Marketing creativity has died right when we need it most. Although the exact time of its recent demise is uncertain, there's no question about the cause: asphyxiation beneath an avalanche of data.

Yes, data has greatly improved marketers' ability to track performance, but it's had the unintended consequence of transforming marketers from a creative "brain force" into a hands-on-keyboard labor force. And when you add in the hyper-segmentation that now drives marketing strategy, it's clear that creativity's fate was sealed.

Today, marketers start with audience selection, then develop creative intended to resonate with specific market niches. They make decisions based on audience behavior—how and when they engage, etc. They rely on a continuous performance feedback loop to shape and optimize future campaigns. A low barrier to entry results in a crowded marketplace, with a focus on numbers rather than creativity. Marketers spend the majority of their time organizing data rather than using it in ways that drive creativity.

Does all that work? Yes. Does it leave the audience wanting more? Absolutely.

Is there hope for creativity's resurrection? Without a doubt.

Art and Science

Marketers are struggling within a paradigm in which data and creativity are at odds with one another: To be creative is to innovate and try new things; to be data-driven is to go with what you know works based on the numbers.

The key to art and science living in harmony is... automation.

Automating data collection, mapping, and modeling leaves marketers with enough time in the day to leverage the insights surfaced by the data and to apply that to creative strategies—not just janitor the data.

Marketing, like all business functions, is constrained by resource availability as it tries to realize its goals. When resources are freed from mundane tasks, they can be redeployed to more creative pursuits. When marketers are not forced to spend half their workday on data analysis, they can spend more time interacting with customers and drawing on other tangible experiences that drive creativity.

From Tesla to Waymo

Right now, marketing automation is merely a "feature," one that relies on human capital—a lot of it—to pull its levers. It's like a Tesla, which is often (incorrectly) described as a self-driving car.

Sure, Tesla does lots of things autonomously; however, it still requires a human driver to make most decisions. The steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake are key features of the car's design and are intended to be used by the driver. Just like today's media buying platforms: If the option to interact with the technology is there, we make the assumption that it isn't fully capable of working on its own and needs our "help" to achieve the outcome we desire.

For creativity to rise from its ashes, Marketing needs a new approach. It must evolve to become more like Google's Waymo—a truly self-driving car—than a Tesla. It must be built around full automation, with more decisions being made by the technology itself.

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How Can Marketing Creativity Be Reignited? Next-Gen Automation!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Peter Muzzonigro

Peter Muzzonigro is a co-founder of Panoramic, a marketing intelligence platform that connects data, systems, and people together in a single workspace to collectively solve data science and marketing analytics challenges.

LinkedIn: Peter Muzzonigro