Serendipitous Stories: Magic in the Biography and Personal Brand of Creative Soloists

Creative soloists (Fraser, 2013) have been established as unique and interesting characters in the plot of contemporary marketing practice, often being set within the scene of the oftcelebrated and studied creative industries.... [ view full abstract ]

Creative soloists (Fraser, 2013) have been established as unique and interesting characters in the plot of contemporary marketing practice, often being set within the scene of the oftcelebrated and studied creative industries. Only in recent years has attention has been given to the brand building structures within SMEs (Abimbola & Vallaster, 2007) and it is in this context that this paper offers both empirical and theoretical insight to the notion of both entrepreneurial effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2009) and the serendipity of external forces in the marketing process (Brown & Patterson, 2010) for the soloist brand in the craft sector in Scotland. This paper presents excerpts of the stories of 22 makers/ artists working in Scotland and presents stories of individual attempts of marketing action and external events of serendipity. It is the liminal space between these two plot devices that the magic occurs and the personal brand attains a quality that transcends the categorical, personal and tangible.