• by Dan Swartz , Op-Ed Contributor, April 6, 2015

Which comes first? Data or creative? Which has more influence? Creative or data? It’s the classic chicken or the egg dilemma.

Data is definitely transforming how marketers target consumers, optimize strategies and plan their media mix. Many would say it’s as crucial as the creative concepts themselves and believe in data’s ability to elevate a campaign’s creative core. But creatives fear that overly restrictive guidelines and upfront analysis is killing creativity as data influences more parts of campaign development.

This tension in the data/creative relationship is probably all too familiar for many of you. The creative team bristles at a brief comprised of specs for a media plan that leaves them little room for innovation. At the same time, media planners want to be involved with the creative as soon as possible, so that the campaign’s idea might spark new or unique directions for specific media components.

Every day, inspired creative teams develop incredible television concepts only to be disappointed at the media team’s insistence that television isn’t, shouldn’t, or can’t be in the plan. To add insult to injury, the campaign needs a whole range of basic banners, for scale. This is when you discover the creative concept isn’t able to effectively translate to that medium.

However, instead of arguing which should come first, disparate teams must foster a new attitude and collaborate in effective ways to deliver exceptional work in today’s multi-channel world. Here are some ways to help ease the tension.

The Appreciation Factor. The core of the data/creative friction is a basic lack of mutual understanding. It’s easy to fall into an “us versus them” mentality when teams fail to consider different points of view. While everyone is striving to create the best campaign possible, individual teams’ motivations and objectives can differ considerably. These groups are often from different agencies, exacerbating this disconnect. It’s imperative for everyone involved to check their egos at the door and work to not only understand the role, but more importantly, appreciate the value each team brings.

Collaboration Strategy. The pages of spreadsheets a media planner might pour over when allocating a campaign’s budget won’t mean much to an art director. But that doesn’t mean the background they approach the campaign with should be tailored any differently. All groups involved need to share an understanding of what the campaign’s parameters are from the outset. To accomplish this, we’ve found that a unified kick-off and shared brief keeps everyone on the same page. These initial, collaborative meetings allow marketing planners to share the data informing the campaign’s primary media direction, letting data become a commonly valued asset instead of alienating media-geek jargon.

Thinking Big (But in Context). Nobody wins if a creative team produces the most elegant, inspiring campaign that ultimately doesn’t work in a final media buy. Similarly, if analytics and planning teams conduct research in isolation, drop off a list of campaign requirements and wait for final assets, they miss great opportunities to better incorporate the campaign’s central idea into the media mix. Of course teams need to work separately. But, the success occurs when groups collaborate multiple times during the development process to compare notes and build off of each other. Check-ins don’t need to be formal presentations of a finished product — assessing rough, early iterations of a campaign offers both groups time to optimize together.

Breaking Down the Silos. The logistics of merging dissimilar worlds can be challenging. It’s difficult to translate internal jargon we might take for granted to people outside of our field. Geographic limitations prevent inter-agency groups from meeting face-to-face as frequently as they should. Competing priorities and expectations might lead to a few awkward meetings, but it will be worth it in the end.