Programming Thinking: The Union of Art, Science, and Algorithms

    There is an opinion that in the near future software marketing will not need a person as a working unit at all, since automation and algorithms will take over all the work. Fear of losing a job explains the slow growth of programming in this area. And yet, if we talk more deeply, what adequate worker will support what can send him to an early retirement pension?



    Of course, the following course of events remains more likely: science and art will not distinguish between teams or entire companies, but will come to a kind of smart balance, where machine technologies and algorithms will complement the human mind and its limitless ideas, full of creativity and flight of thought.

    There are three main and significant reasons why systems and algorithms will not take over the advertising world, crowding out human labor:

    First, one should nevertheless take into account the fact that a computer can never create creatives for a specific specific target audience, starting from many factors Starting from analytics of the effectiveness of advertising channels, taking into account the current most relevant trends, ending with the mood of the community, which still should never be discounted. After all, this is a fundamental stage in the formation of a brand’s strategy and its positioning with competent marketing.

    Secondly,Each ad display is so unique that prices are set depending on a large number of metrics (indicators). And that is why the RTB market cannot be fully compared and a comprehensive analogy is made with all the same exchanges. Here, a certain role is played by a certain expert, an expert who will be able to optimize the advertising campaign at the moments of greatest need in order to achieve maximum efficiency and comprehensively recoup the client’s investment in advertising. Indeed, in this way, the client’s expenses are the most rational.

    Thirdly,we use machines to process huge amounts of data. But, anyway, only one algorithm, not controlled by a competent specialist, will not be able to cope with the competent interpretation of the data. Machines will never be able to successfully predict a person’s behavior, understand his thoughts and the intended reaction. A person, precisely because of his analytical abilities, can take concrete actions and effective decisions to improve interaction with the consumer.

    Together with the development of media buying, professionals must be professionally growing and developing who can effectively use algorithms and automation to achieve the best results and indicators. Any industry will always need professionals who keep up with the times.

    Of course, processes that used to be done manually are automated, sooner or later. Therefore, automation will affect a small part of media buying participants, those who were involved in the specific purchase of advertising traffic. However, as well as factory workers, machines were replaced at a certain stage of development.

    However, no one bothers the marketer to retrain into a specialist who knows how to correctly manage technologies, which supposedly replaced us. The same machines will not be able to work independently, without a competent managing operator. As for the advertising specialists, here you should take into account the huge number of settings to determine the exact targeting in order to ultimately fulfill the key indicators of the KPI of the advertising campaign. That is, such a specialist will ultimately have programmatic thinking.

    Program thinking is a mathematical, and at the same time, creative approach to decision making. Let us designate what skills a specialist with the above thinking should possess:

    • a high level of knowledge of the advertising ecosystem as a whole, and of each component participating in this system in particular, and their direct interaction.
    • deep understanding of consumer psychology: how and why CA responds to various types of advertising and why it is worth choosing this particular tool in favor of one or the other.
    • combination of mathematical (media planning, forecasting the course of the advertising campaign and its indicators) and creative (ideas for creatives, the brand’s need to stay in trend) skills.
    • analytical thinking, the ability to quickly work with numbers and actually processed data arrays.
    • proficiency in two or three main areas with a wide and in-depth set of knowledge in the above.
    • adaptability, willingness to learn and feel comfortable in an interdisciplinary role.


    Tomorrow's success of advertising specialists consists of 60% of science, and 40% of art. A person may not be a professional designer, but must know mathematics like the back of his hand, otherwise they will not be those professionals who are waiting for a bright and bright future. But the future is still in software thinking. BYYD • Mobile Advertising Platform




    Also popular now: