… art or science?
Are you debating inside your head whether marketing is an art or a science? The answer is now clear. I clipped the above logo field from a recent marketing conference flyer. Now, even though I’ve been a marketer for over 25 years, there are a whole bunch of these companies I dont recognize (do you?). But it sort of looks to me that they’re all pretty much ’scientifically-oriented.’ Without a doubt, the marketing profession is moving from art to science.
My undergraduate degree was from an Arts & Sciences school. I was a philosophy major, but graduated with a bachelor of science degree. So, at least in academia, it seems like art and science can lie down together.
How about in the business world. Can ADventium (we optimize your customer data cloud) work alongside 6GAABOD (six guys and a bag of dope)?
Are the geeks crowding out the artists in the marketing profession?
Is intuition trumped by regression analysis?
Should I have been a physicist rather than a philosopher? (what the heck was Boyle’s Law again?)
I think it’s time to embrace your inner left brain! That’s the way it’s going! At least from this flyer’s conference!
You get the three cirles to interconnect by having a CEO that comes from marketing. The discipline has to be embraced at the top of the organization.
BHAG’s are great for aligning these responsibilites appropriately. Something that forces the organization to operate differently and in a more integrated fashion. Something that moves the entire organization in the right direction. Something that is tangible and everyone feels they can see and work towards.
Now identifying the BHAG (Jim Collins reference) is challenging. And getting the CEO and key stakeholders aligned around the BHAG is also challenging. But the challenge is worth it.
Think of a marketing driven organization that took on a big challenge – what about Nike and Golf. I can imaging those early strategy discussions. They had little credibility in that market which were dominated by old established brands like Ping, Titlist, etc. They went after it boldly, aggressively, signed up a young Tiger Woods, and now a decade or so later, are one of the major brands in golf. Simplified greatly but you get the point.