Rather than justifying the role of marketing, and particularly psychology in business success myself, here’s a great video of Rory Sutherland at a Google Zeitgeist event last year.
In an era of data analysis and ‘social media scientists’, it helps to remind me why an absolute reliance on data and numbers makes me feel rather uneasy. There’s a belief that somewhere in the numbers is the one ultimate answer that will guarantee business success.
It also underlines the mistake that many companies make in seeing marketing and the customer experience as a low value add-on to the intrinsic value of the product or service they are selling – and how they can compound that mistake by always sacrificing those areas first when looking to cut costs.
It’s why I’d rather think of myself as an aspiring digital marketing psychologist than a scientist.