For those who’ve seen my presentations at research, media, travel and sports conferences, over the years, inevitably you’ve heard me utter my parable about how too many organizations use research only like a drunk uses a lamp post…for support rather than for its intended purpose,…illumination. I’ve been invited to speak around the country over the past few months, about the heightened demand for Return on Investment measurement in these categories. And while it pleases me that this topic has been brought to the forefront, I’m irked to report, that the old parable probably needs some dusting off and reinforcement. Too many people continue to look for the fast and typically flawed “official scorecard” to prove a point, rather than take a more holistic approach that can actually build a brand or a marketing partner’s brand, by moving away from elusive hard metrics and towards true insights. But it’s easy for marketers to become so self centered, as we “live our brands”, that the forest becomes obscured by the trees. Here then, fresh from discussing this with industry leaders around the country, are the basic things we all need to remember when thinking about measuring the impact of our marketing and media investments.

1. Move Beyond ScoreKeeping: If research becomes nothing more than a number to mark your territory and position yourself against the competition, you will always inevitably wind up disappointed. Firstly, so much of the current or proposed broad “currency” is built on methodological short-cuts and other inherent flaws that you will ultimately lose as your brand becomes commoditized by those who can benefit by doing so (for example, an agency trying to negotiate down a CPM). Funny, but media and sports properties continue to victimize themselves in this way, pursuing a futile hunt for the foolproof, easy, catch-all, cross channel measurement tool that is simply not cost effective or possible in a world of marketing mix convergence. I’ve written previously about this, and I can sum it up best with another great quote from someone else: "[Too many] media researchers want data that is perfect and add little analysis or interpretation to it. Market researchers know the data they use is flawed and use it, with other information to converge on a solution."

2. Return On Objectives is a more realistic and productive measurement goal than Return On Investment: Absent rigorous and often cost prohibitive experimental design, it’s simply inefficient to attribute direct investment return on singular marketing tactics. But one can design research programs to gauge how effectively your brand’s key and (hopefully) differentiated benefits and message points are being associated with your brands, by your target audience. These are inevitably custom designed research programs, with you and/or your marketing partner’s objectives built in. Such an approach can reasonably isolate exposed and non-exposed populations, and assess the resonance of your messaging over time. Done well, this approach to research is less threatening than scorekeeping because all parties “win” fresh knowledge, and ideally that transforms the relationship away from often punitive measurement “currency” to one of mutual cooperation and insight aimed at improving the marketing relationship and future efforts. Such an approach also takes into account the importance of building brand equity among a wider audience of stake-holders, that over longer time horizons have direct impact on brand success. See point number three, below.

3. There are other Elements in the Value Chain Between the Message and the consumer: In high involvement purchase categories such as travel and sports, our research continues to demonstrate that the path between brand and offer messaging and ultimate purchase, has become more complex and more considered. This supports the earlier points that attribution of a single marketing mix element on a purchase is largely folly. But it also suggests a need to look at other impacts in measuring branding success. In particular, recent work across travel and sports categories reinforces the heightened importance of understanding how one’s brand is evangelized virally (both through literal word of mouth and social media) and at retail. This again suggests a separate and custom research approach that acknowledges category and competitive set specific dynamics. Such an approach is increasingly quite critical, particularly in today’s more value-conscious society. All of the best consumer marketing in the world can become undone, if other category influencers sway a target away from your brand. Absent a look into those elements and you might mistakenly throw the baby out with the bath water.