‘I don't know much about art, but I know what I like’: Resonance, relevance and illumination as assessment criteria for marketing research and scholarship

Questions the processes and methodologies of marketing research. Challenges the “scientific” hypothetico-deductive approach and asserts that interpretative and qualitative methods provide a more worthwhile framework for research. Explores frames of reference for assessing qualitative marketing scholarship and research. Discusses the implications of adapting frameworks from the world of art. Concludes by stressing that marketing research needs to be accepted at different levels of focus; hard work is required to create resonance; and persuasiveness and illumination should be of supreme importance in the research design and data analysis.