is marketing a science or an art?

Answer 1

Both. It's the science of convincing people that what ever it is that is being marketed is worth their paying for it, and there is an art to using presuasion and words and images to "paint the picture" of what your targeted audience would want to see, and what you want them to see and remember. You have to caputre their attention, keep it, convince them, and then take their money. Brilliant, scientific and artistic. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

As Hot Coco said, it's both. To build on what she said, there are billions of dollars spent on market research to determine who your target audience is and how to approach that audience creatively. In general, those two pieces go hand in hand. You do the research, design the marketing campaign, go out and test it (focus groups and/or test markets and other devices), correct what doesn't work and go to market. Some of the most fabulous campaigns in the world failed because they were so clever the brand was forgotten. A great example of this is the Alka Seltzer ad from decades ago. Everybody went around saying "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." Nobody could remember what the product being advertised was in those tv commercials. Another great failure was the campaign in Mexico for a new car, I think it was the Chevy NOVA. Well, NOVA in Spanish did not communicate what NOVA in English does. It caused a huge backlash in Mexico. There again, market research could have prevented that problem if they had just looked up the translation of the name of the product!