Back in the day, we direct marketers thought above-the-line advertising people were weird for paying so little attention to defining audiences. But we always saw "who to talk to" and "what to say" as interdependent. To suggest that you should decide one in isolation from the other was like suggesting that when you complete a crossword, you should always solve all the "across" clues first. We never thought it was all about the creative. But we never thought it was all about data analytics either.