by private and public groupsto attract consumption-oriented investment,build tourism-oriented spaces of consump-tion and adopt promotional mechanisms tofacilitate tourism development. Moreover,major developers and real estate interestsnow regularly rely on Mardi Gras imagery




and motifs to create commercial spaces in-cluding arts districts, historical areas, muse-ums, casinos and gaming facilities, andshopping areas. In this way, Mardi Gras con-nects with the production of spectacular en-vironments and involves the circulation ofpeople to speci�c locations that are con-sumed as spaces—spaces of leisure, rec-reation, history and amusement. As HenriLefebvre (1991) recognised, what is noveland signi�cant about tourism is that it in-volves people travelling to locations that areconsumed as spaces of consumption, insteadof the circulation of commodities amongpeople. In short, Mardi Gras is an overarch-ing motif that is deployed through advertis-ing and marketing, urban design andplanning, and urban redevelopment schemesin the service of selling an experience andproducing spaces for tourist consumption.

In recent years, much debate has focusedon the relative merits of textual deconstruc-tion, discursive analysis and other forms ofrepresentation and ‘reading’ to describe theincreasing salience of culture and the trans-formation of cities into tourists centres, en-tertainment hubs and so on. In much of theurban literature on the rise of the ‘fantasycity’ (Hannigan, 1998), consumption eclipsesproduction as the centre of urban life; mod-els, codes and sign-value replace the use- andexchange-value of commodities; and cultureand lifestyle override the imperatives of pro-duction, class struggles or con�icts in shap-ing the fortunes of cities. Yet these claimsare spurious. Outside every ‘text’ therecontinues to be an objective yet contestedworld of exploitative production relations,however remote geographically. Speci�csocio-historical arrangements of production,technological abilities, relations of labour,property ownership and distribution shapethe consumption of goods and services.Moreover, as many critical scholars havelong pointed out, the objects of consumptionare commodities, and money and market re-lations structure our ability to carry on every-day life. As a social process, capital bringstogether and exploits labour and resources tocreate commodities—no matter if commodi-

ties are images, culture or motifs. Indeed, asGottdiener has recently argued, the history ofcapitalism

is a history of the role of signi�cation andmeaning systems in the economic life ofsociety. This role is not con�ned merely tothe marketing of commodities. Rather, theentire process of capital accumulation isshot through with mechanisms that dependon symbolic processes for their properfunctioning (Gottdiener, 1997, p. 48).

Rather than viewing ‘signs’, ‘symbols’, ‘ima-gery’, ‘meaning systems’ and other forms ofsigni�cation as products of technology, me-dia and consumer culture, it makes moresense to probe deeper, into social relations ofcapitalism and the increased range of com-modi�cation and production of spectacle.

In writing in this vein, I have attempted toidentify and analyse the speci�c economic,political and social forces that are entangledwith cultural images and discursive practices.What such analysis does is point out thetheoretical limitations of cultural- andlinguistic-based analysis of tourism; it alsoemphasises the need to study the speci�csocial conditions, power dynamics and rela-tions of domination and subordination thatmake tourism-oriented consumption, them-ing and advertising possible in the �rst place.Indeed, scholars who embrace textual decon-struction and discursive analyses typicallylack the resources to develop compelling ex-planations of the transformation of US citiesfrom spaces of production to spaces of con-sumption, and the links between place pro-motion and marketing. Such extremelinguistic explanations are limited not be-cause of the focus on consumer culture or‘readings’ of cultural texts. They are limitedbecause of the refusal to probe critically thesocial relations underlying the production ofthe text, to identify the key actors and or-ganised interests involved in manufacturingcultural signi�ers and to interrogate and ex-plain the consequences of the actions ofpowerful groups. Today, in the ‘tourist bub-bles’ (Judd, 1999) and leisure spaces of thechanging city, paying sub-standard wages to




an urban service proletariat helps to subsidisethe production of spectacle and simulations.Linking political economy with issues of lan-guage and discourse helps to focus attentionon the role of simulations and imagery inurban tourism without missing or downplay-ing the exploitation and inequality that makepossible the spaces of consumption devotedto glorifying, and reproducing, commoditysign-values.

Notes

1. In the past decade or so, tourism hasemerged as the dominant sector withinthe contemporary service economy in the USand around the world. According to USTourism Industries, tourism’s export contri-butions grew nearly 250 per cent between1986 through 1996, from $26 billion to $90billion. In that time, travel and tourism havebeen consistently ranked as the number oneservices export, producing a trade surplusevery year since 1989 (http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/; for overviews, see Law,1993; Fainstein and Judd, 1999).

2. The ‘critical political-economy’ or ‘so-ciospatial approach’ emphasises several ma-jor dimensions of cities: the importance ofclass and racial domination (and, more re-cently, gender) in shaping urban develop-ment; the primary role of powerful economicactors, especially those in the real estateindustry, in building and redeveloping cities;the role of growth-assisted government ac-tors in city development; the importance ofsymbols, meanings and culture to the shap-ing of cities; attention to the global contextof urban development (for overviews, seeFeagin, 1998; Gotham, 2001; Gottdiener andFeagin, 1988; Hutchison, 2000). Gottdiener(1994) and Hutchison (2000) prefer the term‘socio-spatial’ perspective to describe thecritical political economy paradigm, a termthat accents the society–space synergy andemphasises that cities are multifaceted ex-pressions of local actions and macrostruc-tural processes. They also use the term todistance themselves from older Marxist ap-proaches of Gordon (1984), Dear and Scott(1981) and Storper and Walker (1983) andhighlight the diversity of theory and methodwithin the broad paradigm.

3. On the distinction between ‘selling’ and‘marketing’ cities, see for example, Hol-comb, 1993, 1999.

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