Depending on who you ask, marketing is either an art or a science. I believe that marketing is much more of an art because of the fact that consumers act irrationally. For instance, last year the national savings rate was negative which means people are spending money they don’t have, even at ridiculous interest rates. While there are a select few who make decisions based on logical algorithms, a majority of people base buying decisions on emotion. Scientists have shown that the brain is wired to make decisions based on emotion rather than logic. And currently there is no artificial intelligence capable of comprehending the emotions of adolescent teenagers. Wouldn’t you rather have a creative strategist than an army of statistical masterminds to develop an effective strategy to reach and influence a complex human being?
However, it is also imperative that marketing efforts are quantified in order to measure the effectiveness of a given strategy. So the debate rages on. What do you think?