Marketing remains divided on evidence versus instinct
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Fresh from his appearance alongside Mark Ritson at Cannes Lions, Byron Sharp told Lions Daily News that marketing is still divided between practitioners who embrace evidence based principles and those who continue to rely on instinct and convention.
Sharp, director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and author of the influential How Brands Grow, appeared with Ritson, founder of MiniMBA, on Monday in the Debussy Theatre to discuss what the two marketers agree upon, despite their reputation for public disagreement. “Mark and I sorted out some of the little misconceptions we have had,”
Sharp said.
“But we we broadly agreed on the post-How Brands Grow world.”
The pair’s session, Five Marketing Truths We Can Actually Agree On, sought to establish a baseline of marketing principles supported by evidence, including consistency, reach and long-term brand building. “We both agreed on the importance of consistency,” Sharp said, noting that brands often struggle to achieve it.
According to Sharp, marketers’ adoption of evidence-based approaches remains uneven.
“There’s huge heterogeneity around the world,” he said.
Since How Brands Grow was first published more than a decade ago, Sharp says his own thinking has evolved. “We learned a lot more about implementation and how to say things better,” he said. He also pointed to greater understanding of the relationship between mental and physical availability, particularly for smaller brands.
Sharp is sometimes characterised by critics as sceptical about creativity. He rejects that interpretation, arguing that evidence provides constraints within which creativity can flourish.
“All the scientific laws do is give us some guardrails. The science gives us a bit more of a down-to-earth view of the world. My namesake Lord Byron might not have approved because it’s less romantic. But it’s needed.”
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