Imagination is a word that is widely used by marketing practitioners but rarely examined by marketing academics. This neglect is largely due to the imagination's 'artistic' connotations, which run counter to the 'scientific' mindset that dominates marketing scholarship. Of late, however, an artistic 'turn' has taken place in marketing research, and this topical study argues that the mantle of imagination has now passed on from the artist to the marketer. It contends, moreover, that the tools and techniques of artistic appreciation can be successfully applied to all manner of marketplace phenomena. Key features include:

* the treatment of artistic artefacts as a source of marketing understanding * a detailed discussion surrounding the argument that marketers should adopt more imaginative modes of academic expression * an analysis of the kind of art that marketing is, and the place of imagination in marketing's artistic palette.

This book provokes a new way of thinking about marketing, and will prove invaluable to marketing academics, researchers and practitioners.