You can’t track magic

Is marketing science or art?

Here’s why it SHOULD be both at the same time:

Example of science: “Our CPMs are increasing so we should contextualise our creative.”

The scientific side of marketing can be measured directly with software. Our analytics tools can tell us what happens when we run an ad or create a session. Number of clicks, say.

Example of art: “That brand cracked an in-joke, I like that. Nice one, you guys.”

The artistic side probably won’t translate into a specific, direct, attributable reports. The in-joke you told that caused a conversation this week can’t be measured empirically with a tracking pixel.

Since “what gets measured gets improved”, the danger is to focus only on what can be measured with software. This is where brands go to lose their soul.

Software hasn’t yet got a grasp on culture, micro-communities, and the way someone lights up when they hear it’s you on the other end of the phone.

Those things are harder to track. Those things matter most.

Put the laptop down for a second and give a customer a call.

Say hi. Make their day.

You can’t track magic.