Please don’t come to MSIX
The more marketers can understand, explain and even predict the types of ideas that consumers will be influenced by, the more they’ll be believed. This is the crux of MSiX, explains Adam Ferrier in this guest post.
Occasionally I get really excited when I read advertising articles. The ones I enjoy the most are the ones that say marketing can’t be a science – it’s all about art, intuition, and magic. 
Why do I get excited – because it makes my job as a manager of a competitive agency easier? Why? Because all of these things are a part of the creative process but not all of it.
Indeed agencies that rely purely on the magic, with the concerned yet authoritarian ECD saying ‘trust me’, are at risk of being usurped by the myriad businesses finding new ways to get a better balance between art and science.
On the other hand I also get excited (okay, I’m easily excited) when I read articles such as this one from two executive creative directors based in Asia. Although not endorsing marketing sciences, they have attempted to codify their craft of creativity and are sharing their knowledge with the world.
That’s one way to get attention.
Looks like a good conference – and an argument well made. Marketing Science needs a re-brand though. Doesnt feel like I relate to the term. May go anyway though.
Let me be the contrarian here Adam since I know you like a good argument. The marketing profession has used psychologists since the 1920s (cue Edward Bernays or Ernest Dichter) so if behavioral psychology is indeed a marketing “science”, everybody has been on board, including clients, for ages.
And I understand how the marketing profession may want to legitimize itself through the fetish of ‘big data’ and ‘data driven insights’. It’s a scary world out there. I also understand how the same professionals may feel threatened by companies with access to amazing data (cue Google and Facebook).
And I agree that most of that data is still untapped / unused / underutilized.
But please give me an iconic brand that has been built on the back of such ‘data-driven insights’…..In his book ‘how brands become icons’ Doug Holt makes a pretty compelling case that most iconic brands were built on cultural insights, not on the fact that fathers shop for beer when they shop for diapers at night (however interesting that ‘insight’ may be for Coles).
So I’d say what bothers me in this push for ‘marketing sciences’ (and I am not sure how you would define it) is the idea that mixing psychologists and quantitatively trained researchers is bound to lead to great results. I am not saying they are useless either, but neither will get you an understanding of culture.
Decent argument until you play the Holt card. Alongside Stengel (and Peters, Jim Collins et al before them) these writings, while thoroughly entertaining, are highly theoretical at best or simply a study of halo effects at worst.
Hi Julian
I agree many brands are created by a ‘cultural’ tension / gap / big resolve that rarely has marketing science at its core (what would Elon Musk or Steve Jobs know about marketing sciences right?) However how to build that brand (as opposed to create) may benefit immensely from marketing sciences. You’re right in many ways some brands have been doing it for years – others not so much. There’s no right, or one way of doing things. We’re just exploring what we think is a brilliant opportunity for marketers and agencies,
The guidance that marketing science should provide is identifying the drivers of consumption behaviour. What is the single most important rational reasons to believe and what is the dominant emotion that will provide the behavioural detonation? Marketing science should provide this guidance and then should stand back and allow creative brilliance to work within those constraints. The best creative arises when it is born from solving constraints.
The guidance that marketing science should provide is in identifying the drivers of consumption behaviour. What is the single most important rational reasons to believe and what is the dominant emotion that will provide the behavioural detonation?
Marketing science should provide this guidance and then stand back and allow creative brilliance to work within those constraints. The best creative arises when it is born from solving constraints.