I’m glad you stumbled here too! The science definitely comes into play once it comes time to back up a message. I’m in the process of writing about this very topic, so I hope you’ll visit again and check it out.

I think it’s important, no, critical, to know thy audience when contemplating the art/science balance. It’s critical to know thy audience for many reasons, but tone and treatment definitely need to be audience specific. As an artistic type consumer, you would probably be turned off by a dry ad that highlights the math or even the logic of a new product, right?

Me, I’m more of a left brainer- so while I use a Mac, the initial pull for me was an ad highlighting the stability of the operating system, not the hip and colorful online demo with people dancing as music, pictures and videos zoomed around the screen. Just an example of how different audiences can strike a different art/science balance.

Agreed- I don’t like those ads a bit- and I think the art side is a lot to do with likability. A lot of times when I look at creative, I either like it or I don’t. And often times, I can’t tell you why I like one treatment over another – I just do. I think that’s where a good balance between art and science helps- the definitive science side helps balance out the subjective art side.

This comes after a few incidents where I felt as if good artists talked me into great creative concepts that drifted off message, off brand or off purpose (not quite talking ovens, but close). Since then, I’ve added more left brain to my marketing toolkit, and it’s worked for me.

A copywriter/CD all my life, I had the very interesting experience of teaching a class in Media Planning at a local university. I’ve always told my creative classes that an ad campaign has to do two things to be successful: carry the correct message AND be creative enough to get noticed. Without either, you’ve obviously wasted money.

The media class reminded me that there’s a third leg on that stool: that message must reach the right people. And oddly enough, after years of dealing with subjective likes/dislikes of bosses, clients, their spouses and their next-door neighbors, it was a little bit satisfying to work in an area where success was somewhat quantifiable. A “good job” isn’t quite as much a matter of opinion.

Thus, even the creative guy must admit that we should use whatever science we can to eliminate (or at least control) as many variables as we can as part of the process.
(Just don’t pretend it’s as useful over here on the art side!)

Thanks for the comment and the interesting post. I suppose there are always conflicts when number crunchers and artsy types collide. My viewpoint tends to come from the marketing and communications strategy level, where an understanding of both is essential.

The challenge in marketing is when the science direct marketer researcher measurers need to work with the Chiat Day big picture artists.