Marketing, unlike medicine or engineering, still lacks the rigour of a true profession, according to Greg Stuart, chief executive officer of marketing trade association MMA Global. Speaking to Financial Express at the 14th Edition of the MMA IMPACT Conference in Gurugram, Stuart criticised the industry’s overreliance on data without scientific grounding and questioned the qualifications of many in senior marketing roles.
“Marketing is not a profession. It seems to be a job poorly done… Marketers are not properly trained to be in the business. If you’re not trained, not educated in it, not certified you’re just a collection of anecdotes, of storytelling that seem like business strategy,” he said.
Adding that less than 25 per cent of leading CMOs globally have a degree in marketing, he said, “Would we accept these standards in medicine or engineering?”
Stuart further argued that click-through rates and engagement metrics, which have long been treated as indicators of success, are misleading and often disconnected from real business outcomes. “Click-through has no correlation with sales,” he said. “The assumption that better engagement equates to better results is simply not borne out by evidence.”
Instead, MMA is advocating for a science-based approach to targeting, led by its “Movable Middles” framework. The model identifies consumers who are statistically more likely to consider a brand, drawing from neuroscience research on attention and behavioural propensity.
“Marketers often assume they can persuade anyone with a good ad. But the brain filters most messages out in milliseconds,” Stuart said. “If consumers aren’t predisposed to notice or care, the campaign is wasted.” The problem is so widespread that he believes the lack of its understanding is the reason most CMOs are fired within three years, he stated.
The framework, he claimed, has shown potential to exponentially increase campaign performance by concentrating ad spend on high-propensity audiences.
Stuart’s remarks come as marketing teams are fighting a global battle for a seat at the table. “Until marketing adopts the standards of a real profession, rooted in training, validation, and scientific thinking, it will remain misunderstood at the boardroom table,” he concluded.