1. Data:Opinions | SAS
36
MARKETING WEEK 15 MAY 2014
A clash of cultures is emerging
in British marketing, but creative and data-
focused people can help each other improve,
says SAS’ Charles Randall
Over the past five years, Marketing Week and
SAS have been collecting information on the
marketing preferences of British marketers.
This has revealed a division at the heart of
our discipline – an alternative view of the world
that challenges the establishment.
This is not the world of clever words,
beautiful imagery and exciting creativity
that has long been the domain of marketing.
Rather, it is a place of dull data, relentless
objectivity and the unceasing quest for
measurement – welcome to the realm of the
data scientist. Surely all true marketers must
look on this new perdition and weep for the
light that has gone out of their world.
A battle of the brains – right versus left,
emotional versus analytical, creatives versus
statisticians – is underway in marketing. But
that was not always the case. This division
between the ‘rightists’ and the ‘leftists’ is
an invention of the early 20th century. Our
forefathers would not recognise it. From
Leonardo da Vinci (engineer/artist)to
Florence Nightingale (nurse/statistician),
history is replete with individuals whom we
would now refer to as polymaths, but for
whom our current obsession with this
distinction would have been ridiculous.
As we move forward in the 21st century
we need to throw away this new dogma. We
should no longer seek to rely on just half
our brains. We need to embrace our other
side, learn to appreciate it, and then use it to
make us more rounded, more effective, more
complete marketers.
There is much that each side can learn from
the other that can help both creatives in making
the most of their creativity, and ‘statos’ in getting
their organisations to engage with their data.
Three things creatives can learn from
statos
1. Numbers are beautiful: Rather than being
drab and dull, numbers can be both creative
and beautiful. Indeed, the ancient Greeks
believed that beauty is absolute, and is defined
by a mathematical formula. They called it the
‘golden ratio’ and gave it a number, φ(the
Greek letter phi).
Despite being nearly 3,000 years old, this
ratio is still used by painters and photographers
when determining the composition of a picture.
It is also prevalent in nature, influencing the
proportions and structure of objects as
diverse as the human face and the structure
of a conch shell.
2. Our assumptions are often wrong:
What we assume may not be true – the truth is
often more surprising than we can imagine. If you
buy a used car, your best bet is an orange colour.
Most drug dealers in America earn less than
the minimum wage. The odds of two children
in a class sharing a birthday is 70 per cent.
It may seem odd to think of a nerdy stato in
this way, and yet one of their most useful roles
in marketing may be as an overturner of
conventional wisdom, a slayer of shibboleths,
an iconoclast.
3. In life all things are possible: We can
never guarantee that the outcome is the one we
expect. So you need to be able to distinguish
Wittington House
Henley Road,
Medmenham, Marlow,
Buckinghamshire, SL7 2EB
T: 01628 486 933
E: charles.randall@sas.com
W: www.sas.com
twitter.com/DrRandall
Charles Randall
Head of solutions marketing
SAS
In search
of the next great
data artist

2. 37
MARKETING WEEK 15 MAY 2014
between a run of luck, both good and bad, and
an error in the conception of a project, where
some previously unconsidered element worked
either for or against your efforts. When we
modestly accept this reality, then we can really
begin to learn.
Three things statos can learn from creatives
Just as there are things that creatives can learn
from statos, there is also much that statos can
learn from creatives.
1. Marketing is all about people: Sometimes
we need to see through the numbers to the
people behind. It can be easy to lose yourself in the
process of perfecting a model, an algorithm or a
prediction, but we always need to come back to the
people behind the numbers. If we forget this, then
it becomes easy to stray in to creating monsters
that are ill-considered, potentially unethical and
downright creepy.
2. Imagery is an important part of
communication: No matter how clever the
analysis, when it is poorly presented it is difficult
for others to understand. The human mind is
designed to respond to visual stimulus and if you
want your work taken seriously, you will need to
find ways to help others understand it visually.
This may be using one of the many plots
and graphs that we have access to, but equally
it could easily be something more creative.
And when you plan to use graphics and images,
think carefully about colour, proportion
and ordering, and how these can help you
communicate your findings.
3. Engage the heart as well as the head:
You need to be able to tell stories – the data
will not speak for itself. For thousands of years
humans have used stories to pass wisdom between
them. These help us to understand complex
situations and make decisions with confidence.
Our numbers often hold the stories we need
inside them.
If we want our data to really make a difference,
then being able to create a narrative that is
concrete, empathetic and engaging will pay
dividends. Taking decisions based on
anecdotes may be foolish, but using anecdotes
to illustrate data and drive a decision – that
is smart.
Looking for data artists
Some of my colleagues at SAS have recently
embarked on a quest to find the UK’s greatest
data scientist. There is a good possibility that
he or she may come from a marketing background,
since much of the most exciting and innovative
work we see going on is in this area. The search,
no doubt, will focus on their technical skills:
their ability to manipulate vast quantities of
data, create powerful predictive models and
wrestle with unstructured data. Certainly if you
read a typical job description of the role, this is
what you would expect.
Here is a thought. Maybe that is not what we
should be looking for in our data scientists.
Maybe imagination, creativity and the ability
to empathise should be considered just as
important. Maybe what we should be looking for
in the marketing department is not the next great
data scientist, but the next great data artist.
TheGreeks
definedbeauty
bythe‘golden
ratio’whichis
stillusedtoday
bypaintersand
photographers
butisalso
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nature
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