Marketing Science and Art

This morning I read a quick post from Seth Godin's blog on whether marketing is a science or art (hint: its both).

This got me to thinking: no question that with my strategic planning background I fall into the science category in most cases, and I totally agree with Seth that the main problem for us science-types is that humans are the wild card in the "system". The artist side of marketing is much more likely to better understand the human wild-ness and react to that creatively and passionately that resonates with actual humans. However, as a science-type marketer, I come back to the fact that much of business can be measured (sales, profit, return on investment, shareholder value, debt-to-equity, share price, etc.). When it comes to marketing, many clients at the end of the day are going to be forced to tie their marketing to these measurable metrics.

So, how do you balance the two? How do you look at art and creative and make it "fit" into these business metrics? Fact is, often you can't, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Outstanding art will often fall flat because it doesn't generate sales. Terrible creative will often excel because it does generate sales.

As Seth says at the end of his blog, "Figure out what sort of marketing you're going to do today and go do that" and I couldn't agree more. The challenge for us as marketers is to not think of these two sides of marketing as adversarial. I believe the two complement each other very well. When they work together to understand the relationship between wild card humans and bottom line business metrics, advertising works well for clients.

Photo credit: Gaetan Lee, 2007, via flickr.com

Your morning cup-o-joe.

I'm a coffee snob.  I admit it.  I roast my own coffee, ran my own coffee roasting company for a while, and I've been in tasting coffee in "cupping" sessions many times before.  So, when I read that Eight O'Clock coffee won top honors from Consumer Reports I was skeptical.

But the marketer in me did wonder: is it so hard to believe that Eight O'Clock coffee could actually produce high quality coffee, just because of its chosen distribution channel? 

Well, its certainly hard to believe, but not impossible, I suppose. 

As a market researcher, I question the testing process that CR uses. I suspect that either one of two things are going on here:
1) CR is testing as the masses drink it - buy it off the shelf regardless of how old it is and dump it in a coffee maker that was cleaned sometime last summer

2) It's seems like slightly flawed testing to run a comparison between high-end brands, like Caribou, Kickapoo, and Peet's, with Eight O'Clock coffee if you are going to abuse the coffees in the same way, since they are not meant to be used in the same way (sort of like testing the comfort of slippers vs. high heels because they both go on your feet).

Let me explain what I mean by "abuse"...  there are two things that have a huge impact on the flavor of coffee once it hits the store shelves: age (when was it roasted? when was it ground?) and how clean is the coffee maker that you make it in.  (Ok, you other coffee snobs know the roast, the beans chosen, the packaging, the quality of the water, the grind fineness, and the temperature of the water also can have a huge impact on the flavor, but these are for a later discussion.) 

Basically, what we've got here is a test of convenience coffee.  By that I mean coffee that is available easily in the grocery store, has a much longer "good before" date, and is pre-ground, if you believe the picture.  Testing these convenience coffees the way that consumers use them, is completely valid and makes perfect sense from a marketers standpoint.  But from a coffee professional perspective this "test" makes me cringe.  This likely is not a cup of coffee you could buy at a specialty coffee shop, and is not a cup of coffee you would tolerate from a specialty coffee shop.  Though this does beg the question, has Columbia so gentrified their coffee production, that farms are not able to produce the varieties that they once were? Another discussion for another post.

If you are just looking for a basic coffee flavor, then true, almost any Columbian coffee that you buy will fill the bill to varying degrees.  But, you are seeking a truly extraordinary Columbian coffee that has a much more complex taste, then you will probably have to pony up the cash for a fresher coffee, a grinder (which the article does acknowledge at the end), and you will have to actually clean your coffee maker once in a while (gasp!). 

Bottom line, I think this test does tell you which coffee makes a fine coffee for your hurried morning, but I don't believe this test tells you which coffee is better for a more complex and enjoyable coffee experience.

ThisWay

I've neglected to mention my new favorite blog for funtime reading (not that it's a new blog, I'm just new to the party). Bicycle Design is essentially exactly what it sounds like - a blog about Bicycle Design. It is written by James T, "an industrial designer who has a slight (but I think healthy) obsession with bicycling and cycling." It's entertaining in part because of his clear passion for the bicycle, but also because there are so many others that share that passion, but not necessarily his opinions about bicycles and their design.

Anyway, he held a design competition recently for a "commuter bicycle for the masses" that concluded in late January crowning the "ThisWay" bike design by Torkel Dohmer the winner.

©Bicycle Design

It was considered controversial by several who left comments in the blog because they felt that not only will the roof make it heavy, expensive, and difficult to use with public transit, but also because of the recumbant (sitting back, not on) positioning. However, there were many who liked it and felt it was more likely to draw interest from non-cyclists for its more car-like shape, style, seating, and roof. But as with all things, it's often difficult to project yourself into someone else's shoes.

As James said:

"Many of the people who work in the bike industry are in those positions because they are really passionate about bicycles. They absolutely love cycling, and that is great, but it also means that sometimes they have a hard time looking at the product line that they offer from the point of view of an average person. "

My personal thoughts are that it's a beautiful design and would be fun to own, but I don't see it as driving masses of people to give up their cars for it (not as I sit here in a 14 degree, windy, February in Detroit, anyway). However, I do think there's a niche for it. And that's where our marketing thoughts for today come in...

As someone who has dealt with automobile manufacturer vehicle teams in the past, I've seen a wide variety of vehicle designs, good and bad (um, some very bad), that get marketed and sold. How? It almost always comes down to finding the niche. A lot of the complaints about the design from the comments seemed to be focused on the bike not being "right" for all commuters (which may be justified since that was goal of the original competition). As James said, the bike industry needs to think about "reaching the people who currently have no interest in the products that they already make." Big manufacturers have got this (literally) down to a science. Identify a niche, develop a complex profile of that niche, and develop products that fit that niche or answer issues raised by the research.

In this case (and this is just off the top of my head without any real research into the niche at all and no mechanical background at all), I could see ThisWay being a great start to the development of a design for new parents. Some tweaking and I could see a child's car seat fitting in front of mom or dad, facing them. Add the storage on the back, and you have a fun little run-about for neighborhood errands with very easy access to babies (which parent's need), with the added security of a child's seat.

Ok, so that's not really the point of James original competition (and sure the width of the child seat may offer some additional design problems) but the point is to think about the niche first, then develop a bike to fit it. There is an outstanding video of Trek Bikes development of the Lime bike using this process: http://www.solidworksmedia.com/Trek/screencast/trek-screencast.html (click on the "Non-expert" video for an example of how to develop a bike to fit a niche).