Marketing Can't be Wrong—Only Disproven

Here's a marketing truth that makes a lot of people uncomfortable: Nobody knows for sure what will work.

Sure, people will tell you there are "best practices" or "industry truths," but for every "truth" you show me, I can find you a campaign that did the exact opposite and succeeded. (Often because it did the exact opposite.)

These "counterintuitive" marketing strategies are often hailed as obvious wins in retrospect. Hindsight is 20/20, and marketing experts love to point to an already successful campaign and pull apart all the reasons why it worked.

The Tagline That Could Have Flopped

Take Rudy's BBQ. They've got the amazing tagline "The Worst BBQ in Texas." It's great. Marketers love to use it as an example of how self-deprecation, humor, and the human need to try something ourselves can work together.

And they're not wrong. All those factors (and more) contributed to the continuing success of that tagline.

But here's the thing: no one knew if that tagline would work.

Seriously. Not the marketing experts talking about it now, not the people who wrote it in the first place, no one.

It could have flopped spectacularly. And if it had? It wouldn't have been a "bad idea"—it would have been a reasonable test that just got disproven.

Turns out Marketing is Actually a Science

Good marketers don't just follow formulas—they act like scientists.

(Finally, something to tell my mom when she asks what I actually do for a living.)

We gather data, develop the best hypothesis possible, and then deploy, stand back, and learn. The learning is the crucial part.

There's no such thing as "bad data." Every bit of knowledge you collect broadens what you know about your audience, your industry, the current climate.

You're figuring out what works for them, now, in these specific conditions. That doesn't guarantee you can replicate results when parameters change (and they always do), but it gives you real data about what your actual audience responds to—not what some theoretical audience did for some other brand in a completely different situation.

The Assignment that Broke My Brain

I was teaching a marketing course earlier this year when this really hit home. (The teaching is also why this blog has been so quiet, but I digress.) Students had to create a Google Ads campaign, but the assignment didn't require them to explain their strategy. The assumption was they'd follow "best practices."

And sure, I wanted to see that they understood proper ad structure. But how do you assess a marketing campaign that never actually runs? Some students put together plans that seemed totally crazy...

...but what if those campaigns had worked?

They might have! In some cases, I'd have been shocked, but my surprise isn't exactly a fair grading rubric.

So I redesigned the next assignment. I asked them to tell me their hypothesis. What theory were they testing? What message did they think would resonate, and why?

The strategy I could assess and mark—regardless of what the eventual outcome might have been. Because in marketing, the thinking matters more than my ability to predict the future.

Marketing Can't Be "Wrong"

Marketing can't be wrong. It can only be disproven.

You create the best hypothesis you can with the information available to you. You test it. If it doesn't work, that doesn't mean your original thinking was flawed—it means you now have new data to work with.

When you've been around a while, you do get better at developing stronger hypotheses. You understand your ingredients and testing environment better, but you're still working with the best guess you can make given current data.

Rudy's infamous "The Worst BBQ in Texas" tagline could have flopped spectacularly. But that wouldn't have made it a bad idea. All the same factors we point to now would still have been valid—there would just have been some other additional data that changed the outcome.

Not wrong—just disproven.

No One Can Predict the Future

Even in marketing, no one can predict the future. The best you can do is get good at making a strong hypothesis.

It's kind of like dieting. If there was a surefire formula that worked every time, everyone would already be doing it.

There isn't.

So test away, marketing scientists.

Don't fall into the trap of claiming you "know" what will work. Accept the unknown, generate your best hypothesis, and go gather some data.

Try something different. Develop the strongest theory you can based on what you actually know about your audience, and see what happens.

We're all just testing hypotheses here. And just like in science, the breakthroughs only happen when you're brave enough to try.