Ed. note: I put out a feeler on Twitter to find out what sort of content my followers would like to see on the Slide. We got a response from @gypsybandito requesting a post on persuasion. So today, Grip president Harvey Carroll responds. If you have any content requests of your own, tweet us @bigorangeslide or @Leicentious.

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I always find it interesting how our industry tiptoes around the reality of what we do as a business.  We like to position ourselves as creative individuals who have both the desire and capability to create things of wonder, to perhaps even create art.  While many of the people I am fortunate enough to work with have this capability, it is just not what we are here to do day-to-day.  Advertising exists to sell products and services for our clients who entrust us with their brands, and essentially their livelihood. The core of what we do hinges on persuasion. We build communication (360°, two-way, digital, social – insert any current buzzword here) to persuade consumers to choose the brand we are advertising over one of many alternative choices at their disposal.

If we were to admit that we are in the persuasion business, we are still left pondering what persuasion is, and whether it’s more akin to an art or science. The dictionary defines persuasion as “the art of persuading” and defines persuading in these terms: “to move by argument, entreaty, or expostulation to a belief, position or course of action.”  For our purposes, Wikipedia offers a more interesting definition: “persuasion is a form of social influence. It is the process of guiding oneself or another toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic (though not always logical) means.”  Embedded in the very definition is this notion that this argument is not always logical, potentially unscientific, and maybe more art than science.  We must of course recognize that this page of Wikipedia could have been populated by a 10 year old child as a joke, but that is a discussion for another time.

Persuasion as a science versus an art – does it matter?  In my experience, this debate is one that seems to come to life most vividly when a client and an agency sit on different sides of the argument. Clients (I can speak from experience here, having been one most of my career) want to believe it is a science. Clients want to be able to predict and quantify the persuasive impact that their efforts will have on their consumers, ideally before committing significant dollars to creating ads or other communications. This limits risk, and therefore generally makes CEOs and CFOs happy (and ultimately, keeps the clients employed). Proof? Look no further than the litany of ad testing (pre-test, post-test, in-market, concept test, idea test) available to clients. In many cases the main output of these tests is a single score (in one case actually called “The One Score”) that clients use to decide if an ad will be created or not. Here is where the debate with the agency begins.

It is difficult for people on the advertising side of the business – particularly the creative people who make the ads – to believe that this single score can predict of the ad’s potential. The score is regarded with suspicion, as the consumer testing group have not yet “seen the ad.” In a pre-test scenario, they have usually only seen an animatic (a roughly animated storyboard). By definition, this sketch expression of the ad idea glosses over the art and creativity that will come to life in the final piece. It is a creative expression without the creative detail. The creative guys would argue that its art is absent. Knowing how dramatically an idea and execution can evolve through the production process, it is easy to understand how people on the agency side of the business can believe there is more art than science in the mix when producing a persuasive ad.

So who is right? Where to from here? I am not sure there is a perfect answer but I will offer up my opinion. Persuasion, specifically in the world of advertising and communication, is both an art and a science. I believe that the people who recognize this and who use the tools at their disposal will ultimately get to better work. Pre-testing of ads can be helpful when used as a mechanism to get to better work. Use these tools to identify issues with comprehension or to optimize the idea and make the potential for the work greater. Use them to help guide the process, but perhaps not to make the decision whether or not work is produced. The science of testing is not necessarily in a better position that you are to determine if the ad will work, and if it is right for your brand. Use the science to feed the art. If you’re a client, take the information from the testing and use it to have a real dialogue with the agency to determine how the ad prototype can evolve to get to a more persuasive place. From there, let the pros do their job. Let them take this refined core idea, and apply their art to it to make it into a great ad.

Accepting that there is both art and science involved in creating persuasive advertising will provide a better framework for discussion and collaboration between the client and the agency. It will facilitate a better working environment. It will lead to greater trust and respect. It will, I am certain, lead to better, more persuasive advertising.