When I was a kid growing up I clearly remember my Dad spending most nights circling job postings (or want ads for the older readers) from the newspaper. My Dad had a job, in fact he has his own business so he wasn’t circling the ads to look for a new career but rather for addresses of business to send the company catalog to.
I’ve noticed that I share a lot of my Dad’s quirks and like him I am constanly reading job postings. I do it online so that is a little different and I am not doing it for addresses to send mail to but I do like to know what people are hiring for so I can send postings to people I know looking for work etc as well keep an idea of what kind of roles are becoming popular etc.
Recently I’ve noticed a new role popping up a lot.
Marketing Scientist.
When I first say this I assumed it was a (not so) cute startup job description similar to the ones with Ninja, Guru in them but this is an actual job that people are racing to staff. I wont bore you with the details but it did get me thinking….
Is Marketing an Art or a Science?
[I wonder if people realize that when I ask a question like that in my posts I actually say it out loud as I am typing the way Carrie used to on Sex in the City -ed.]
I am asking this question because I think the idea of Marketing as an art form is getting lost in this new world of big data. My opinion (agree or disagree) is that art is the meal and science is the dessert.
There are a time and place for both but you should always start with the meal and here is why. I would never use a spreadsheet to tell me the sentiment of a market or a community but I would use a spreadsheet to figure out what programs I dreamt up while day dreaming worked best, connected and be optimized.
Quick Example: It is popular to use auto follows and automated twitter collection to gather up followers but if all you are collecting are bots and not engaging with anyone what good are you really doing?
Science will tell you tonnes of data as to how people responded to an idea but it wont tell you how people will react to an idea and tell you where the line of good taste or what people will put up with is. Art is about finesse and so should be marketing during certain stages.
As long as you are dealing with humans (and not something else) it needs to be Art than Science, and it’s pretty difficult to do just one or the other. Both have a place and both are necessary but if you were to try just one I say Art….because I am better at that.
Who’s with me ladies? (also said out loud just like Carrie would on Sex in the City)
