Mathematical marketing models: Some historical perspectives and future projections

When the term ‘marketing’ comes to mind, many people think of ‘pet rocks', cans of ‘New York City air’, and the cyclical movement of hemlines in women's fashions; the analysis of the demand for such items seems well removed from the reliance on mathematical models that characterizes much of the work in operations research and management science (OR/MS). Indeed, many company executives despair of putting marketing on a more scientific basis. Many see marketing processes as lacking the neat quantitative properties found in production and finance. In marketing, human factors play a large role, marketing expenditures affect demand and cost simultaneously and information to support truly systematic decisions is rarely available, Further, the effects of most marketing actions are typically delayed, nonlinear, stochastic, and difficult to measure.