The canon.

This is the literature the curriculum is built on. No invented instructors, no paid testimonials. The writers who have measurably advanced the discipline.

Preface

A curriculum is only as strong as its sources. Both/And is not a new theory — it is a discipline of reading well-established findings alongside each other rather than against each other. These sources are the foundation. Every lecture in every module traces back to these works.

In an era where every language model hands you a fluent answer, the question shifts. Not whether something sounds like knowledge, but how much evidence sits underneath it. That is why every source here carries a label for its evidence level: a replicated law weighs differently from a framework or a heuristic. You learn not just what a source says, but how hard you may lean on it.

We have grouped them by theme. Many of the authors work across multiple areas — Kahneman is relevant to consumer behaviour and to research, Ritson to strategy and to effectiveness. The grouping is a peg, not a box.

§ 01

How brands grow

The empirical foundation of modern marketing thinking. Why penetration drives growth, why the loyalty myth does not hold up in practice, and why distinctiveness does more work than differentiation.

2010
How Brands Grow
Sharp, B.
The foundation. Sharp rewrote how we think about brand growth, building on Ehrenberg's empirical work. Required reading for anyone who wants to speak about marketing.
2022 (rev.)
How Brands Grow, Part 2
Romaniuk, J. & Sharp, B.
Extension into categories underrepresented in the first book — B2B, services, retail. The original laws hold.
1988
Repeat-Buying: Facts, Theory and Applications
Ehrenberg, A.S.C.
The primary source behind Sharp. Empirical work that has held up for decades on how consumers actually buy.
2018
Building Distinctive Brand Assets
Romaniuk, J.
The practical companion to distinctiveness — how to build, measure, and protect assets.

§ 02

Effectiveness

The work that demonstrates what campaigns actually do, across years and categories. The basis for the brand/performance synthesis and the 60/40 rule.

2013
The Long and the Short of It
Binet, L. & Field, P.
The most-cited study of campaign effectiveness ever produced. Separates brand effects from activation effects, establishes the 60/40 rule of thumb.
2019
Effectiveness in Context
Field, P.
Follow-up to Long and the Short. Nuanced reading of purpose, crisis, and context.
2017
The Long and the Short of It (Revisited)
Binet, L. & Field, P.
Revised edition with new data and commentary on the popular misreadings.
ongoing
IPA Databank (Effectiveness Awards)
IPA
The primary dataset behind Binet & Field. Thousands of UK campaign case studies, systematically scored for effectiveness.

§ 03

Consumer behaviour

How people actually decide, as opposed to how we assume they decide. The basis for the intuition/research synthesis.

2011
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Kahneman, D.
System 1 and System 2. Indispensable for any marketer who wants to actually understand how consumers make choices.
2019
Alchemy
Sutherland, R.
The best counterweight to excessive rationalism in marketing. Argues for creativity inside a rigorous empirical frame.
2008
Predictably Irrational
Ariely, D.
Accessible introduction to behavioural economics, rich with examples marketers can apply directly.

§ 04

Brand strategy

The other side of the Sharp debate: why meaningful associations matter, how to structure brand identity.

1991
Managing Brand Equity
Aaker, D.
The canonical work on brand dimensions: awareness, associations, perceived quality, loyalty, proprietary assets.
2012 (4th ed.)
Strategic Brand Management
Keller, K.L.
The CBBE pyramid and the most complete handbook on consumer-based brand building.
2012
The New Strategic Brand Management
Kapferer, J-N.
The brand identity prism and the European counterweight to the American tradition of Aaker and Keller.
1981
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Ries, A. & Trout, J.
Historically important, even where we have moved past it. Necessary for understanding the differentiation debate.

§ 05

Media and attention

How ads actually work — in which channels and under which conditions. The basis for the digital/traditional synthesis.

2020
The Attention Economy and How Media Works
Nelson-Field, K.
Empirical work with eye-tracking and other attention research. Cuts down the claims on both sides of the channel debate.
ongoing
Various working papers
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
The Australian institute continuing Ehrenberg's empirical work. Freely available to affiliated members.

§ 06

Practice and strategy

Voices from practice that make the academic canon accessible and applicable.

ongoing
Marketing Week columns & Mini MBA
Ritson, M.
The most influential practitioner-commentator in marketing. Required reading for anyone in the field.
1954
The Practice of Management
Drucker, P.
Where it begins: 'The purpose of a business is to create a customer.' The function of marketing and innovation in the enterprise.
1960
Marketing Myopia (Harvard Business Review)
Levitt, T.
One article that still shapes how we think about category definition. The railroads who thought they were in the railroad business.

§ 07

Ethics and society

Marketing as a societal practice — the frames within which the work is done.

various editions
Marketing Management
Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L.
The general textbook. Not always revolutionary, always thorough. Still the starting point other works build on.
2021
Net Positive
Polman, P. & Winston, A.
A serious voice in the purpose debate. Shows where purpose has substance and where it does not.

Coda

This list is not exhaustive. It is the canon the curriculum starts from. Every module adds its own primary sources, which are called out in the lectures and listed in the source sections at the bottom of every page.

Appendix

Attribution

Where this content comes from.

The lectures are written with AI — large language models — drawing on what has been published and is known about the works in this register, supplemented with public sources. The human editorial team sets the topics, the structure and the method; the substance is checked with AI review methodologies, testing claims against the source and adversarially verifying findings. How that works is described on the 'How we guard quality' page.

The lectures are independent texts: not copies, translations or summaries of the works named here. Where we quote, it is brief and attributed, under the Dutch right of quotation (article 15a of the Copyright Act). If you want the source itself, buy the work — this register doubles as a reading list.

The authors, publishers, institutes and brands named here are source and subject, not partners. There is no partnership with, endorsement by, or affiliation with the people and organisations in this register, or with the brands analysed in lectures and cases.

Are you a rights holder and do you believe material goes beyond the right of quotation, or that your work is misrepresented? Email info@theschoolofrealmarketing.com. We assess every report and correct or remove where warranted.