Is my marketing profitable

enough?

Conference Report

Marketers should exploit maths to amplify the

impact of creativity in their marketing campaigns;

and these methods are widely applicable, even for

companies with limited data and small budgets.

These were key messages of this one day

conference held on 14th November 2012. The

event mixed practice and theory, with speakers

from a variety of industries examining a multitude

of ways of making marketing more effective and

ultimately profitable.

On the practical side, case studies from Citibank,

Wrigley, Universal Music and other organisations

underlined the importance of giving equal priority

to the science and the art of marketing. As Jane

Griffiths from Citibank commented, getting noticed

is an essential part of marketing's mission and,

although creativity is essential, maths helps achieve

consistently higher impact across all customer

contact points; success depends on choosing an

experienced marketing-maths specialist, who is

more likely to be found through personal

recommendation rather than from your existing

agency.

Bryan Finn showed three case studies. First, in

professional services, with limited data and tight

budgets, benchmarking provided valuable insights

on marketing ROI and targeting. For an ice cream

producer, with more data and budgets,

econometrics uncovered even deeper insights into

marketing ROI. Finally for a charity, econometrics

found important halo and carryover effects that

made a substantial difference marketing strategy.

Kim MacClarty of Wrigley made a case for

analysing the effect of trade promotions as well as

consumer ones and emphasised the importance of

working with trade customers to obtain shared

benefits.

David Merrick showed that striking performance

improvements can be made, by calculating the

precise marketing mix that optimises impact. He

examined two companies who had identified when

to spend, how much on each media, how to allocate

across products and how much to spend overall, in

both cases more than doubling marketing

effectiveness.

Fiona Stewart examined the way marketing

dashboards are used to drive marketing

accountability, stressing the importance of aligning

them with strategic objectives. Mark Greatorex

examined how to supercharge the effectiveness of

your marketing spend through greater intimacy

between procurement and marketing budget

holders; he contrasted the traditional procurement

approach that focuses on sourcing and contracting

with suppliers and the more innovative approach

that embraces supplier management; he illustrated

this with an example in the entertainment sector,

where procurement manages the media agency and

uses econometric analysis to ensure that media

buying drives the maximum incremental profits.

Matthew Taylor of Ipsos MORI showed how

public sector marketers evaluate their marketing

effectiveness. He described a four step evaluation

process that is used to ensure that public sector

marketing delivers the maximum value for money.

On the theory side, Cass Business School

Professor, Robert Shaw, showed how the basis of

these improvements is basic maths that has been

around for many years, but only recently

discovered by marketers. Applying them to the

simplest reach and frequency calculations can yield

efficiency improvements with nothing more than a

pocket calculator. However, in real situations, with

multiple channels and products, modern computing

power and specialist software are needed to

calculate the answers, even though the basic

principles remain the same.

Report written by Professor Robert Shaw,

For more information contact: robert@bizecon.com

21 November 2012