An Introduction to Creative Marketing

Abstract

What is creative marketing? What are the links between the existing marketing literature and creativity? How can creative marketing help practitioners and enrich theory? These are the questions we set out to answer in Creative Marketing. We explore marketing from a creative standpoint. In order to do that, we take the simple premise that all theories of marketing are based on metaphor. Use of metaphor is a way of seeing and understanding in a distinctive way. Metaphor creates powerful insights as it gives a way of reconceptualising marketing on the understanding that no single theory will give us a perfect view of marketing. For these reasons, it seems a useful starting point as the term ‘creative marketing’ is a metaphorical extension of the notion of commodities between buyer and seller.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto, called ‘The Faultless Painter’