Presentation: Thoughts on Marketing Accountability

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by: Alain Thys

In the 20 years I’ve been in business, keeping score has been simple.  When I hit double-digit growth and profit numbers for Mexx or Reebok … times were good. When my dot-com incubator imploded … times were bad.  Yet for the years I’ve had “marketer” on my business card, I’ve never been able to figure out whether the near € 100 million I’ve helped burn, really made a difference.  And that bothers me.

Yet when I look around me, not that many people seem that bothered.  That is why I put together this presentation in which I attempt to demonstrate that marketing needs to become more accountable if it is to have a future (and more importantly, how this can be done). 

It goes hand in hand with a number of other projects in the area of marketing accountability we’re involved in, like a workshop at MCE, a marketing accountability report due in November and a Marketing Accountability Experimentation Lab, about which you’ll be hearing more soon.  Oh yes, I’m delivering it for the first time today at Ogilvy’s ROI day, so wish me luck 🙂