Some pretty provocative words from Martha Stewart Living media president Wenda Millard, via Silicon Alley Insider:
Advertising is a business that is both art and science. [...] With Google-Doubleclick, and Yahoo-Microsoft, it is as if the scientific community is taking over advertising. And advertising is not about science.
You’d think I’d object to that quote, considering my background, but I’m actually pretty sympathetic. When someone like Wenda complains about ‘science’, what she’s really talking about are failures, both in product and design. The tools we’ve built are still too difficult to understand and use – the technology both enhances and impedes the process. You’ll know advertising has truly become a ‘science’ when a sales executive can stand up and say confidently that advertising is unambiguously an art.
