What’s more important to marketing success – science or creativity?

Marketing is increasingly viewed as a science, where sophisticated modelling and data-driven decision-making are taking centre stage. Against this backdrop, has creativity become a less important marketing skill? It has certainly been argued that marketers come in two shapes – the scientist and the artist. My contention is that significant marketing success requires a careful balancing of both, and that neither is the superior marketing skill.

In a previous article, What to say when, 29 Oct 2008, I outlined the key steps in an effective sales funnel, and the role of marketing at each stage. So, working on the assumption that a decision to buy starts at awareness, let’s also start here in reviewing the relative roles of science and creativity on marketing success.

In my first major agency role with Mason Zimbler (www.mzl.com), our MD used a simple equation to set the scene which has stayed with me ever since:

Frequency x Impact = Awareness

The premise is that if either element is out of balance, your chances of success are limited. It is a simple concept. In regard to frequency, think ‘it takes more than one drip of water to get wet’. The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK suggest that it takes three sightings of an ad to really notice it. When we talk about impact, the most important element is relevance – did your ad, email, banner, blog, etc strike a chord with the recipient, if not they won’t notice you. (There’s also more on this in my article ‘what to say when’). So, if your piece is dull and irrelevant, your audience will not see it. Or, if your piece is stunningly relevant, but they only see it briefly, you’re unlikely to really get the message across. Taking these two elements as our bases for comparison, we’ll review the contribution of science and creativity to each.

The scientific approach to communication frequency:

The scientific approach to managing the frequency of your marketing messaging is to model an ideal contact density for each segment or, in highly sophisticated set-ups, for each individual. That is the number of touches that person, or group of people, typically require in order to respond. This enables the marketer to develop a communications plan that ensures the optimum number of touches. Large consumer organisations, like banks, also use this technique to ensure that their customers aren’t over-communicated – having observed that over-communication can trigger complaints or defections, smart technology-driven rules are applied to ensure that this risk is minimised.

The creative approach to communication frequency:

A creative approach to communications frequency is to think laterally. The best example of a really creative approach to this is the innovative use of ambient media. By putting themselves in the shoes of the audience, a creative team will dream up highly creative media placements to ensure that the message gets to people regularly. For example, the National Union of Students in the UK ran a highly successful campaign highlighting the risks of sexually transmitted infections by stickering ten pence pieces and dropping them in student union bars. This is creative thinking on many levels – firstly the location, then the assumption that a student would pick up a stray coin, and the association of the money having passed through many hands linking directly to the message itself. Another example of this is the use that Amplex deodorants made of placing their ads on the hanging hold bars on underground trains and busses – we all know how unpleasant it is to be on crowded public transport where someone nearby has a body odour issue. Creatively tapping into this gave Amplex a highly creative media placement opportunity – putting the message right in front of their audience every time they travelled through London. By mapping out a buyer’s journey and thinking about how to get your message across creatively at each point, you can vastly increase your opportunity-to-see.

The scientific approach to communication relevance:

Scientific marketing has increased the likely relevance of marketing messages exponentially in recent years. The ability to analyse and overlay various data sources to build up a rich picture of your audience, and indeed each individual in that audience, is immensely powerful. Sophisticated optimisation techniques can tell you what to say, when to say it and even which medium is most appropriate for a particular segment or person. The various data strategy awards are littered with excellent examples of this approach.

The creative approach to communication relevance:

When it comes to creativity and relevance, we need only look to viral marketing for lessons in why creativity is essential. The Cadbury Gorilla ad would never have come about by virtue of scientific messaging development. Marketers need to remember that they are talking to people, with feelings and a sense of humour. We also all know that a recommendation from a friend is vastly superior in terms of our likelihood to listen than an official piece of marketing. As such, tapping into word of mouth is essential and creativity is king in the ‘click to forward’ world. The earlier examples of creative media placement also show how creativity can increase relevance by being appropriately positioned to amplify your message.

Balancing and fostering a healthy mix of marketing skills:

Having merely scratched the surface on these subjects, it is clear to see that marketers need to balance their skills at both ends of the scientific-artistic continuum.

Ten key points to fostering and balancing both skill sets:

1. Ensure your marketing team is trained in understanding and briefing scientific and creative suppliers
2. Facilitate creative thinking – I’d suggest that marketers need about one day per quarter of facilitated creative thinking
3. Start with science to build the profile of your audience, but always get a creative team to contribute ideas about how to reach them
4. Test various creative executions against the same audience to demonstrate, in hard commercial terms, the impact of the creative element of your campaigns
5. Don’t sacrifice creativity to buy more frequency – if your message makes no impact every time you pay for space, you’re wasting money
6. Don’t let beauty distract you – something can be beautiful but irrelevant
7. Make sure you track people through the sales funnel to allow you to see how you’ve generated your best leads
8. Look for ideas everywhere – you don’t have to have ‘creative’ in your job title to have a good idea
9. Never let the numbers speak for themselves – when it comes to reviewing marketing, you do need to look at what the audience saw to really understand it
10. Read the marketing awards booklets – there’s no such thing as a new idea. Most marketing awards these days look at science and creativity, you will find great examples if you look for them.

Marketing is one of the most exciting jobs in the world – you are a scientist, a psychologist, an artist and so much more. If you recognise, hone and balance these skills you’ll achieve success for your business and great satisfaction for yourself.

By Bryony Thomas, Director at Clear Thought Consulting | www.clear-thought.co.uk