Seven Reasons Why Marketing Practitioners Should Ignore Marketing Academic Research

Abstract

This article seeks to explain why marketing practitioners should continue to ignore marketing academic research. The reasons are organized into seven categories: customers, structure, causality, reductionism, precision, generalisations and replication. Evidence is drawn mostly from award winning articles. In the short term, the author advocates removing claims of usefulness from academic work, celebrating its academic value and maintaining the gap between academics and practitioners. In the long term, he anticipates the development of new approaches to academic work that might bridge the academic/practitioner gap.