The art and science of marketing

art or science?

Of course marketing is a bit of both. But how much art and how much science?

The CMO of an Australian software firm believes that marketing today is 70% science, 30% art. His point: Every business should be using science (sophisticated analyses, big data, etc) to support decisions about marketing. At the same time, the creativity of art is key to developing marketing that touches hearts and minds.

Science is vital for targeting, in particular. A Google marketing exec points to the quest for 'right place, right time, right message' and how science can inform decisions about place and time. Yet art is needed for marketing that creates 'brand magic', in his words.

The CMO of an auto insurance firm observes that many marketers 'are so proud of their art but they don't know their science'. This firm is serious about the science of marketing, doing media buying in-house for tight control over targeting and timing. Still, given the intense competition in the insurance business, this CMO looks to art for the edge: 'We're not going to out-pend anybody. We're going to out-create them'.

Creativity is necessary to achieve breakthrough marketing campaigns that are memorable and drive results. And sometimes, as one agency exec notes, marketers have to take a chance and use intuition even when 'we know measurement is thin'. 

The bottom line is, in reality, the bottom line--science (metrics and KPIs, for instance) can tell us how well the marketing is working. Creativity in marketing, the art, must have a purpose. Through science (planning, testing and evaluating) we can determine how well the art delivered on the marketing objectives. Art and science in marketing!

Small Business Saturday plans 100 days of marketing

From 26 August, #SmallBizSatUk is beginning 100 days of marketing on social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, plus LinkedIn and widespread mainstream publicity. The goals: to increase awareness among UK shoppers of the benefits of supporting small businesses, to introduce small businesses to a wider audience and to encourage purchasing from small businesses on 3 December 2016.

Small Business Saturday was originally founded by the global financial services firm American Express. The UK group is now independent, operated by Small Is Big CIC to promote small businesses all year.

Since its inception, Small Business Saturday has been growing in awareness and participation. In 2015, customers spent £623 million buying from small UK businesses on Small Business Saturday.

This year, 100 small businesses will be featured in the weeks leading up to 3 December, giving each the opportunity for higher awareness and positive brand associations. In turn, each small business can leverage this opportunity for more local recognition and specific promotions targeting its customers, using tips and tools provided by Small Business Saturday UK. 

It's a hashtag world

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Hashtags are everywhere. Remember QR codes? Still around, but not as stylish (not to mention possible security concerns). It seems your brand or product needs a hashtag (or more than one) to be hip and engaging in today's social media.

Hashtags enable users to search for content and follow social-media conversations according to the tag or subject. A Twitter or Facebook or Google+ post might have a single hashtag or multiple hashtags, depending on the content. When I tweet about this post, for example, I'll use the #marketing label so that people searching for marketing-related messages will see my post in the results.

One social media marketing expert recommends a three-part strategy for using hashtags in marketing: (1) brand and/or campaign-specific hashtags (such as #Nestle and #HaveABreak), (2) trending hashtags (if you see a relevant hashtag trending on Twitter, you can join the conversation but don't spam) and (3) content hashtags (relating to a particular product, for example, or a specific event or occasion).

Marketers often create their own hashtags to capture attention and focus dialogue on their particular brand or campaign. Of course, once a hashtag has appeared in social media, anyone can add it to a post. This might be a positive, spreading the message to others--or it might prove negative if people use the hashtag to complain. That's what happened to McDonald's when it created the hashtag #McDStories. Twitter soon lit up with negative comments from consumers (whether true or not, the comments included that special hashtag). McDonald's saw what was happening and changed course within an hour.

If you're on Twitter, try a search for the following hashtags to see posts about these topics:

• #marketing
• #customerservice
• #advertising
• #customerretention
• #customersatisfaction
• #retail

Creativity + Strategy = Results

Marketing Week just published an insightful piece about the importance of encouraging a culture of creativity. Some of the examples of creativity include Cadbury's drumming gorilla, Persil's "dirt is good" campaign and Johnnie Walker's "Keep Walking" campaign.

The point is that sometimes creativity can provide an edge that data simply won't give you.

Marketing (an Australian magazine) offers another good example: Tesco's clever transit advertising campaign in South Korea, featuring posters lined with shelves and products just like a real Tesco market (see photo above). Commuters use their mobiles to scan and order products from the ads.

What these successful examples have in common is their ability to combine creativity with marketing strategy. The Cadbury gorilla was all about attracting attention and creating a mood; the Persil campaign connected with parents' feelings about children enjoying playtime; the Johnnie Walker campaign reinforced the product's status; and the Tesco campaign added both novelty and convenience.

Creativity + strategy = results.