Wake up and smell the coffin: An introspective obituary

Despite decades of academic endeavor, introspection is still regarded with suspicion in marketing and consumer research. Articles predicated upon introspection are unwelcome in leading journals and its exponents are considered dissidents, outsiders, renegades, rather less than fully integrated members of scholarly society. If this regrettable situation is to change, a radical rethink is necessary. Just as services marketing and interpretive research have been reinvented as Service Dominant Logic and Consumer Culture Theory respectively, so too subjective personal introspection is badly in need of a rebrand. Failure to grasp the rebranding nettle will result in continuing neglect, renewed disregard and eventual expiry.