Marketing Science Fictions : An Ethnography of Marketing Analytics, Consumer Insight, and Data Science

This book explores data science in practice through an ethnographic study at a global marketing technology and research firm.

The book shows that, while businesses have embraced data science methods to understand markets and consumers, in practice they produce too much information. Consequently, they must be combined with creative practices that simplify and make sense of analytics. Cluley shows that in the age of data science, business is increasingly artistic. In this case, marketing science is more like marketing science fiction.

This is essential reading for understanding contemporary data-driven business and marketing as well as social and economic relations in the age of surveillance capitalism, with lessons for academics and students of marketing, technology and data science.

Robert Cluley is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Birmingham, UK.