Photograph © Jack Wilgus

I’ve read several articles and blogs recently that talk about the trend towards quantitative marketing.

A few weeks ago, for example, New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford noted:

The shift to data-based campaigns is forcing marketers to learn new skills and drawing a new breed of worker to Madison Avenue. While most data executives now in the field came from media backgrounds, they are recruiting Wall Street math geniuses because the job requires hourly adjustments in strategy based on numbers.

This week, in a Brandweek column called “The Evolving CMO,” Todd Wasserman observed:

While crunching numbers was always part of the job, new sources of data—from emerging media like interactive TV, mobile and social media—along with a need to show ROI have CMOs awash in data and newer, often younger marketers have adapted. Sometimes derided as “spreadsheet jockeys” they are a break in tradition from the “creative savants” of old who dreamed up big ideas and multimillion-dollar TV campaigns.

Given that we started ClearSaleing in 2006 to create a Wall Street-like tool for enterprise marketers, it probably won’t surprise anyone that I agree in full, or at least in significant part, with what they’re saying.

I know I’m not exactly climbing out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure that we’re in the early stages of a rapid transition of marketing into a mostly left-brain activity. And I want to go on record with a few can’t-miss predictions so I can eventually (and accurately) use the phrase “profoundly visionary” in my future bio.

Besides, I need to get my batting average up after being slightly off on my prediction that GM would return to profitability in 2009.

So here are 4 predictions that I think are safe and easy:

1. The numbers trend will accelerate – and won’t ever reverse. As enterprises demand more financial accountability out of the marketing department, marketing in general, and online marketing in particular, will become more numbers-driven. ClearSaleing and other marketing technology companies will respond with new, sophisticated tools and methods. Marketing conferences everywhere will become much more boring.
2. Marketers will start to speak with a financial accent. As marketing becomes more quantitative, marketers and agency executives will begin to adopt the language of finance. They’ll say things like “derivatives,” “asset class,” and “portfolio optimization” without feeling the least bit self-conscious.
3. Smart quants will develop derivative instruments to help manage risk. I don’t know what they’ll ultimately look like, but as marketers try to manage risk, derivative instruments (such as futures) will be introduced into the marketing world. Skepticism and incomprehension will quickly fade once marketers become fascinated with the cool hand signals on the trading floor.
4. Quantitative marketing will require different skill sets. The trend towards quantitative marketing will result in one less career path for English majors. Quants from Wall Street and aerospace engineers from NASA will invade marketing departments and ad agencies. Despite the initial embarrassment over their marketing titles, they’ll eventually dominate the marketing world and often refer to their non-quantitative colleagues as “standard deviations.”

Check back in about a year or two to see how I did with these. Or just read my bio in a few weeks.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under All Blogs, Quantitative Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.