June 14, 2010
Marty Markowitz. Know the name?
I thought not.
Marty is the borough president of Brooklyn, one of New York City’s five municipal corporations. His domain stretches nine miles by eight. Marty’s not even a mayor, yet more people live under his authority than lived in the whole of America in 1776.*
Mathematics would argue that Marty is therefore more important than George Washington.
There’s a limit to the accuracy of math and we exceed this limit when we attempt to correlate numbers that have no correlation. Like we do every day when we try to justify our marketing decisions.
Qualitative data, quantitative data and metrics prove the superiority of Marty Markowitz over George Washington:
1. Marty’s citizens are better educated, enjoy a higher standard of living and a longer life expectancy than citizens
under George Washington.
2. Marty’s citizens are happier than George Washington’s, evidenced by the fact that they are less prone to armed insurrection.
3. Marty’s domain is networked with efficient bridges, streets and roads. George Washington’s domain was undeveloped, inefficient and underutilized.
4. Marty’s domain generates a profoundly higher Gross Domestic Product than the domain managed by George, even after adjusting for inflation. Marty is able to do this even though George governed a landmass 11,528 times larger than the landmass governed by Marty: 72 sq. miles vs. the 13 colonies – 830,000 sq. miles ceded by Britian at the conclusion of the armed insurrection instigated by Washington.
5. Divide the Gross Domestic Product of Brooklyn by the 72 square miles of Brooklyn and any reasonable person will be forced to acknowledge that Marty Markowitz is not only a better leader than George Washington, he is in fact the greatest leader the world has ever known.
Welcome to the world of Marketing Research, where tangentially relevant data is conjoined to logically support a fallacious premise chosen in advance.
TRANSLATION: “Welcome to the world of Marketing Research, where figures lie and liars figure.”
Is it possible to gather relevant, reliable data and use it to help us make profitable marketing decisions? Absolutely. In fact, Wizard Academy is gathering the most highly paid marketing research professionals on earth to teach you how to accurately measure what really matters and then use that information to take your business to the next level.
If you’re a marketing professional who believes you’re far too savvy to be fooled by data, we beg you NOT to bring a client with you to this class. Our goal is to lift your understanding to a higher level. This will happen. You will learn astounding new things. Valuable new things. Revolutionary new things. We don’t want to create a situation where you feel a need to defend your old ideas. If you bring a client, it’s going to be awkward when some of your old beliefs are disproven.
Here’s who we’re hoping to bring together:
1. John Davis conducted the research that led to a number of the most successful ad campaigns in the history of marketing. Hear the backstories of these campaigns from John, himself. Learn from this master of masters how to avoid the seductive mistakes commonly made by researchers and numbers crunchers. (We have video of John Davis in the rabbit hole. Click the Marty Markowitz photo at the top of this memo to enter. Say Hi to Alice for me.)
2. Mark Huffman is Integrated Production Manager (of advertising) at Procter & Gamble, the largest advertiser on earth*. When Mark first came to the academy nine years ago, he told me about the research culture at P...
