For as long as advertising has existed, there has been a tension between creative and media teams. Fans of Mad Men will remember the chaos that ensued when Harry Crane's media department took out the creative lounge and replaced it with a computer, and they can look to quotes from executives at HSBC and Unilever to see this conflict today.

There's no debating that the advertising world is now driven by data. However, this doesn't mean that creative is no longer important; in fact, with the proliferation of ad formats and cross-device campaigns, it could be argued that it is more important than ever. The key to success in today's landscape is combining siloed analytics and creative teams to gain the best of both worlds.

puts it best by saying that "data unlocks key insights that put the human experience at the very core”. By gaining this perspective, brands can then make creative that resonates with people. Data can essentially be seen as a tool that sharpens and refines the art of campaign storytelling.

This is especially relevant as audiences become more niche. While it may be easy for creatives to find a frame of reference for a broad target or one that is similar to the people making the creative themselves, it is more difficult to do for something they aren't familiar with at all. Adweek describes how this is the case for something extremely specific, like a Fly Fishing campaign, with data serving as creative guardrails surrounding the campaign.

Data can also help identify audience traits that would not be readily apparent otherwise. A 2017 Ad Age article outlined how Deutsch leveraged data on Sherwin-Williams to find that consumers weren't only using their Krylon spray paint to cover rust, but were actually using it for arts and crafts projects that transformed household goods and furniture

This then informed the creative "First Ever Pinterest Yard Sale” campaign, which took old, seemingly worthless items like watering cans and tennis rackets and covered them with Krylon Spray Paint to return them to their former glory. They were then sold on Pinterest, with proceeds going to an arts and crafts nonprofit. The campaign was extremely successful and was awarded the 2016 Titanium Lions at Cannes; this would not have been possible without such a strong blend of creative and analytics.

We are working hard to merge these fields here at GlassView through a number of avenues, with one of them being emotion-based targeting. Through AI webcam technology, we are able to track facial and retina recognition and read the current emotional state of a consumer as they watch a video.

Once we have this information, we then target consumers based on their emotional receptivity to a message and optimize toward performance mid-campaign. This mid-flight optimization is unique to GlassView. We also have the ability to A/B test creative at scale and perform Dynamic Creative Optimization to make sure your best-performing ads are being shown.As data teaches us more and more about audiences, creative will only become better. We believe that here at GlassView, we are playing an integral role in making this possible. To learn more about GlassView and our emotion-based targeting offering, contact us.