Marketing with graffiti:

Crime as symbolic capital

Abstract

Graffiti is extensively used within marketing. Products such as cars, sodas, and clothes are fueled with the symbolic capital of illegal graffiti. Graffiti artists transform settings such as hotels, bars and boutiques into daring experiences. Building on ethnographic observations and interviews in Sweden, this article shows that graffiti artists and commercial companies cooperate in maintaining a narrative where graffiti is presented as essentially illegal. This narrative enables graffiti writers to exchange symbolic capital for economic capital and preserve their identity as authentic graffiti writers. The idea that subcultures are distinct from, and thus compromised, when appropriated by the mainstream is questioned. Instead it is established that graffiti artists adopt a pragmatic perspective towards commercial work.