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Is Marketing More An Art or a Science?
Marketing is a very interesting field. Based on your function, background and right-brain/left-brain orientation you likely fall on one side of the fence or the other. Though there's definitely both a blend of art and science in marketing, what does your experience and gut tell you? Has this changed over time?
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5 Answers
As a fourth generation entrepreneur, I think science takes a back seat to the art of marketing and here is why. With relatively little investigation, a systematic, expectationial analysis can be formulated for any marketing strategy. Cost versus benefits, for example, can help reduce tendency to error, leading to a rational expectation of results. On the other hand, art is the theory behind the action on the stage. Imagination, creativity, intuition, a hunch, or inspiration, under the right circumstances, gives birth to the greatest ideas while science provides for subsequent action. I see no concrete reason how or why this process has changed over the years.
www.brucehallcoaching.com
I tend to agree. Both art and science contribute. However, the art of marketing will mostly help you get attention. The science of marketing will ensure you are getting the attention of the right people at the right time in the decision making process, to grease the skids towards purchase...
This is an interesting question and a fascinating one. Even though I am tempted to say marketing is a science, I believe that it is an "art". The reason I say this is because the discipline of marketing cannot be mastered and is there are multiple ways to achieve an end goal in marketing (versus science, which is precise and prescriptive). For example, to achieve a 10% y-o-y growth, a marketer may need to exercise leadership, judgement, creativity, analytical skills (all of which fall within the purview of art). Having said this, I do believe that the means to achieving the art is a science i.e. marketing analytics, decision models, ROI.
So in summary, marketing is an art, which uses science to achieve its goals. But it is not a science in itself. A better way to think about marketing may be to think of it as " scientific art".
http://marketingcrusader.blogspot.com
You make some great points Adnan. I struggle with it myself. I am sitting on the fence but leaning more towards the science part. The difference between the art of marketing and pure art itself is that that value of pure art is in the eye of the beholder, whereas the art of marketing is a means to an end, and it's value is measured in leads, revenue, market share etc.
You can have very effective marketing campaigns that use the pure science part of marketing as a foundation (database modeling, or segmentation for example) and not touch the art element as much to be successful (though admittedly you'll need some element of creative to get the attention of the prospect). On the other side, we all know that award-winning creative by itself is often wasted if not targeted appropriately to the right audience, with the right messages (based on segmentation, analytics etc).
Like you said though, this is an interesting question and the answers are not black and white. This is indeed either "fuzzy science" , or "scientific art" . I tend to believe it's more of the former. :-)
Done properly, marketing definitely CAN be a science. Does it utilize a great deal of art? Absolutely! But underneath everything, it is the science of differentiating one company/product/service from all others and moving target market preferences accordingly.
But it's only a science if it's done properly...
There is a huge body of marketing research, going back many decades, that should guide marketers in what will work and what won't. (See, for example, Claude Hopkins' classic "Scientific Advertising," which was written in 1923. http://www.scientific-advertising.co.uk/ ) Sadly, though, a great percentage of marketers and marketing agencies remain ignorant of what has been learned and either try to reinvent the wheel or fly by the seat of their pants. So it's not surprising that there's an awful lot of ineffective marketing being done out there.
Al Shultz
http://www.alshultz.com/
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