Why we need to stop making stuff up and start awarding science and creativity in marketing
Adam Ferrier reflects on why we need another awards show and how the newly launched MSiX Awards will champion better marketing.
I didn’t do very well at science at school, and to be honest I failed statistics the first time at university. On a really bad day I’ll even admit that science doesn’t interest me nearly as much as pure free form creativity. However, I’m still bamboozled by how unscientific our industry is and how much stuff we just ‘make up’. Further, with the amount of money at play this seems somewhat irresponsible.
I can still remember joining a market research agency after some years practicing as a psychologist. I couldn’t believe how ‘made up’ it all was, and how little science was embraced in both qualitative and quantitative agencies. I then went to a creative agency and they made the research agency look like the Smithsonian by comparison. However, it was (admittedly 10 years ago) seeing how media plans were created that really blew me away. They were fictitious garbled nonsense with little (no) scientific underpinnings as to how agencies were recommending clients spend millions of their dollars.
Now to some extent things have changed. I recently took a brief from a client and the entire brief was framed in the marketing science principles developed by the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. It was refreshing and challenging, and I believe a canary in the coalmine for where our industry is heading.
Nice idea so best wishes. But I’ve had a very unscientific experience of the Ehrenberg Bass system where the user of would pull out cards from a box and get you to choose 3 and order them – worse, this method supposedly led to things called Fascinators, that epitomised the brand in action and led to one of 149 (or so) different personalities.. It was more ad hoc than scientific IMHO
Why is the industry so engrossed in congratulating itself about how clever it is?
What other industry has this many awards for just for doing the job their client is paying them to do?….sell stuff? Is the industry just full of insecure egomaniacs that it has to continually pat itself on the back to feel like it is doing something worthwhile?
We just sell stuff. That’s all we do. Park the egos and just get on with it!
Ever heard of it?
When you first come in contact with an idea and you are surprised by it, seduced by it, want to spend time with it?
This comes from originality.
Reducing this to a repeatable science is what in my opinion too many marketers are already doing. Bombarding them into submission.
If everyone does it, then it will work even less.
Science is falsifiable and therefore requires an operational definition and theory.
I think we all know that true Art and creative is unable to be defined this way. Some things certainly are and should be measured, however the scientific principles fall short in the fuzzy liquidity of human processes.
Adam, as a Psychologist you would appreciate the thoughts from Neuroscientists on defining consciousness, human meaning and storytelling. This may never be defined by science and is the place where much Art and Creativity is formed.
Adam,
Admire your efforts for greater understanding of the role of science in marcoms. You’re making a valuable contribution to a much needed debate.
But why the need for an award? You’ve now turned ‘it’ into a competition and by doing so your efforts are in danger of being devalued by serious marketers. They don’t care about awards they care about learning.
No wonder you failed statistics.. Science and Marketing do not mix because all of these ‘analytics’ that marketers love to talk about requires that you meet statistical assumptions. I wonder how many of these data analytics companies does proper screening of their data…..
Borlat – don’t get me started.
The number of decisions I’ve seen being made because of statistically insignificant research is astounding.
As much as I love Maths and Stats, knowing it has simply made me jaded, particularly when you see so many “successful” people incorrectly using “stats’ when they have NFI what they are talking about.
Adam
Good to see you’re still active and agitating in this important space. If this initiative helps to move the discussion on from the science itself (backward looking) to its application (forward looking) and impact in a confusing and competitive world, then it’s helpful.
@carl perfectly said.
Nice article Adam.
Of course there is a counter point of view and that is for certain agencies and people to stop claiming what they do is science and get back to developing genuinely creative ideas that help business be more effective and influential.
That comment is not a dig at you, but the countless agencies and people I meet who seem to believe that by reading a copy of New Scientist, suddenly qualifies them to act like they’re Einstein 2.0.
Adam, you state in your post that creative and science compliment each other – and are not mutually exclusive.
Your post does not say why another reward like this is needed – except to stop making stuff up. What stuff? Can you define that? You said you like free creativity but think the industry needs to embrace science.
I’m not clear on what the problem is that the rewards and conversation are addressing.
I will make a comment to try and advance this conversation as Carl suggested;
Here is a definition from Dictionary online
“the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc. originality, progressiveness, or imagination”
How would you measure this?
Bringing science into online media and advertising means you can measure the variables within a marketing campaign and it’s performance, however that performance would measure all variables including how the campaign was executed, the audience segmentations, the technology platforms and capabilities, quality of data, just to name a few.
On a more detailed level, you can measure engagement with the creative in a number of ways, and if you can prove the specific target audience segment were the ones who saw it ‘engaged with it or not’ it might be one measure of relevancy within the creative. But still, was what the audience saw creative or not?
It seems clear a fundamental problem lies with measuring the interacting variables of media campaigns, which includes the process of measuring a creative component – if the campaign used first party data and even 2nd party, then your measurement of audience segmentation will be more accurate and perhaps engagement is higher if relevancy elements are met, BUT if you are using frequently used 3rd party predictive data, that alone is going to be subjective in terms of the target audience the creative was ‘created’ for.
Why? because if you use data which has made predictions about people’s behavior (that has little evidence of accuracy in the first place), how can you measure creative performance? Behavioral science states measures on behavior that has occurred but to predict how behavior will occur in future runs into many fuzzy and unreliable pathways.
If creative and science are not mutually exclusive as you said, then how can they be combined in a reliable measurement? And can you just use the human processes that need to occur when a person has been creative?
I like the initiative Adam. But if the award space is so cluttered as you say, why make it an award? Why not fully embrace the practice of the scientific community and produce a peer reviewed journal for the Marcoms industry. Only dishing out a Gold, Silver and Bronze award may make achieving scientific marketing excellence seem rare and unattainable whereas if you could demonstrate a large volume of examples of scientific marketing perhaps you could shift industry norms.
I’m just spit balling, but like I said, I like any initiative that endeavors to increase the use of science in our industry. And if we’re as self absorbed, egotistical and award obsessed as everyone says we are then maybe an award is the right way to go.
@cyber. lol. I don’t think Marketing data will give you a statistically significant result using p=.05. Marketing science don’t use ‘null’ hypothesis, because it will expose marketing in a negative light. Hence, I question how they can call it marketing ‘science’ when they don’t use basic statistical principles.. They should call it Marketing Pseudo-science, because that is what it resembles..
I guess marketers will do and say anything to sell themselves….but ..hey that’s the marketing industry…
I wonder how long this marketing analytics industry will last until people wake up and realise it does not work (hello woollies)
um… http://researchmanagement.org.au/awards.html
Don’t split the atom Adam – it won’t end well for anyone..