The marketing civil war: Let’s not measure ourselves into obscurity
As the war between creative and data rages on, Simon Bird, group strategy director at PHD New Zealand argues it’s time to find a solution before we measure ourselves into obscurity.
Over the last few years in advertising, media and marketing, there has been a civil war going on.
That sounds a bit dramatic, but there has been a pretty constant battle between art and science, creative and big data, digital and traditional, mass and targeted, salience and optimised, and emotion and information.
Generalising a little, there’s basically a ‘pro-digital side’ believing mass advertising is inefficient and full of wastage, and that marketing today is all about the right message/right place/right time, or DM at scale.
good read
A really well-considered piece. Thank you Simon.
Great article Simon. Although I would think that measureability is a casualty in the war for reproducibility. The role of data is about finding stable, predictable and reliable returns as opposed to say, happy accidents.
I’m getting a little frustrated with the constant “measurement of marketing spend” arguments. They demonstrate the myopia across the industry- the big worry isn’t spending it on TV or digital, or short term or long term. The big threat is most marketing budgets are being cut and put into price activity.
That destroys brand equity faster than anything marketing can do.
That is an inefficient spend, because the vast majority of these activities are past the point of diminishing return, so are inherently inefficient. And we’re talking budgets 10x the marketing budget at least.
Guys, without measuring marketing, the sales team will keep taking our budgets because we can’t prove what it does. I’m all for the additional views we need for looking at how we execute our marketing, but let’s have something that looks a bit more financial when we talk to the CFO about the budgets so we can keep some dollars right?
Bravo Simon.
Excellent read Simon, couldn’t agree more.
Passionately argued. But it’s still close to impossible to know which medium or which piece of creative gave me the greatest ROI based on sales of my product. You’re right that much of the measurement is of little value to clients. But we do want to know whether it worked.
And I’d hazard a guess that once we know that advertising is working, we’ll do more of it.
An outstanding article Simon. And the single biggest challenge in the marketing services industry is getting this message across. Measurement obsession is a race to dehumanise marketing. The worst thing a company or brand can do is win the race. It’s prioritising communication just because it looks good in a pie chart. The way to win in business communication is to rehumanise. Rehumanise what you say and what you do with all it’s sporadic, spontaneous, uncontrollable, grey, emotional, confusing, human, authentic, subjective curiosity. Like it or lump it, It’s the way humans have communicated for millions of years. And no pie charts will stop it.
Simply one of the best posts I’ve read recently. Well researched, scholarly but highly readable, and I loved how you didn’t just pick sides, and cheer one and disparage the other. The quantum physics analogy was brilliant. The current obsession with marketing measurement ignores the complexity and uncertainty that are part and parcel of marketing. Your closing two paragraphs were excellent: short term measurement is helpful, but it’s not the whole story by a long shot. And I loved the David Ogilvy quote which was new to me. Thanks for a great post.
Hi Simon, thanks for a practical, thoughtful article which clarifies how CO/CFO/CMOS could analyse marketing services and marketing communication exercises not with a huge spend vs product sales…. guess its more of how you make your customers or well wishers listen to you