Marketing has an accountability problem. This is widely accepted even by marketers. The Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) is working on this. Trust Me, I’m A Marketer Marketers argue that their actions are vital to their organization’s success but often the proof offered ends up being: “trust me, we need to do this”. It isn’t hard to see why…
Value-Based Marketing
In 2000 Peter Doyle started the abstract of his paper, Value-Based Marketing with the sentence. “Marketing has not had the impact on the boardroom that its importance justifies” (Doyle, 2000, page 299.) Doyle made a fair point. Marketing’s Lack Of Influence It is very common for academic marketers to bemoan marketing’s lack of influence. Many firms…
Canada’s Top Brands
Like a doughnut the survey in Canadian Business magazine that placed Tim Hortons as Canada’s Top Brand is enjoyable. That said, it is not necessarily the most nutritious thing in the world. What do we know about Canada’s Top Brands In 2014? Loving Tim Hortons We find out that Canadian’s love Tim Hortons’ coffee and…
Survey Methodology And The Future Of West Ham United
West Ham United, the English football (soccer) club I support, hasn’t seen much recent success. (Written in 2014, as I revise this in 2021 things are better). The fans, in a fine example of optimism bias, expect the team to win while playing with a certain élan. In 2011, after a disastrous few years, Sam Allardyce was…
Measuring Marketing In The Age Of Absolute Value
Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen suggest that with greater access to information consumers can (and do) make much better purchasing decisions. They are, in effect, arguing that much academic work in marketing is too artificial when it shows decision-making problems. In the real-world consumers can solve problems that confound students in the laboratory. Too much choice can paralyze but this…
Making Your Future Self Happy
I’m traveling to my ten-year MBA reunion [written in 2014]. As such, it seems an appropriate time to consider how we predict the future. Ten years ago I would never have predicted that I’d be a marketing professor living in Canada [now in US]. Interestingly, I wonder whether I would even have wanted to become…
Bidding For Candy
My Easter post on candy bars leaves me pondering where academia would be without chocolate. Many experiments over the years have entailed giving experimental subjects, mostly students, candy. You give them this either as compensation or as part of the experiment. Then you often see them bidding for candy. Why Candy? Interestingly candy may work…
Deep Rationality
Rationality is a topic which you can devote years of study to without making much progress. This is because one problem is that everyone means different things by rationality. It is not just marketers disagreeing with economists, who are disagreeing with psychologists. There are also major cleavages within disciplines. One perspective from evolutionary psychologists is…
People, Buses, And Another Complaint About Jim Collins
Jim Collin’s books are well written but often readers, and probably Collins himself, may think Collins’ books contain “scientifically proven” advice. At best, Collin’s work should only suggest approaches. What is the complaint about Jim Collins? A Complaint About Jim Collins Many scholars criticize Collins’ methodology. I sympathize with many of the critics. Here, however,…
What Makes Your Thinking Different?
Tim Harford’s books are always engaging even as he covers topics that many don’t find the most stimulating. His latest book gives a lively introduction to macroeconomics. He notes how unique thinking can be powerful. So what makes your thinking different? The Phillips’ Curve In this Harford is obviously enjoying himself when he describes the…
