The small producer: from political commitment to a marketing figure. Analysis of use of the portrait for social communication on products

Photographs of producers are increasingly being used in communication strategies for products, especially food products. These portraits seek to materialise the relational dimension between producers and consumers. While fair trade actors were the first to enable consumers to "put a face" to their purchases, this communication strategy is neither systematic nor specific to fair trade. In both fair trade and conventional trade, the portrait is used to humanise the relationship with the product. Packagings convey a presentation of an alter-ego who is not a generic figure, but is intended to be the identifier of a specific contact (the small farmer from the other side of the world, or in your local area). This strategy has been adopted, and indeed taken further, by conventional trade, in order to benefit from interrelational aspects. Against this background, this article aims to critically examine the marketing uses of photographs of producers, through three cases: North-South fair trade, North-North fair trade, and the "marketing of authenticity". In the light of analysis of social uses of the portraits, its study of the various visuals shows that the portraits used ultimately contribute more to an illusion of personalisation than to true information about the product's traceability.

Raphaële Bertho, Aurélie Carimentrand. The small producer: from political commitment to a marketing figure. Analysis of use of the portrait for social communication on products. 2013. ⟨halshs-00927282⟩ - lien externe