Dead Poets Society – the devil in the data

“Carpe diem,” Robin Williams’ teacher character famously said in Dead Poets Society. “Seize the day.” But what can he teach us about the use of data in advertising?

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When someone says to me “data-driven creativity,” I have the same visceral reaction to it as if they’d said, “data-driven colonoscopy.” One is an eye-watering, and often messy, experience that you need to take lying down. The other is a medical procedure. I’ve experienced both.

Near the beginning of Dead Poets Society, John Keating, the teacher played by Robin Williams has a similar visceral reaction – to the application of data to creativity.

He is standing in front of one of his new classes and asks them to open their poetry text books, Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D., and turn to the introduction. He then asks a student to read it out, which the student dutifully does. We, and the class, hear how it is possible to measure the “greatness” of a poem according to two parameters: “perfection” and “importance.” By using these as the X and Y axes on a graph, you can then quantify this greatness, as represented by the area of the square, formed by horizontal and vertical lines.

As the student continues to read, Mr. Keating plots the lines on the chalk board. The students feverishly whip out rulers and pencils to copy the diagram into their exercise books, hanging onto Pritchard’s every word as they do so, until Keating’s next one stops them in their tracks.

“Excrement,” he exclaims to the stunned class, who are now wondering what the Jesus H. Pritchard is going on. This is unlike any poetry lesson they’ve ever had. “We're not laying pipe,” Keating continues, “we're talking about poetry.”

He then instructs the students to rip out the page. But not just that page: the whole soul-destroying introduction too. Why? Because, “medicine, law, business, engineering: these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love: these are what we stay alive for.”

What the hell does that have to do with advertising, you might well ask? It’s certainly not considered a “noble pursuit,” and hardly necessary to sustain life (don’t tell your clients). But to be successful, it needs to understand and reflect what we stay alive for. It is through doing so that we touch the hearts and minds of our audiences, to sell the things that help us to live the way we want to.

There are things that need to be quantified and measured – like the condition of your bowel. And some things that don’t. We live in a digital world – with mercifully small digital cameras – but we are in danger of becoming being slaves to data: knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. The message should not be the medium. Yes, we need data to help inform what we say, who we say it to and how, and there have been many amazing data-driven campaigns. But it seems that everything in our business today demands to be formulated and measured, numbers crunched, funnels filled and clicks counted.

As creatives, what drives us should not be data, but a passion to create something that stirs emotions in people – even if it is only to shift a few more cars or cans of Coke. The best advertising is art and poetry, because it tells great stories, and tells them beautifully. It is how we connect with our audiences and with each other. Sure, data can help us do it better, but it should not dictate how we do it.

A bit later in Dead Poets Society, one of Keating’s fellow-teachers who had walked in on the page-ripping exercise, admonishes him. “You take a big risk by encouraging them to be artists John,” he says. “When they realise they're not Rembrandts, Shakespeares or Mozarts, they'll hate you for it.”

Keating replies, that he’s not talking artists but free thinkers. As advertising creatives, that’s what we need to be. And sometimes artists too. Tortured ones, crying into our berets at the world’s – and our clients’ – failure to understand and appreciate our genius. That’s why we have award shows. But, as free-thinkers, we should never allow ourselves to be driven too much by data, as it can all-too easily drive creativity – into the ground.

Not convinced? Then ask yourself this: since the rise of data-driven marketing, as we know it today, has advertising got better? And, can a truly soul-stirring piece of creative work be inspired by a spreadsheet? Maybe, but don’t count on it.

Data should serve the creativity, not the other way around. If you can make the numbers work for you great. But don’t be limited by them. The only limit should be your imagination (and perhaps the budget).

Carpe diem. Not data.