Curious Thoughts from Curious Minds: Those of Us in Glass Houses... - Tom Telesco - MediaBizBloggers

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The recent financial crisis, whose dark clouds finally seem to be lifting, certainly caused a lot of finger-pointing and long-winded, Monday Morning Quarterback-type dialogue, much of it along the theme of "How could they let this happen?" Of course, "they" would be the high-flying financiers and government cronies who were supposed to be smart enough to understand the risks associated with their funky investment strategies that started the whole mess to begin with.

Shouldn't those investment gurus have known the likely ROI and associated risk that went along with their investment plans?

The answer, of course, is "Yes." But to that I say:

Who among us in the media planning biz should be hurling stones?

The fact of the matter is, if you're in charge of media planning on behalf of your client, you're responsible for the investment of (likely) millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars… most of it probably shareholders' money.

So ask yourself:

Do you know the likely ROI that goes along with your investment plans?

I think we all know the probable answer to that question.

The fact of the matter is, there does not seem to be enough curiosity amongst media planners as to the efficacy of their investment choices. Plans are developed – annually for most, weekly for others, daily for some (or so it seems) – and the underpinnings of many of those plans are basic media consumption profiles, competitive benchmarking, or perhaps some broader contact study, if you're lucky. But nothing is typically available as to the bang for the buck that the client is getting for their investment.

Aren't media planners actually investment advisers for our clients? And if that is true, shouldn't we have a better handle on the return on those investments?

Yes we should…but true analytics is often time consuming, often expensive, and is often a data challenge for agencies and clients alike. And yes, many clients just don't want to pay for it, or may not truly accept and/or leverage the (sometimes controversial) results.

Yes…and? That's no reason "not to know." And the fact of the matter is, you can begin to understand the ROI of your investments even if you cannot push a true analytics model to reality (although that is always preferred). At UM, I've seen many simple but often overlooked learning opportunities pushed forward to fruition on behalf of our clients. These were not time-consuming and were not expensive but did result in very useful learning. Just a few such examples include 1) benchmarking client and competitive spending vs. consumer-generated perceptions of a) the advertisers' presence in individual channels, and b) consumer sentiment as to the efficacy of those channels to determine ROI (pretty inexpensive to do); 2) "old school" media mix tests to help determine channel effectiveness and refine media strategies; and 3) the basic interpretation of – and leveraging of – DRTV call response data to aid in a TV creative rotation, or even print and online selections.

So, while true multivariate regression models are invariably the preferred pathway to ROI enlightenment, if you cannot perform one, there is no excuse for being kept in the dark on some basic ROI measures of your client's media investment.

Stay curious. Push for what's right. Learn what's working, and what's not. And handle your client's investment with the best of care.

Tom is EVP, Managing Director, Tom currently directs media planning activity on Verizon, leading the national media charge on that enormous business and establishing a leadership position for UM in relation to that client's other agency partners.

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