Is marketing art or science? - Christine MacNaul

Based on this week’s readings and class discussion, I strongly view marketing as an art of a science. Before our first class, I believed marketing could fall into both categories, art and science. After our first discussion, and debate, I concluded that marketing begins as a science but concludes as an art, thus an art within a science. When wanting to pursue a marketing project, scientific steps must be taken. With marketing being such a broad entity, there are many models that attempt to pick out important and consistent ideas, theories and methods. McCarthy’s “4 Ps” model distinguishes the marketing mix which entails controllable factors such as price, place product and promotion. This significant use of a model proves that marking is positive since there is an attempt to describe, explain, predict and understand the consumer’s relationship to a brand. Marketing is also normative since there is a desire to advise what individuals and organizations should do or how a society should run. Hutchinson argues that since marketing is only normative and not positive, it can’t be a science; I disagree. Bartels discusses the standards of science in the social realm with the inclusion of broad principles, the need for social importance, profitable ends, and explanations of the marketing phenome. Each of these points are consumed within marketing. With marketing similarly following the scientific method regarding the use of observation, research, data, and questions, general laws and principles are created. A profit evolves the need for a consumer contribution to a product or service, branching from society. These concepts form the body of marketing, leaving art to be a sub-body within the science.

While science emphasizes the importance of knowledge and consistency, art possess the importance of application and variability. I thought about this concept in a tangible way; when an artist paints a painting, they will have a certain meaning in mind for the creation, similar to a science. The showing of the final product, however, can be perceived in different ways by the observers and will branch off from the original intent like art. I believe the reason why art is within science rather than the other way around is due to the fact that science holds a broadness to it that marketing has as well. There is an argument that marketing is part of the general science of economics, proving that marketing is not a narrow subject and should be identified as a science. This broadness creates a stable and consistent body for an art to contribute uniqueness that pairs with individual consumers. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” The diction used in this definition such as “creating” and “delivering” emphasize the representation of marketing as both a science and an art.