Generally a controversy arises as to whether marketing management is a science or an art.
This controversy has created a good deal of confusion about the nature of marketing management.
Marketing Management—an Art:
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The essential features of an art are personal skill, practical knowledge, result-oriented approach, regular practice and creativity. In this sense, marketing is an art one has to use his skill and knowledge in solving many complicated problems to achieve the enterprise objectives.
Marketing management is one of the most creative arts as it is concerned with getting work done through others by motivating them to work and co-ordinate their activities.
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Marketing Management—A Science:
Science has three basic features—(i) it is a systematised body of knowledge that uses scientific methods for observation, (ii) the principles are evolved on the basis of continued observation, and (iii) the principles are exact and have universal applicability without any limitation. Marketing management is viewed as a science as it is an organised body of knowledge built up by management practitioners, thinkers and philosophers over a period of years. It has certain principles and rules developed after continued observation.
However, marketing is not exact or accurate science. The principles of marketing management may not have universal applicability. The main reason for the inexactness of science of marketing management is that it deals with human beings whose behaviour cannot be predicted. Thus, we can say that marketing management is a ‘soft science’ or behavioural science’.
Marketing Management—A Science as well as an Art:
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We have seen above that marketing management has elements of both art and science. It may not be proper to term them as pure science or pure art. In fact, it is a science as well as an art because science and art are both complimentary to each other. As Cossa has said,
“science requires, art, art requires science, each being complimentary to each other.”
It may be concluded that there is no hard and fast line between science and art of marketing management. The former (science) will have to solve problems and establish principles which might be applied with benefit to the later (art).