Quickening brand poetics: the lyric alternative

Purpose This paper aims to explore brand rhythm in a lyrical analysis. It aims to provide insights into the appropriation of temporal meaning in material, collective and individual contexts. Design/methodology/approach The design offers a structured advance in lyrical qualitative research and the complementary third alternative to story and drama as more frequent representational forms in interpretive projects. This project presents an aesthetic performance in the sequential constructs of mimesis, poiesis and kinesis. Findings The inquiry confirms the paradoxical evolution of a brand’s temporal aspects and the importance of rhythm perception as a performative act of semantic bootstrapping and evolving brand meaning in general. Research limitations/implications This project shows the importance of brand rhythm and pace in a triangulated methodological sequence of poetic perspectives as an advance of the current qualitative poetic state of play in research. It has implications for the strategic style management of brands in general. Practical implications This paper proposes the importance of brand rhythm as a differentiating attribute. The project presents a repeatable case study which depicts managers a structured poetic approach to capture the temporal essence of brands. Social implications This project is situated in the context of an area that has become to be known as the Timeless Land. The artistic (re-)appropriation of a temporal aspect has had an impact on the development of public attitudes and policy. Originality/value This project offers new insights into the temporal aspects of brands and the construct of brand rhythm in particular. It completes Altieri’s three literary approaches in a performative inquiry. The proposition of the lyrical third way in a theoretical framework should facilitate the acceptance and increasing currency of future poetic projects in marketing.