Summary of conference on marketing effectiveness and efficiency.

1. Is my marketing profitable Conference Report
enough?
Marketers should exploit maths to amplify the examined two companies who had identified when
impact of creativity in their marketing campaigns; to spend, how much on each media, how to allocate
and these methods are widely applicable, even for across products and how much to spend overall, in
companies with limited data and small budgets. both cases more than doubling marketing
These were key messages of this one day effectiveness.
conference held on 14th November 2012. The
event mixed practice and theory, with speakers Fiona Stewart examined the way marketing
from a variety of industries examining a multitude dashboards are used to drive marketing
of ways of making marketing more effective and accountability, stressing the importance of aligning
ultimately profitable. them with strategic objectives. Mark Greatorex
examined how to supercharge the effectiveness of
On the practical side, case studies from Citibank, your marketing spend through greater intimacy
Wrigley, Universal Music and other organisations between procurement and marketing budget
underlined the importance of giving equal priority holders; he contrasted the traditional procurement
to the science and the art of marketing. As Jane approach that focuses on sourcing and contracting
Griffiths from Citibank commented, getting noticed with suppliers and the more innovative approach
is an essential part of marketing's mission and, that embraces supplier management; he illustrated
although creativity is essential, maths helps achieve this with an example in the entertainment sector,
consistently higher impact across all customer where procurement manages the media agency and
contact points; success depends on choosing an uses econometric analysis to ensure that media
experienced marketing-maths specialist, who is buying drives the maximum incremental profits.
more likely to be found through personal
recommendation rather than from your existing Matthew Taylor of Ipsos MORI showed how
agency. public sector marketers evaluate their marketing
effectiveness. He described a four step evaluation
Bryan Finn showed three case studies. First, in process that is used to ensure that public sector
professional services, with limited data and tight marketing delivers the maximum value for money.
budgets, benchmarking provided valuable insights
on marketing ROI and targeting. For an ice cream On the theory side, Cass Business School
producer, with more data and budgets, Professor, Robert Shaw, showed how the basis of
econometrics uncovered even deeper insights into these improvements is basic maths that has been
marketing ROI. Finally for a charity, econometrics around for many years, but only recently
found important halo and carryover effects that discovered by marketers. Applying them to the
made a substantial difference marketing strategy. simplest reach and frequency calculations can yield
efficiency improvements with nothing more than a
Kim MacClarty of Wrigley made a case for pocket calculator. However, in real situations, with
analysing the effect of trade promotions as well as multiple channels and products, modern computing
consumer ones and emphasised the importance of power and specialist software are needed to
working with trade customers to obtain shared calculate the answers, even though the basic
benefits. principles remain the same.
David Merrick showed that striking performance Report written by Professor Robert Shaw,
improvements can be made, by calculating the For more information contact: robert@bizecon.com
precise marketing mix that optimises impact. He 21 November 2012