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Category: Understanding Marketing

  • The Flat Maximum And Data Science

    Steven Finlay has a useful book on Data Science, (Predictive Analytics, Data Mining and Big Data). He has lots of helpful practical advice in an easy to access form. He highlights the idea of the flat maximum. The Flat Maximum This is a general recommendation to read the book. I will also highlight a point Finlay makes.…

  • Simpson’s Paradox: Data can be very confusing

    One of the strangest things in statistics is Simpson’s paradox. The paradox happens when two sets of data each show the same result. Yet, when you combine the data into a single data set the combined table gives you a different result. Data Can Be Confusing Smith explains this using a click data example. In the data, he shows when you look at…

  • The WAITA Model — How To Decide Upon Marketing Metrics

    I recently published a short piece for WARC Best Practice on “How to set marketing metrics effectively”. The basic idea behind the piece is an explanation of how to decide upon what marketing metrics to use. This work introduces a new acronym that I’ve produced called the WAITA model. Hopefully, this is easy to remember. Why call…

  • The Red Queen And Implications For Best Practice

    It is hard to spend any time at a business school without hearing the phrase best practice. We teach students best practice. Junior professors seek hints from senior folk on best practice. Even schools regularly go through bouts of benchmarking to see if they are adopting best practice. Best practice essentially is something that gets the most…

  • The Long-Term Impact Of Advertising

    One of marketing’s greatest challenges is that its benefits are often long-term. Spend now, gain later. What is the long-term impact of advertising? Measuring The Long-Term Impact Of Advertising Long-term benefits can be very tough to measure. This is especially true when lots of other activity is happening at the same time. For an analogy…

  • A Common Marketing Language

    A major problem in marketing is that one often has only a general idea of what another marketer is speaking about. “Unfortunately, marketing still does not have that commonality of terminology” (Farris, Reibstein, and Scheller, 2016, page 46). We need a common marketing language. We Lack Shared Meanings A marketer will talk of loyalty and…

  • Predictive Analytics And Vast Search

    Eric Siegel has an excellent book on predictive analytics and vast search. As his title suggests these involve lying, buying and dying as well as a few things that don’t rhyme. Applying Analytics The center of his book is a table of applications of predictive analytics. The marketing examples (Table 2) give a number of interesting…

  • Lying With Statistics

    While statistics can help us understand the world there is plenty of opportunity to abuse them to mislead. Darrell Huff wrote a short book that was first published in 1952 on lying with statistics. Some of the text shows its age (lots of male pronouns and references to gentleman) but many of the lessons remain applicable today. Reading Huff’s…

  • Metrics that Marketers Muddle

    From 2016: With Charan Bagga I have just published an article in the Sloan Management Review (see the article here). We called the article — rather self-explanatorily — Metrics that Marketers Muddle. Annoying Things That Marketers Do This central message is a bit cranky. Indeed we could have titled the paper, “annoying things that marketers do”. We highlight:…

  • The Last Mile: Implementing Your Wonderful Strategy

    Dilip Soman’s The Last Mile is an excellent book. It reiterates fascinating points that are commonly found in behavioral (economics) books. What sets the book apart? The effective structure put to the insights. There are plenty of classifications and tables. These help us better understand the vast number of behavioral insights that the book contains. Test Your Ideas Other interesting points…

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