Marketing Science Fictions
An Ethnography of Marketing Analytics, Consumer Insight, and Data Science
By Robert Cluley
Published
19 Dec 2024Page count
240 pagesISBN
978-1529233360Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
19 Dec 2024Page count
240 pagesISBN
978-1529233384Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
19 Dec 2024Page count
240 pagesISBN
978-1529233384Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
Marketing Science Fictions
This book explores data science in practice through an ethnographic study at a global marketing technology and research firm.
The book shows that, while businesses have embraced data science methods to understand markets and consumers, in practice they produce too much information. Consequently, they must be combined with creative practices that simplify and make sense of analytics. Cluley shows that in the age of data science, business is increasingly artistic. In this case, marketing science is more like marketing science fiction.
This is essential reading for understanding contemporary data-driven business and marketing as well as social and economic relations in the age of surveillance capitalism, with lessons for academics and students of marketing, technology and data science.
“Cluley opens up the mysterious black box of marketing work in ways that are insightful, engaging and accessible. This book is essential reading for any marketing student and practitioner hoping to understand what marketing work really is.” Detlev Zwick, York University, Canada
Robert Cluley is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Birmingham, UK.
1. Introduction
2. The Ethnographic Classics
3. Marketing in the Wild
4. Studying Marketing Ethnographically
5. Marketing Work
6. Clients Get Hung Up on a Number
7. Scientism in Action
8. Marketing Outsight
9. Artistic Qualification
10. The Art of Data
11. Marketing Science Fiction
