Is Marketing Management an Artistic Exercise or a Scientific Exercise?
Is Marketing Management an artistic exercise or a scientific exercise?
The marketing concept focuses on customer analysis, competitor analysis, and integration of the organisation’s resources to provide customer value and satisfaction, as well as long-term profits (Pride et al. 2007, p. 13). To gain customer’s satisfaction, organisations need to respond to ever-changing customer needs in a timely manner. Being too concerned about the analysis result has a risk of giving marketers a narrow view. Marketers need to be creative and imaginative as well as capable in making scientific and mathematical approaches to analyse data and utilise them effectively to achieve the organisation’s objectives. This paper addresses the importance of both aspects and where a scientific approach or an artistic approach is required.
Sergio Zyman, marketing vice president of Coca-Cola at the time New Coke was released in 1985, said (Myron 2000):
Marketing is 100 percent science. There 's nothing artistic about marketing… It 's like accounting. It 's understanding your competition, it 's about understanding who you 're going to grow business from. It 's understanding trends, it 's research, it 's science. It 's thinking it through and reinventing it all the time. The only way to do it is you do it with facts. It 's not a gut-based discipline -- it 's a science; it 's a fact-based discipline.
Coca-Cola introduced New Coke because of the threat of competition and they felt needs of refreshment after ninety-nine years history of the original Coke. New Coke was well received in the blind test and Coca-Cola decided to replace their original Coke with New Coke, but New Coke did not work out. Coca-Cola overvalued the outcome of their research, and they did not see that their customers did not want something new. However, this case could be considered as a failure as well as a success of Coca-Cola. It failed with New Coke but the rereleased original Coke named as Coke Classic became more
The marketing concept focuses on customer analysis, competitor analysis, and integration of the organisation’s resources to provide customer value and satisfaction, as well as long-term profits (Pride et al. 2007, p. 13). To gain customer’s satisfaction, organisations need to respond to ever-changing customer needs in a timely manner. Being too concerned about the analysis result has a risk of giving marketers a narrow view. Marketers need to be creative and imaginative as well as capable in making scientific and mathematical approaches to analyse data and utilise them effectively to achieve the organisation’s objectives. This paper addresses the importance of both aspects and where a scientific approach or an artistic approach is required.
Sergio Zyman, marketing vice president of Coca-Cola at the time New Coke was released in 1985, said (Myron 2000):
Marketing is 100 percent science. There 's nothing artistic about marketing… It 's like accounting. It 's understanding your competition, it 's about understanding who you 're going to grow business from. It 's understanding trends, it 's research, it 's science. It 's thinking it through and reinventing it all the time. The only way to do it is you do it with facts. It 's not a gut-based discipline -- it 's a science; it 's a fact-based discipline.
Coca-Cola introduced New Coke because of the threat of competition and they felt needs of refreshment after ninety-nine years history of the original Coke. New Coke was well received in the blind test and Coca-Cola decided to replace their original Coke with New Coke, but New Coke did not work out. Coca-Cola overvalued the outcome of their research, and they did not see that their customers did not want something new. However, this case could be considered as a failure as well as a success of Coca-Cola. It failed with New Coke but the rereleased original Coke named as Coke Classic became more
References: Myron, MR 2000, ’Zyman: Marketing is a science, not an art’, Denver Business Journal, viewed 10 August 2008, < http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2000/01/31/smallb3.html> Jackson, TW. 2005, ‘CRM: From ‘art to science’’, Database Marketing & Customer strategy Management, vol. 13, no. 1, viewed 10 August 2008 < http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/pal/dbm/2005/00000013/00000001/art00007> Moeller, L & Hirsh, E 2003, ‘When Art Meets Science: The challenge of ROI Marketing’, viewed 10 August 2008, < http://www.strategy-business.com/press/sbkw2/sbkwarticle/sbkw031217>