Media practitioners, on the other hand, are more likely to veer to the scientific. There are now whole books about the science of Google's AdWords, and econometrics and direct response tend to promise a set of principles that can seem as certain as chemistry.
I don't think advertising is art - art has more to do with painful origination of new ideas than successful advertising, which is largely derivative: that's often part of the reason it is successful. It is also, of course, produced for commercial reasons, which most great art has not been.
Nor can advertising be reduced to purely scientific principles. Most really good econometricians or direct response professionals acknowledge that their forensic approach can explain an element of a campaign's success and failure, but not the whole thing.
This does not make the solution some kind of mystical artistic magic however, just difficult and requiring lots of thinking. I was chatting to a recent graduate joiner recently. He'd chosen to study theology rather than history, because he believed his teachers were more interested in his opinion on theology, whereas in history, he was expected simply to study and to analyse evidence.
In this respect, the study of history sounds like good detective work - pull together all the data, think about the people and their motivations and build a case gradually, based on the best possible explanation.
The best approach to advertising is to think of it as detective work. It uses scientific and artistic techniques, but it is most important to get under the skin of the target market and understand their motivations.
Before any opinions are offered, a really robust command of all the evidence and clues is essential. But then add intuition and experience, because you need to build a case, not jump to an obvious answer. This may make you more like Columbo than Ingmar Bergman or Gandalf, but it means you get to go around saying "just one more thing, sir".
- Sue Unerman is chief strategy officer at MediaCom, sue.unerman@haymarket.com.