Dr Grace Kite, Managing Director, Magic Numbers has started an initiative with the IPA to collect together a large number of effectiveness analysis results.
Do you ever struggle to convince people that industry findings apply to your specific business, in your category, at this point in time?
It’s something that senior marketers I speak to are living through every time they write a strategy or allocate a budget. They say things like this:
“I’m a big avid follower of the IPA work, you know Les Binet and Peter Field’s work. But we don’t want to borrow the titbits, you know, the 60-40 rule and so on. That’s not enough. Because it’s hard for the business to change. How do we move away from decision-making the business is comfortable with? That we’ve been using for a good number of years.”
The problem is that databank findings and other industry studies point in a particular direction, but it still feels risky. There are other things that could be done with the budget which have a more certain outcome.
We all know that the right thing to do for marketing effectiveness depends on the circumstances an advertiser finds itself in. Making industry findings relevant means digging further. Finding out how things are different in different categories, or for different types of advertiser. Establishing what ‘it depends’ on.
That’s why, with the IPA, I’ve started an initiative to collect together a large number of effectiveness analysis results. Not just award entrants this time, but also evaluations of ordinary campaigns from the marketing front lines. 2021 will mark the first push on creating this database, but the intention is it will continue to grow. That it will become an ongoing source of learning about effectiveness, and a way to see, as time goes on, how we as an industry are changing.
The plan is to look at different categories, different sized businesses, and big vs small spenders, and ask some chewy questions, including these….
We’re imagining a future where every marketer can point to benchmarks that are directly relevant. Where we can all learn from the best and worst practice out there. And most importantly of all, where we can turn the tide on declining effectiveness and collectively get better at what we do.
At the moment, we are talking to marketing effectiveness analysts, especially econometrics providers, asking for them to contribute their cases. We want the data to cover as many marketing cases as possible.
If you can help, please get in touch with me via my LinkedIn or Twitter profiles.