Day of Deviance
Thoughts from the fringes and future deviations in consumer and brand research
The Promotional Cultures and Communication Centre (PCCC) hosted a one-day seminar under the theme of ‘deviance’ on 16 March 2017 at the Hunterian Museum in London. The event involved researchers from the fields of critical marketing, consumer culture, branding, popular culture and punk. The aim was to generate discussions around discordant theories, digressive methodologies, deviant consumers and disruptive brands.
Academics invited were those who are (or have) been providing a discordant voice in the literature, or been researching in an area that could be perceived as deviant, or been exploring a sector considered as marginal, or some of their views expressed in some of their work could be considered as deviant. According to Dr Tauheed Ramjaun, lead organiser of the event: “The idea was to gather an eclectic mix of participants to stimulate debate but also to encourage a cross-fertilisation of ideas around non-mainstream perspectives”.
Participants were given the opportunity to present think pieces of five minutes about their topic of interest in an informal setting. Presentations included themes like extraterrestrial consumption, consuming the Third Reich, the voluntary consumption of physical pain, marketing and industrious modernity, the normalisation of consumer deviance, glitch as a methodological device, critique of the service-dominant logic, pursuing gay masculinities through consumption practices, the evolution of punk, etc. Our colleagues Maria Musarskaya, Chris Miles and Stuart Armon also contributed to the event.
This seminar follows the very successful Seminar by the Sea (2011) and Contemplating in the City (2014) organised previously by the PCCC. According to Dr Janice Denegri-Knott, Head of PCCC: “It was a day of thought-provoking discussion. The productive and often dangerous quality of the ‘deviant’ was clearly evident in the think pieces that were shared on the day and the conversation they initiated. A number of collaborations are in the pipeline as a result of this, and we look forward to our next seminar in 2019′”.
An ‘Early Reflections’ booklet for industry is currently under production as a follow-up to the event. The next event will be organised in 2019 in collaboration with another academic institution.