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Intelligent Data-Driven Marketing: When Physicists Start Thinking about Marketing
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Intelligent Data-Driven Marketing: When Physicists Start Thinking about Marketing

From Mad-Man to Math-Man Marketing

Mathias Elsässer
ibidem-Verlag, 2022
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During the 25 years physicist and marketing expert Mathias Elsässer spent consulting for CMOs, he observed a shift from a creativity- and intuition-fueled marketing process to one grounded more in analysis and mathematical principles. Elsässer makes the case that data analysis enables a new approach to marketing – he terms it “Math-Men” marketing in a play on the “Mad Men” moniker – whereby marketers track and nudge individual targets throughout their purchasing journeys by closing the data loop. Elsässer offers an interesting lens on marketing as he attempts to simplify its accelerating complexity by applying insights from the world of physics.

Summary

Applying physics principles to marketing can shed light on current marketing practices and suggest new ones.

Thinking about marketing the way a physicist would can illuminate real-world marketing practices and suggest fresh approaches. Marketers can also use the same approaches physicists use to study the physical world – such as thought experiments and underlying principles – to think about marketing. Physics can apply to marketing in a more direct sense, as well: Just as physicists study subatomic particles and predict their behavior in laboratory experiments, marketers can also study and anticipate the behavior of human targets via predictive IT models.

Old-school “Mad Men” marketing meant relying on pure creativity and after-the-fact measurement of impressions or clicks. Marketing has developed away from this style to embrace data. Data-driven marketing still respects creativity but places data at the center of its approach: hard facts replace marketers’ gut feelings. Math-Men marketing goes beyond data-driven marketing, employing tools that enable marketers to follow and nudge individual customers through each step of their journeys.

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About the Author

Mathias Elsässer is a partner in the CMO Advisory practice at PwC Germany and holds a degree in physics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

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