something about an interlace

busy times still to come. to share with you some of my stories, i though instead i may share an article with you that I wrote recently, which received good feedback from an experienced lecturer. pretty straightforward and uncomplicated, but obviously the points came across. never mind the block letters. hope you enjoy it.

Measurement tactics should match the campaign’s objectives

The great measurement debate primarily involves three main components - the client, the media agencies, and digital media companies. The discussion wanders around how clients most effectively can measure the actions that are driven as a result of their communications.

The first and foremost important thing to consider for clients when they want to measure the effectiveness of a campaign is to set clear objectives of what they actually want to measure, which obviously could include sales, talkability and brand awareness among some. Objectives should hence depend on the nature of the clients business. Thus, if it is direct business to consumer-campaign, one might suggest that it becomes easier to rely on real-time measurement tools that can indicate sales and primary contact points simultaneously. While as for another company who are distributing and promoting their product(s) through a third party (retailer), the post-research objectives might be set to prioritise other factors - increasing sales is not always a campaigns core goal.

When setting its post-analytical objectives, the client should also naturally decide on how much money they are willing to allocate for such errand - using a full-blown econometric modelling approach, hence using a real-time AND post-analytical method for an integrated marketing campaign can be very costly for a smaller business. Digital media companies offer cost- and time efficient tools for immediate results but lacks the holistic approach that a media agency can offer.
A more thorough analysis of the campaign’s results including reach, distribution, media frequency, revenue targets and brand awareness etc. might hence match the clients post-research objectives better, but again, how much time (delay) and money is the client willing to spend?

A great debate example raised by one of the class members was RAC’s car insurance. Sure that one campaign-objective could be to sell more car insurance, which then, in the short-term, immediately can be translated into sales - RAC is a B2C company with no middlemen, hence they could benefit from the digital ‘tool box’-alternative when they perform their post-campaign analysis.
But another objective for RAC is evidently to build brand awareness amongst drivers (and others), not just current drivers but future ones as well who might purchase their insurance when they become car owners - perhaps later today or in five years, maybe more. How can you then accurately measure whether the campaign worked or not? For that matter, RAC need to utilise a more holistic (and delayed) measurement plan to receive valuable information about the campaign’s impact.

A company’s economic resources and the campaign’s objectives are hence fundamental components that will decide the impact of the measurement.