It’s official. Science is squeezing out the art in advertising.
Well, it’s not quite official, but during a debate held by Thinkbox and The Debating Group in the House of Commons on Monday the votes were cast and the motion upheld.
The main gripe is that the new age of data science, specifically, is unable to effectively build brands in the same way traditional (read ‘broadcast’) advertising can.
Helping to win the debate, Charles Vallance, the V in VCCP (pictured), said that although greater efficiency and targeting offered by data science were good things, there was a “subversive truth” that those too infatuated with it should take note of.
“Great brands are imprecise,” he argued. “They thrive on wastage. In fact, in the art of brand building, waste is good.”
For Vallance squeezing out the art and opting for micro-media over broadcast means no one will talk about nor notice the work. “This is how you kill the art of advertising,” he said. “You don’t cut it away at the knees; you chip away until nothing is left, such is the seductive power of the big data argument.”
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Yet the entire debate was actually close to a draw, and the tech teething process the ad industry is currently going through has every potential to resolve itself and open up a new era in which data and science, although coming from opposing ends of the decision-making spectrum, can genuinely work together with art to usher in a new age of creativity.
Arguing against the motion, VivaKi’s Marco Bertozzi – who described it as a “tour de force in sticking one’s head in the sand” – said poor targeting and over use of data were simply examples of bad advertising in exactly the same way crap creative was.
Bertozzi also stressed that Facebook, Instagram, Google and Airbnb have never employed big advertising campaigns or emotional brand building to secure the growth that they’ve had.
“What they had were great experiences and services that people wanted to engage with.”
Creative and messaging are still key, Bertozzi maintains, but today’s audiences are engaging in so many different ways with a brand that the industry needs to adapt.
“It’s our firm belief that science helps us do that.”
There is also a strong example of mass market creative fused with the best data science can offer: the 4OD Coke ad that took the user log-in data to display the person’s name on the product.
It was a TV ad, but creatively personalised via data science – and the campaign results are impressive.
