This is a piece I wrote for an m/SIX newsletter in January 2022. Effectiveness and efficiency are not the same but they are both critical in media strategy, planning and activation Intro Marketing effectiveness and campaign efficiency are intertwined terms across the open plan workspaces of both advertisers and agencies. But they mean very different … Read More
Advertising Evaluation
Six pioneers of marketing effectiveness past and present
I recently wrote this piece for an m/SIX newsletter – it summarises the contribution of six people to the development of marketing effectiveness. SIX pioneers of marketing effectiveness past and present 1. Claude Hopkins, the copywriter who earned $2.7m per year selling Bissell vacuum cleaners We all talk about market effectiveness and marketing science, but … Read More
Brands must grow before they can be harvested
Over the last decade, as an industry, we have become brilliant at harvesting the lower funnel. Every prospect who is showing “signals” of making a purchase can be digitally tracked and retargeted from the first flicker of interest to the point of purchase. This tracking has evolved to increase any one brand’s chances of closing … Read More
How is brand advertising different to direct response advertising?
Brand advertising techniques are very different to direct response advertising techniques. Even when you are running an integrated multi-channel campaign it is important to understand the key differences between the two approaches so that you can orchestrate your overall campaign plan and budget to deliver maximum ROI. To illustrate some of the key differences here … Read More
Understanding brand awareness, consideration and preference
Brand awareness is vitally important in the marketing process. As consumers need to be aware of a product and brand to purchase it, then the more consumers who are aware, the more purchases take place. This hierarchical approach, begins with awareness and moves through consideration and preference to purchase. This hierarchical path is sometimes called … Read More
How do TVRs build media reach and frequency?
As we saw in the “what is a TVR” post a TVR is a percentage of a given target audience in a given geographic base. But is a TVR any more than that? Well, yes it is. A TVR is an important factor in calculating how media activity builds reach and frequency. Reach is the … Read More
Advertising Response Rates by Channel
Understanding response rates by media channel is a vital component of marketing and media planning. If you know the response rates, media costs and likely conversion rates of each channel you are using, you can forecast the ROI of your planned activity – before you spend any budget. This helps to de-risk your marketing activity … Read More
Media ROI Evaluation Techniques
Techniques for tracking advertising and media ROI are often discussed by both advertisers and agencies as they seek to identify and maximise the ROI effect of media budgets. Deciding on which techniques to use can raise a number of issues depending on the data and budgets available for advertising evaluation. Before we get into the techniques themselves … Read More
Facebook ‘likes’ don’t increase brand preference or sales
Here’s an iron for the fire: “Facebook ‘likes’ do not cause increased brand preference or increased sales so marketing campaigns designed to increase the number of ‘likes’ are unlikely to increase brand preference or sales.” I was moved to develop and explore this hypothesis after reading an article on the real cost of brand building … Read More
Social Media Metrics Made Simple: Focus on Sales and Customers
I am amazed that so many people spend so much time defining and discussing social media metrics. Why? Because the answers marketers (and shareholders) want are very, very simple. Marketers want only one thing from marketing budget investment. Marketers want sales – sales are key; almost everything else is a proxy for some point on … Read More
2011 marketing predictions: The death of mass marketing has been greatly exaggerated
No doubt there will be many a New Year marketing prediction over the next few days. The most common theme is likely to be that mass marketing will decline and be replaced by new and emerging channels and techniques. This year, I’m not going to make any such prediction. This year I’m standing in defence … Read More
Data planning and market research – mind the gap
I once attended a research debrief to report the results of a survey into the communication effects of a direct mail campaign. The survey asked if the target group had received the direct mail piece and what they thought of it. The survey results were not good. According to the research, hardly any of the … Read More
Advertising Frequency and Diminishing Marginal Utility
Economists have a concept called Diminishing Marginal Utility. This means that each additional time a consumer consumes something they get less satisfaction from consuming it. So, if I have one coffee, I find it very satisfying, two could be OK, but by the time I get to three I’m not getting much additional satisfaction, infact, … Read More
Dairy Milk gets the gorilla, but Galaxy gets the growth
So, Dairy Milk with its Drumming Gorilla TV ad campaign has posted a sluggish 2% market share growth whilst ‘run of the mill’ Galaxy has romped home with a 12% growth. Research has shown that the Gorilla ad is more memorable than Galaxy activity, but clearly this success in recall does not seem to have … Read More