It’s interesting to hear how different people view marketing. The big media buyers tout the creative side, saying it’s all about interesting advertising and new ideas. The direct marketing people usually scoff at the creatives, claiming that it’s all science and numbers.

In truth, I believe marketing is both. Sometimes it is more like science, and sometimes like art. If you leave out either, you have bad marketing.

I came across some material by Steve Martin (the comedian) that illustrates this very well. Steve Martin wrote a play, “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.” In it, Einstein meets Picasso at a Paris tavern in 1904, when both were just on the verge of their individual breakthroughs. It does a great job of showing how close science actually is to art, and vice versa. In one scene, Einstein and Picasso scribble their ideas on paper, as a duel:

Einstein: Done! (Einstein and Picasso switch drawings). It’s perfect.

Picasso: Thank you.

Einstein: I’m talking about mine.

Picasso: (studies it) It’s a formula.

Einstein: So’s yours.

Picasso: It was a little hastily drawn … yours is letters.

Einstein: Yours is lines.

Picasso: My lines mean something.

Einstein: So do mine.

Picasso: Mine is beautiful.

Einstein: (indicates his own drawing) Men have swooned on seeing that.

Picasso: Mine touches the heart.

Einstein: Mine touches the head.

Picasso: Mine will change the future.

Einstein: (holds his drawing) Oh, and mine won’t?

In another scene, they brainstorm an idea:

Picasso: Before me artists used to get their performances from the past, but from this point they are coming from the future, fast and loose.

Einstein: Absolutely from the future!

Picasso: I think in the moment of pencil to paper, the future is mapped out in the face of the person drawn. Imagine that the pencil is pushed hard enough and the lead goes through the paper into another dimension.

Einstein: Yes!

Picasso: A kind of fourth dimension, if that’s what you want to call it.

Einstein: I can’t believe you’re saying this, a fourth dimension!

Picasso: And that fourth dimension is… the future!

Einstein: Wrong.

Martin’s commentary:

What I felt that I had to say was that at the highest level of art and science the process was the same, that Einstein made the same leaps as Picasso… in science you presume it’s deduction that gets you from place to place to place, but the big accomplishments were pure creative thinking where they had almost nothing to go on, except an instinct.

Of course, we are talking about breakthroughs. Moments when something very special is created. In these times, art and science are both more like art, relying heavily on creativity, gut feeling, raw newness and exploration.

However, just before and just after a breakthrough, both science and art are more like science. Measurements, constants, tweaks, changes, minor improvements. Before a breakthrough, you tinker with the accepted norm of things. Small changes here, minor advancements there. Then, creativity kicks in and you make a major leap forward. Once the leap forward is made, you build upon it. You’re back to science, tweaking, changing, improving the breakthrough.

What this means for you is that great marketing is both science and art. Relying on creativity alone gives you raw material that may not have what it needs to take root in society. Relying on science alone gives you boring incremental improvements over current ideas.

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