Marketing, Narratives, and Consumer Desire within Auction Catalogs of Cultural Objects

Yates, D. (2025) Marketing, Narratives, and Consumer Desire within Auction Catalogs of Cultural Objects. Advances in Archaeological Practice. 13(1): 17–30.

This article uses the lens of commodity theory and, in particular, the scarcity effect to consider ways that consumer desire is reflected within auction catalogs for cultural objects. Taking Brodie and Manivet’s (2017:3) assertion that “auction sales do not offer a clear window onto the broader antiquities trade” as a motivating initial hypothesis, I find that auction catalogs do represent marketing material that can provide at least a blurry window onto the needs, wants, and desires of consumers acting within the market for archaeological and heritage objects. Consumer motivation at an auction is notoriously difficult to assess externally and has long represented a gap in the analysis of public antiquities sales. Failures to effectively regulate market consumption may relate to a misunderstanding of the people who are being regulated. Using more than 50 years of auction sales of Pacific cultural items as a case study, I present auction narrative analysis as a method to consider consumer desire and thereby inform heritage policy and market interventions.

Article available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2024.39