Stuck in a K-HOLE? Locating Cultural Practice and Production Between the Fields of Art and Marketing

This paper addresses the conference theme by first considering how ‘magic’ might be made possible in consumer/brand research against a backdrop of predictable methods, pedestrian results and distribution by means of the... [ view full abstract ]

This paper addresses the conference theme by first considering how ‘magic’ might be made possible in consumer/brand research against a backdrop of predictable methods, pedestrian results and distribution by means of the common academic/practitioner channels. It traces and follows a tradition in Marketing literature of suggesting Art as one possible escape route from the status quo, before considering the work of the transdisciplinary art/marketing collective, K-HOLE. The paper next explores the trend reports produced by K-HOLE, specifically in regard to: data collection and methodological approach; style and presentation; and distribution of their reports. It concludes that the case example of K-HOLE provides practitioners of consumer/brand research with much food-for-thought before outlining future research directions with the collective to question and test whether their liminal state between two distinct fields of cultural production is possible to maintain, and if so, by what means to what ends and effects.