[Summary] Applying Scientific Reasoning to Marketing by Terry Grapentine — 3 Takeaways, 2 Quotes, 1 Question.

Can marketers become scientists?

I love reading… but I always forget everything.

I don’t know if anyone else can relate to this, but after reading a book (especially non-fiction), I barely remember anything within a few weeks — at best, maybe one or two quotes.

So, in an effort to improve my memory (and hopefully my writing skills), I’m launching a mini-project: 3-2-1 Book Summaries! 3 Takeaways. 2 Quotes. 1 Question. I’ll be going through books that I’ve read and summarizing them in a format that I hope can be valuable for you, especially if you’re thinking about grabbing your own copy.

Two things:

1. A few takeaways and quotes definitely don’t do justice to the depth of these amazing books. I’m hoping though that these summaries can provide you with an easy-to-digest snippet that’s different from your typical book review.
2. I’m a marketer, so a lot of my books will unfortunately (or fortunately?) be tailored towards marketing and human behaviour. I’ll try to keep them relevant though!

Okay! Without further ado, let’s start with the first book.

Marketing is not just about being creative. Given that science is so successful, why shouldn’t marketers borrow thinking and reasoning skills from science and apply them to marketing?

Applying Scientific Reasoning to the Field of Marketing examines concepts from the field of epistemology (the study of how knowledge is created) and the philosophy of science (the study of what it means for a science to be called a science) and applies them in a marketing context. Terry Grapentine’s focus is not so much on telling marketers “what” to think, but more so on “how” to think.

3 Takeaways

#1: Marketers are pretty much like scientists.

Much of a marketer’s job involves investigating phenomena in the world (e.g. “Why are sales down in this region?”) and proposing explanations (e.g. “We lowered ad spend in that region”) which helps predict and influence these phenomena in the future (e.g. “Therefore we need to advertise more heavily in that region next quarter”).

As marketers, we need to do a better job of adapting this “scientific method of creating knowledge”, which the author describes as the “formal process of proposing hypotheses as explanations for phenomena, and designing experimental studies to test these hypotheses so that predictions can be derived from them.”

#2: Developing strong arguments is a formal process.

A key word in the above definition is the word “formal” — this involves taking the time to outline specific premises (e.g. “Premise #1: Most of our target audience is active on LinkedIn”; “Premise #2: LinkedIn advertising allows us to specifically target our key audience”; “Premise #3: More traditional media do not offer the same level of precision to identify our target audience”). The goal is that — if the above premises were true — they would logically lead to a defined conclusion (e.g. “We should start advertising on LinkedIn”).

By formalizing the process of defining a conclusion and outlining how it’s supported by relevant and plausible premises, marketers can ultimately develop stronger and more coherent arguments.

#3: Marketers are prone to logical fallacies.

Examples of these fallacies include appealing to popularity (e.g. “We should advertise on TikTok because everyone else is doing it”), appealing to tradition (e.g. “We use this creative because we’ve always done it that way”), creating a false dilemma (e.g. “Our only options are Facebook Ads or Google Ads”), or subjectivist fallacy (treating the conclusion as subjective despite the premises factually and logically supporting the conclusion, e.g. “That’s just their opinion”).

I know I’ve personally committed more than a few of these in my experience, and I think we can all do a better job of recognizing these in our day-to-day conversations.

2 Quotes

#1:

“Theory without data is empty, data without theory is blind”.

#2:

“We cannot expect that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. Always question and challenge the premises underlying your business model and marketing strategy”.

1 Question

As a marketer, what are some ways that I can think and act more like a scientist?

And that’s it! Hope you found it useful — more to come within the next few weeks!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The link above that drives you to the book’s Amazon page is an affiliate link — meaning that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and decide to purchase.