Marketing science

A visitor of Cafe Salemba asked: “What do economists, or at least the Cafe guys here, think of marketing – as the science, as the art, or as the source of income”. Let me take the first shot as the other guys might have different perspectives.

To be very honest, I once thought marketing science was useless and childish. It was all about creating easy-to-remember abbreviations like 4Ps (product, price, placement, and promotion – never mind the correct ordering); or finding a term that sounds similar to an already established theory and call it a ‘theory’ too (competitive advantage vs. comparative advantage is a case in point); or writing popular books with lists of how-to’s.

Of course I was wrong. Marketing science can be very useful. It includes sub-disciplines like marketing research and market analysis that involve careful steps and are very useful in analyzing market behavior for prediction purposes. It often employs increasingly rigorous techniques to minimize errors. I myself have recently adopted its techniques in choice modeling, called latent segmentation. Another thing that I like from it is its positive approach (everything/everyone is a commodity).

Furthermore, marketing science and economics seem to be getting along closer. There is even a respected co-journal for both, such as Quantitative Marketing and Economics. Some universities have department for both, such as this and some economics departments run classes that analyze the economics of marketing, such as this one at Melbourne.

As for the other two dimensions: art and source of income, I can not say as much. Except that I think some of the so-called marketing gurus are successful and rich because they can talk interestingly, regardless of whether or not they know what the science really is. They talk so interestingly, I many times confuse them with motivational speakers. But again, who needs theory if you can be rich easily?

Marketing