“Ask a finance person what NPV is and how to calculate it and you'll likely get the same answer just about anywhere you go in the world, but if you ask a marketer to define a segment, however, you'll get a thousand different answers!”
As I read this comment in an article, I was reminded of a piece of advice someone gave me a few years back-‘ Marketing is subjective and if you have the conviction don’t bother about what others think because there are hundred ways of doing things, just that you should know what you’re doing!’
The article mentioned something which all of us would have felt at some point in time during a conversation with other marketers- you get the sense that even though you are talking about marketing, sometimes you aren't on the same page about how marketing should work, be implemented or the direction it's headed?
During my internship, I had a chat with lot of members from the marketing team, for whom marketing was still a shot in the dark. Some had worked before in firms that never made a marketing plan. But, then I checked with other people from P&G etc and found that the bigger firms were more conscious of things like ROIs and depended a lot on facts and figures. And I think that such practices come from experience. The same holds true even for marketing professionals. I believe that when most of us will start out, we won’t have much of an idea about how things work. But, over a period we’ll develop ideas, patterns, opinions of our own that will shape our definition of the marketing profession. We tend to believe everything of what we hear or read from our first influencers, the professors, and the subsequent ones like books, blogs et al but we would surely find a disconnect during our first job as the requirements and the variables change!
Another aspect of this discussion would be to see it from the eyes of people who see marketing as an art vs the ones for whom it’s a science. And I think that is where the marketing is an ‘art’ contingent wins as if it were to be an exact science, we would see the same things over and over again! The ‘artist’ within a marketer is, I think, the reason why developing a common ground for marketing is tough.
What do you guys think of this? And also what all can be done to address the issue of marketers not being on the same page!
Until last month I used to think of Marketing as more of an art rather than science. But last quarter I attended a course on B2B marketing and my entire perception about marketing got changed. We did 7-8 case studies with strong focus on numbers as well. Our Prof used both qualitative (art) and quantitative (science) to drive home the point. Everything used to look so convincing with numbers. From Grey (art) everything was black and white (science).
ReplyDeleteSo for me Marketing is an art which is incomplete without science.
Marketing is what is practiced.
ReplyDeleteI think when a marketer makes a plan, he/she never worry about the definition of marketing. If a strategy becomes successful, it is followed. A pure logic many times works, like in the case of reliance.
A marketer need to see the situation from both his, and customers' point of view to design a right strategy.
Yes, it is true that, sometimes, we believe when we hear it, but we follow only when we experience it.
@Nshul
ReplyDeleteI think you are talking about experience factor. Experienced marketers do a lot of things with their gut feeling but even behind that gut feeling there are hell lots of quantitative data (Blink explains it)......
For starters data analysis comes in handy to validate their hypothesis..
I'll share something from a chat I had with Nike India's MD, Mr. Tarun Puri during an event @ IIMB - he told me that the total amount Nike spends on Market Research is ZERO! As per him most of the guys who work there are well oriented to what the brand stands for and that's how they know whether any idea is worth taking forward or not! And in his opinion, most of the guys at HUL et al, who rely on MR do so only to cover up their a$$ in case anything goes wrong! :)
ReplyDeletei totally agree with sumit.. though this comes from a limited experience, i believe most MR work is for corroboration.. an idea for a new product, or a new advertising channel comes from identifying need gaps.. one of the product managers where I interned said, you may talk to a 100 consumers, but it ll be that one consumer who gives you that insight.. something the 99 others missed... MR overlooks this, by placing too much emphasis on validation through number.. the fact that not all MR results correspond to a product's success is testimony..
ReplyDeletenumber are important.. but there have been cases when they ve let the marketeer down, and there have been success stories when ppl have gone ahead with the idea though the numbers indicated otherwise..
back to the original point sumit made.. why do we need to address the issue of marketeers thinking differently... i kind of believe that is the beauty of it.. abt the qn of it being an art or science(i usually avoid taking a shot at this.. :) but anyways).. i guess marketing is a science in theory but an art in practice.. if you know what i mean.. and note that, though interesting, i dont exactly go by vikas's art is grey and science is black and white definition..
I think our discussion till now is tilted in favor of FMCG or retail. There gut feeling works more. But if one thinks of B2B, then definitely numbers are required. In B2B space more than gut feeling, market research comes in handy as Marketers needs to identify the exact needs of the industry. At the same time B2B is a war of providing economic benefits more than emotional benefits, hence lot's of things like RoI justifications, NPV, total cost to service customer comes in the fore ground.
ReplyDelete