Opinion: Marketing Society - Research and respond

by John Billett, chairman of Billetts and a member of The Marketing Society, Marketing 19-Jul-06

Forty years ago, as a trainee in the marketing, advertising and media business, the words 'experiment', 'test', 'research', 'develop', 'amend', 'validation', 'control' and 'learn' were drummed into me as effective codes for organising and managing commercial communications.

Now, I get to see how a broad cross-section of advertising and media
agencies go about improving marketing communications, as more than 42%
of the money spent on planning by the UK advertising sector goes through

Billetts' media and marketing performance-management systems.

As a judge in the 2006 IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards, I've just
completed reviewing the best our industry produces, and I am sad to say
that the more rigorous approach to communications planning has fallen by
the wayside. Current communications effectiveness practice regards the
concept of continuous learning as a weakness.

Only in marketing are executions launched with no opportunity to learn,
take stock and change as the activity takes place. The plans of industry
leaders in product development, production, logistics, finance and the
supply chain all incorporate opportunities to draw evidence of
performance from the markets and customers' responses. Positive change
is strength. Research and measurement are built in to the process as a
contribution to improvement.

Direct marketing and internet media agencies operate in this way. So why
don't traditional communications agencies embrace this working method?
Perhaps they are scared to admit that their campaign is not a
panacea.

In today's business climate, the empty hypothesis and unsubstantiated
hyperbole of the planning community is earning the 'emperor's new
clothes' sobriquet.

Time and again, research is being tacked on to the end of a campaign as
a post hoc method of justifying the communication approach, when it
should be built in as a constant opportunity to amend, change and
improve.

Econometric modelling, instead of being an integral part of the campaign
learning process, is almost an afterthought to add supposed weight to an
otherwise loose-limbed campaign plan. It is even carried out by the
company that created the campaign - akin to marking its own
homework.

Hardly ever do campaign plans use test and control methods to secure
customer response, which can be used as inputs for change. Unless
communication agencies embrace experiment, test, research, control and
validate, the current drizzle of declining advertising budgets will
become a storm.