Marketing teams tend to be biased towards psychology grads. Right from the JD to the interview questions, to the instructions finally given at work, there is an emphasis on understanding consumer “psychology.”

It probably made sense until now, when emotional resonance was more or less enough to make people act. But I think modern consumers are getting smarter and can see through the tricks. Emotional resonance might still get you engagement and, once in a while, an impulse purchase, but it definitely isn’t a sustainable strategy to rely on.

The next alpha in marketing or storytelling will come not just from the understanding of why the consumer buys a product, but from systems-level thinking of the entire ecosystem around that decision. And no one understands this ecosystem better than the economist.

The economist understands how scarcity, opportunity cost, and market pressure dictate human behavior. Most importantly, they understand incentives. If they can only combine this with storytelling, well…

A hypothesis to test, but I think economist-turned-marketers/growth people will be more valuable in startups. Behavioral economists will be an interesting set of people to work with…

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