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
Media Evaluation
What is Marketing Mix Modelling?
Marketing Mix Modelling or MMM is a regression-based approach to identifying the drivers of sales for a business or brand – making it a form of attribution. For many advertisers it is used to understand and optimise the effects of paid media in generating sales outcomes. Unlike many other forms of attribution, MMM aims to … 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
What is TV attribution modelling?
TV attribution modelling is an analytical process used to assign web or phone response to TV spots. When this analysis has been undertaken it is possible to aggregate all the spots and matched response into a database and report which TV channels, days of week, times of day and creative edits are most responsive or … 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
DRTV Response Rates
We’re often asked to forecast or estimate campaign response rates, especially in DRTV. Here are some guidelines for those who want them: Set 1 – DRTV Phone Response Rates (high to low range as a percentage of total impacts) DRTV Type 1 – Hard Hitters – these DRTV hard hitters, with no-nonsense creative, usually on … 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
Does social media drive sales?
The question of sales generation is a growing problem for social media. Despite all the hype, it’s almost impossible to find any conclusive cross-category evidence that social media drives sales. Yes, there are some isolated examples of success; Dell’s Twitter pages announces some great deals and I’m sure ASOS can whip up a bit of extra … Read More
What is predictive modelling in marketing?
Predictive modelling is a term with many applications in statistics but in database marketing it is a technique used to identify customers or prospects who, given their demographic characteristics or past purchase behaviour, are highly likely to purchase a given product. In this context, ‘predictive’ does not simply mean predicting the future; it means identifying the quantitative factors … 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