Reflecting upon the Linguistic Limitations of Marketing Managerial Practice

From the outset, this paper draws literary inspiration from the published works of marketing scholars sensitive to the transparencies that subjective and personally introspective accounts can offer the marketing research endeavour (e.g. Holbrook 2005; Brown 1998; Patterson et al. 1998; Patterson et al. 2002; Patterson 2010; Reid and Brown 1996). Locating a theoretical basis for discussion on a lucidly sketched, and somewhat personally embarrassing, vignette, the paper attempts to synthesise the importance of researcher reflexivity within processes of sensemaking as well as to evidence the contribution that observation and non-linguistic forms of communication can provide for both academic marketing research and marketing management practice. The outcome offers a provision of empirical support for existing theories that are in danger of being hidden within a normative or positivistic model of marketing research activity. The paper empirically evidences the argument that visual phenomena offer the possibility of a managerial communication of meaning by providing narrative coherence to situations where written and spoken forms of communication will not suffice.