CMO Issues: Accountability and Metrics

Accountability still counts!

 

Chief marketing officers are under pressure as never before to be accountable for results. This is nothing new, really, but with more marketing tools at their disposal and the constraint of carefully-controlled budgets, accountability is a priority.

This means that metrics have to be chosen and applied to enable CMOs to track, measure, and evaluate marketing campaigns in great detail. No wonder CMOs are examining media and social media metrics to be sure that these reflect the reality of how campaigns are performing and avoid misleading, fraudulent, and imprecise measures.

Meanwhile, social media platforms are introducing better metrics and analysis tools to enable measurement and performance assessment. This is crucial, because CMOs must be able to trust the numbers. However, despite closer scrutiny of marketing tactics and results, a few CMOs are either choosing inappropriate/old-fashioned metrics or not selecting metrics at all.

Another way to look at accountability is through the lens of big-picture marketing goals. Some businesses use the Net Promoter Score to see how marketing affects the customer experience and willingness to recommend the brand or organization. No matter which metrics you apply, be sure you are measuring what matters--and include interim benchmarks in your marketing, so you can adjust campaigns if preliminary results aren't close to present targets.

Marketing, Art or Science?

art or science?

Trick question, because the answer is both, as you know.

But how much of marketing is art and how much is science? The Australian CMO of a software firm says today's marketing is 70% science, 30% art. Basically, if you're not using science (meaning sophisticated analyses, Big Data, etc.) to inform decisions, you're not optimizing your business...but without the creativity of art, marketing can't touch hearts and minds.

Other marketing execs agree that science is an integral part of targeting, in particular. In the quest for "right time, right place, right message," a YouTube marketing exec argues that the science angle is helping pinpoint the right time and right place, but the art angle is the key ingredient in the right message, critical for brand "magic."

The CMO of Progressive Insurance comments that "A lot of marketers are so proud of their art but they don't know their science." In fact Progressive relies on the art for quirky commercials starring Flo and a cast of characters that engage audiences. But the company also has in-house media buying so it can control exactly what gets placed where and when--the science. "We're not going to outspend anybody. We're going to out-create them," is how he says Progressive competes in an intense marketplace.

The head of strategy at an agency notes: "There are cases where all evidence points to a course of action or where intuition has to prevail and we need to be careful to take these chances even where we know measurement is thin." In other words, trust to creativity for breakthrough marketing.

In the end, effectiveness is what matters the most, measured by metrics that relate to strategic KPIs (key performance indicators). And science can help marketers do a better job of planning, testing, and measuring effectiveness of the art in brand communication. Art and science for today's marketing!

Mobile Advertising Skyrockets

DIGITAL AD REVENUE TOPS $32 BILLION 

in first half of 2016

New research from the Internet Advertising Bureau and PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows digital ad revenue way up from this time last year. In the lead: mobile, which reportedly accounts for nearly half of all Internet ad revenue.

Mobile video and mobile search have seen dramatic increases. In another report, Zenith says mobile will be 75% of US Internet use by end of 2017. Not surprisingly, media buying firm Zenith projects that mobile advertising will capture 60% of Internet ad dollars worldwide by the end of 2018. To put that into hard numbers: In 2018, mobile advertising spend alone will reach $134 billion worldwide, "more than will be spent on newspaper, magazine, cinema and outdoor advertising put together," says Zenith.

Facebook captures a lot of that digital ad revenue, even as it plans to cut back on some ads on news feeds. In fact, Facebook figured out a way around AdBlocker Plus software, reasoning that ads allow FB content to remain free and therefore users should have to see ads (as long as the ads aren't terribly intrusive). Google and YouTube are also strong in digital ad revenue as parent company Alphabet continues moving deeper into mobile marketing.

What are the implications for traditional media? For newspapers in particular, the trend is not good. Stay tuned.

McDonald's and Content Marketing

In 2016, McDonald's is serving up a lot of marketing content worldwide--at least 5,000 items of content, as estimated by the company. It's active in all the usual media (broadcast, print, etc.) and across the range of social media (FB, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc).

McD's chief marketing officer observes: "Defining marketing by these channel-based labels is actually absurd in today's world." Having a consistent voice and message is challenging but critical in this marketing environment.

So is speed, which is why McDonald's has cut the number of meetings with its agencies and streamlined the process to, well, bring content to market faster. In the words of another McD's exec, "it’s no longer the big that eat the small, it is the fast that eat the slow."

Above, an example of how McDonald's Canada is using online content to support the launch of a new McWrap product. If you want to watch the video, be prepared for four hours of food preparation, a bit like watching a McWrap food channel. Actually, the video includes images captured for other content (such as commercials) and it became newsworthy because of its unusual length.

Updates on media and marketing

For the latest news on media and marketing around the clock and around the world, click to some of these publications:

• Marketing Daily
• Advertising Age
• Publisher's Daily
• Adweek
• Social Times
• Search Marketing Daily