2: Critical Thinking for Marketers, Volume II: Learn How to Think, Not What to Think

This second volume of Critical Thinking for Marketers expands your background knowledge of other areas of critical thinking that are making major contributions to both marketing as a social science and marketing as an applied science. Section I, Think Better, provides introductory discussions of - marketing as a science; the difference between correlation and causation; the meaning of what a "concept" is and why it is critical for marketers to develop good concept definitions (e.g., "What is customer satisfaction?"); why the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume is relevant to marketers today; and the impact that behavioral economics is having on how marketers do their job. Section II, Cognitive Biases and Their Importance, talks about recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and neuroscience that have relevance to marketers. You'll learn that marketers need to be aware of their own cognitive biases and irrational thinking processes, which often lead to making bad decisions, and that the retail and business customers we market to are not as rational as we may think and hope they are. Finally, Section III, Conclusions, draws on both Volumes I and II to summarize the book's primary messages with helpful hints on applying your new tools and making better marketing decisions.

David Dwight has over 25 years of business experience. He has worked for a wide variety of companies, ranging in size from private equity-backed entrepreneurial ventures to Fortune 100 manufacturers.

Terry Grapentine is the author of Applying Scientific Reasoning to the Field of Marketing: Make Better Decisions (2012, Business Expert Press). At various times, he taught marketing, marketing research, and statistics courses at the university level.

David Soorholtz founded MarketSense, an agriculture marketing research and marketing consulting company in 1998. In 2015, David sold MarketSense to the Kleffmann Group, one of the world's largest agricultural marketing research companies. He is currently managing director for Kleffmann North America, Inc., d/b/a KG MarketSense.