As a bit of variety today I will make some notes on academic life in the 18th century. The source is a book on the friendship between two of the great figures of the enlightenment, David Hume and Adam Smith. Dennis Rasmussen outlines their friendship. It is clearly remarkable that such great thinkers were such…
Catch 22 And Accounting For Employees
A theme of mine is the challenge that marketers have with financial accounting. Essentially most marketing spending is accounted for as an expense. This is even if it has the explicit intention to be an investment. This makes financial reports pretty poor for understanding the marketing of a firm. What about Human Resources (HR). We…
Entertainment Science
Thorsten Hennig-Thurau and Mark Houston published a comprehensive review of research in the entertainment industries. This book, Entertainment Science, gives more attention to movies than music, games and books, mainly for reasons to do with available research. It is still a fascinating look into all these industries and an amazingly comprehensive book. Nobody Knows Anything…
The Marketing-Accounting Interface
There is a lot of work linking marketing and finance. Unfortunately, at least from my perspective, nearly all of this has focused on linking marketing to financial markets. Such work is useful but I would like more looking at more diverse linkages between marketing and accounting. Sidhu and Robert’s article is an exception. They look…
Omni-Channel Distribution
At times marketing seems like it is only getting harder. Omni-channel distribution means more ways to communicate and sell to the customer. There is just some much to worry about. Showrooming New technology often drives new ways to communicate with and reach consumers. It also means many more opportunities. It also means many more challenges….
Confusion In Attribution
Attribution is one of the most important topics in marketing. How does one give credit for a sale to the medium that caused it? Did the TV ad generate the sales, or the online advert, or even a sales clerk in a physical store? There is much confusion in attribution. Last Touch Attribution Last touch…
Marketing And A (Very Old) New Technology
Technology changes constantly. In recent centuries, at least, people have become used to marvels appearing that they couldn’t imagine when they were growing up. People encounter new technology. How do they react? How did they react to (very old) new technology? Early Movies: A Major Innovation I read an interesting paper on reactions to early…
Predicting What Image Works For An Individual
One of the central challenges of marketing is that people differ. Marketers would love to create marketing communications that work for everyone. While some communications do pretty well nothing has universal appeal. Some images work fantastically for some people but turn others off. How can we predict who will like what? What helps us in…
The Growth Rate Of Modern Science
How has modern science progressed? This is a tough question to answer for the last few generations. It is even harder if you have aspirations to go back a lot further. Lutz Bornmann and Rudiger Mutz certainly don’t lack for ambition. They look at the growth of science since the 17th Century. The growth rate…
Comparing Canadian And US Consumers
Comparing consumers in different countries can be challenging. I must confess to having doubts about a lot of cross-cultural research, see here for lots of grouchy comments on cross cultural measurement. I worry it is what nice middle class people do when they want to stereotype while still seeing themselves as free of prejudice. Suffice…
