"Even marketing has laws"

If you work in marketing, and especially if you work in an agency like Proximity, you'll have come across the works of the great Professor Andrew Ehrenberg (who died last week), even if you haven’t realised it.

As a scientist, he pioneered the academic study and development of Buyer Behaviour Theory and gave us many of the classic marketing models that continue to drive standard practice today.

He was one of the first academics to study Patterns of Consumer Purchases to produce simple, universal marketing laws to guide marketing strategy, even if we sometimes forget them e.g.

“price promotions do not produce loyal customers”

Respect to the Prof.... Sadly he died before developing some scientific laws governing social media (darn, nearly managed a post without mentioning it), but if you're interested in the more academic side of our industry and aren't phased by big words, a wide-ranging summary of his contribution is available here http://members.byronsharp.com/empgens/EMPGENS-12-1.pdf