Measuring Effectiveness: The New Math

Traditionally, a campaign was supposed to build awareness by a certain percentage within a certain time period. Benchmarks for sales and unaided recall were established. Goals were set for measurable increases in those areas over a six-month to one-year period. Today, the rules have changed. A campaign is expected to produce a bump in awareness immediately and also a bump in sales, but not just a bump in retail sales. These days it must be via multiple sales channels: retail, Internet, direct by phone and other emerging means of communication.

We are now forced to show a return on investment much sooner than we were as little as five years ago, and no two clients have the same absolute measurement for success. Last year, one of our clients wanted to show an increase in existing sales equal to what was to be spent on media within six months. Another expected a certain number of web visits after one month and a conversion rate of 20 percent immediately after that.

There may be no one measurement for success, but the demands for return on an investment are consistently far greater than they ever were before. Interactivity has made instant gratification seem more attainable. As a result, everything is compressing on itself. Internet use will become a greater medium for commerce than it ever has been. The dot-com nightmare of the ’90s will become a dream come true, and ad agencies will have to show returns that are almost instantaneous. It won’t be too long before the success of a laundry detergent spot will be measured by its success in creating online issuance of promotional coupons (or even online sales) after just a few days.

Anyone who doubts this only has to look at catalog marketers. Leads are analyzed on a day-by-day basis, as are the percentages of resulting sales. Adjustments and cancellations of media are made weekly. This method of advertising and marketing is being adopted by more major advertisers as consumer Internet use increases on a daily basis.

The demands these clients are making are not unattainable, but it takes an approach that combines branding with direct response advertising. Ad agencies used to keep these two disciplines as far from each other as possible, so there might be two very different campaigns for the same client. The problem with that dualized effort is that it is inherently too inefficient to achieve the results now expected.

In the early ’90s, we started work on a campaign for a New England HMO that did combine the branding effort and direct marketing into one integrated campaign. All television media ran as 60-second spots. The branding message was woven into the direct message in a way that worked well for both. The website was integrated into this campaign as was all print and collateral material. This campaign was so successful and so cost effective, we began to apply this methodology to all our clients’ campaigns. After a few years of doing this successfully, we realized this technique was good enough to deserve its own name, so we finally trademarked the term “Active Branding.”

Active Branding is a simple methodology. In essence, the concept is to utilize the techniques from branding and direct response respectively that will work for both. It can be limiting, because creatives do not have the luxury of developing a story for 25 seconds then revealing the client’s name or product in the last five seconds.

Conversely, the message can’t contain the kind of creative elements one might see in an overnight spot for exercise videos. However, we have had results that have justified working with those limitations.

The point is we can accomplish what seemed just a little while ago like the impossible. Interestingly, it was the change in technology and the resulting change in consumer expectations that created the challenge in the first place, and it is the use of the same technology that has provided the solution.