Is Marketing art or science? - Katherine McKeon

In my opinion, I would view marketing as an art and not as a science. It is clear that marketing is not a hard science, and while I see some scientific elements in the marketing process, I would still consider it more an art than a science. Science requires testable hypotheses that create the same result test after test. If one were to test a few marketing hypotheses, many would not hold up to repetitive tests. I believe that this is due to the unpredictable nature of human kind; from group to group and even amongst individuals, hypotheses tests would vary greatly. Imagine testing a group of consumers from America on a certain product, and then testing a group of Londoners with the same product; you would get completely different results. This is because humans make decisions based on impulses and past and current experiences, making people from different countries (and even people from different neighborhoods in the same town) lend different final results. Because of this non-uniform hypotheses testing, I would say that marketing could not be able to call itself a science if we were to base it off this requirement.

Along this line we also could look at theories. In science, theories should be able to be applied to the same object of study or the same variable and still be valid. I would argue that this is impossible in marketing. For malls, stores, restaurants, etc., the makeup of the surrounding population could be sampled and the retail within these stores catered to the populations itself. The same categories of data could be collected from around every store in a certain chain, and different results would come back. A Macy’s in one town could show a wealthier clientele so the store might have more designer handbags than a Macy’s in a more middle class town. In this way, the same kinds of data were collected, but different theories were implemented in each Macy’s.

               Humans are the target of marketing, and as such, they are a big reason why I would consider marketing an art. Marketing has to take into consideration the feelings and thoughts of their consumers, which fits more into an art form than into cold, hard, and factual science. I don’t believe that a science could take in and function well with human emotion and unpredictability. Art feels more flexible and intangible to me, which is what humans are (especially in the role of a consumer). Although there are some things I would say relates universally to all consumers (for example, everyone loves a deal or to get something for cheaper!), but for the most part, you cannot compare two consumers from different groups or walks of life. In Art or Science? Fifty Years of Marketing Debate, it is listed that art, in the prediction and control category, “Aims to explicate, thereby increasing understanding; less algorithmic than heuristic.” This follows with how humans are understood; there is no logarithm or program you can use to figure out all humans. Every human grouping needs to be figured out and understood in a more interactive and hands on way.