When should art get into bed with science?
In the lead up to next week’s MSIX event, Alex France, managing director at Vitamin X, explains how building insights from the marketing sciences into your strategies can make it harder for the C-suite to say “no”.
At a time when creative agencies are finding their credibility, motivations and recommendations challenged by an expanding circle of inquisitors and detractors, the marketing sciences provide a new and valuable foundation of fact for what we do.
So why aren’t more agencies and creatives embracing this field?
I think part of the get-out-the-garlic-and-hurl-the-holy-water reaction to the idea is because of a misunderstanding of where and when art and science should get together. Get it right and the union has the potential to produce progeny better adapted for survival.
I’m a copywriter, a creative director and the leader of a creative boutique. One of our campaigns is also a finalist in this year’s MSIX awards. Given that, I hope I’m qualified to add a creative’s perspective to this debate.
I see the insights emerging from the experiment driven work of behavioural scientists and neuroscientists and the deep insights enabled by the smart analysis of big data not as substitutes, inhibitors or straight-jackets for creative thinking, but as mind-blowingly marvellous tools that can help us zero in on better starting points for campaign planning and creative exploration.
