The Future of Marketing Is Not a Fait Accompli

Origins of art vs. science

Is marketing an art, a science or both? This question fuels a heated, ongoing debate between brands, agencies and tech vendors, all of whom are fighting to own the future of advertising. The stakes today are higher than ever thanks to the continued rise of new channels such as mobile, video and wearables. While there are never simple answers, today’s iconic brands are winning not by choosing sides, but by combining the forces of creativity and technology in ways we all can learn from.

We sat down with Kevin Akeroyd, SVP and GM at Oracle Marketing Cloud, to talk about the “art vs. science” controversy and how brands can sift through the buzz and find the right balance. This is the first of several conversations and articles you’ll see in Oracle’s new Icons of Marketing series that will focus on how marketers can balance the art and science of marketing to create iconic brands in today’s crowded media environment.

Bryan Bartlett: Can you summarize what the “art vs. science” debate is really about, because I’m pretty sure we aren’t talking test tubes and paintbrushes, right?

Kevin Akeroyd, Oracle Marketing Cloud: Marketing has always aspired to be more than an art. “Art vs. science” is only the latest chapter in the age-old tension between creatives and geeks, the right brain and the left brain. The digital revolution has reinvigorated this conversation because ad tech, data analysis and automation tools are now part of an industry that previously hung its hat on creative instinct. The geeks had been on the sidelines for a long time. Now, at many brands, they’re the ones running the show. The creative director suddenly has to sit and listen to a 23-year-old MIT grad with 50 gigabytes of data analysis and a 100-slide PowerPoint showing that the creative director is doing everything wrong. A lot of creative types have gotten their ideas trampled upon and their feelings hurt—and they tend to have a lot of feelings.

BB: You said marketing “aspired” to be a science? So, it wasn’t actually a science? Why’s that?

KA: For the last few decades, the balance between art and science weighed heavily toward the art. In print and TV, you literally bought on “circulation” and “reach”—300 million people segmented into 12 categories was considered “targeted.” Digital marketing has fundamentally shifted this, and it’s only the beginning of a profound transformation.

BB: Ok, so what does it look like today?

KA: Almost overnight, the problem went from not enough science to too much science thanks to Web, social, video, display, search, mobile, etc. We went from two kinds of data—transactional and profile data—to dozens of kinds of data, including contextual, behavioral, predictive, digital, location and, heaven help us, big data. In the beginning, it was a dream come true for many marketers. But somewhere along the way it started to become “data instead of creative,” and the nightmare for the creatives began. They knew the creative value of their work was intangible, but it started to seem like no one gave a damn anymore.

BB: Ok, so now marketing is a science. Does that mean we can go home?

KA: Not quite. The problem of gathering data might be solved, but in all of the excitement over shiny new tech toys and maps of the “customer journey,” the pendulum swung a little too far in the direction of science. So, the geeks got their revenge, but things spun out of control. Marketing leaders found themselves racing to keep up, giving birth to these beautiful charts. As the science frenzy reached its peak—there are over 2,000 ad tech companies in the market today—brands realized something was missing, that marketing was more than just managing ten different dashboards. After all, you can A/B test forever and target your heart out, but you still need a capable, inspired creative to work with. Without that, marketing has no soul. Creative has always been the soul and data science has always been the brain. When the soul and the brain start working together, real magic—not to mention some amazing financial results—can happen.

BB: So what’s the right balance between the “art” and the “science” of marketing?

KA: That is one of the simplest questions to ask, and one of the most important ones. The art has always been there, and the science is here in spades and isn’t going away—only a fool would want it to go away. Marketers and advertisers need to focus on the data and the analytics to optimize the creative, and get the right versions of it to the right customers at the right time.

BB: Any advice for how brands can do that?

KA: Use what’s out there. The technology vendor community, Oracle included, has invested billions of dollars putting together platforms that take most of the heavy lifting out of finding this balance. Finally, data, analytics, business rules, campaign management, personalization, omni-channel media delivery are together in one place, integrated into the content tools and processes. The agencies are getting up to speed, and the CMOs need to change their organizations to do the same. This will allow creative minds time to experiment and figure out how to connect with individuals on lots of different platforms. Creatives aren’t stupid. They’re happy to use the latest tech, so long as it doesn’t come with a six-month learning curve, create integration nightmares or raise questions about their value. This is really the sweet spot that brands crave—they want enough science to leverage innovation as it happens, but not at the expense of the art.

BB: Any examples of brands that have found the sweet spot?

KA: Yes. Lexus, Hertz and The Economist will be profiled in upcoming issues of Adweek as part of our Icons of Marketing series. These are just a few of the hundreds of modern marketing leaders we’ve partnered with who really get this, are invested in it and are paving the way with us. The campaigns are often daring, but they’re not reckless. They’re based on data, and they’re adjusted in real time as that data comes in. It’s been a crazy decade of organizational restructuring and ad-tech reeducation. But for those who have survived the madness, it’s an amazing time to be a marketer.

Check out the entire Icons of Marketing series