Marketing is scrambled: All evidence-based theorists are invited to breakfast

Abstract

Shaw and Nowicki (2018) mistakenly suggests that the growing adoption of empirical science by marketing academics and practitioners is a return to an earlier time of treating all customers the same. Fundamental patterns discovered in buying and brand performance data accurately describe differences between buyers (e.g. in category buying rates and in personal brand loyalties), as well as predictable differences in loyalty metrics between rival brands. Theory has been proposed that fits these empirical generalisations; that rival brands largely differ and compete in terms of their mental and physical availability to category buyers (Sharp 2010). An implication is that marketers need to understand the differences between buyers in their category so that they can extend their brand's reach. This contrasts the practice of offering a single marketing mix to the whole market, and it is opposite to the practice of targeting a brand to a single homogeneous segment of the market and again offering a single marketing mix to that segment.