Marketing science deals with the fundamental principles and laws of marketing, both on the purchasing side and on the sales side.
Its aim is to develop generalizable knowledge and scientific laws that form the basis for evidence-based marketing.
Marketing science is beginning to fundamentally influence the marketing profession by demystifying many marketing myths and exposing widely held but incorrect theories.
An understanding of marketing science and its key findings is essential for effective and efficient management of marketing activities and reliable prediction of marketing results.
Marketing science uncovers the underlying patterns of customer behavior and relies on empirical generalizations.
Empirical generalizations
Empirical generalizations are recurring patterns of events that occur over a range of different conditions.
They are also known as laws of nature or empirical laws and form the building blocks of scientific theory.
History shows that scientific theories that are not based on empirical laws have often been disproved over time.
Empirical generalizations thus call into question widespread and empirically insufficiently tested theories of understanding on growth, loyalty, purchasing behaviour, positioning, social media marketing, price management, target marketing, etc.
Marketing science in practice
Bain & Company teamed up with Kantar Worldpanel to analyze purchasing behavior in the Chinese FMCG market over a three-year period:
The reports provide a good understanding of how you can apply marketing science to your day-to-day marketing practice.
The key takeaway is that marketers need to invest in three key brand assets: Memory Structures, In-store Assets and Product Portfolio.
These assets are the key drivers of brand growth.
A good starting point for marketing science is the book “How brands grow – What marketers don’t know.” by Byron Sharp. by Byron Sharp. The reports by Bain & Company and Kantar Worldpanel support the concepts presented in this book for the Chinese FMCG market.