[2009 trends] ROI and accountability - major themes

Until now, advertisers have only been able to take their communication budgets up to an implementation phase with the tools available to them. From there on in, there is no measure against actual sales which could account for the ROI and effectiveness of their choices, or the impact of other variables. The ideal solution would be to isolate and determine which campaign components or media were the most, or least, effective.

Scientific methodology

Any advertiser will tell you that they want channels and platforms which deliver the best results for their business. Of course they do. The big question is how? I believe the answer has to be a scientific methodology which inputs the activated communication strategies and tracks individual media platforms back to actual sales data. It's the only way to provide tangible accountability and defined ROI.

Any major retailer will reflect very different sales data on different products in different locations, for example, Sandton as opposed to Springs or Daveyton. How does an FMCG brand manager know why his product is outselling in one area, and not moving in another? He doesn't. This inevitably means that more of the advertising budget will be thrown behind the brand as a whole, in the hope that sales will improve.

In terms of new media, advertisers and marketers are unsure as to how a new platform will positively affect sales, resulting in a lot of guess work in post-campaign analysis. Valuable budget is often wasted because marketers are not aware of where the saturation point for every advertised product is.

Save a lot of money

There comes a time when, no matter how much advertising budget is spent on any particular brand, product or service, the sales or transactions for that brand will level out - the saturation point. Using a carefully calculated method of tracking where the money is spent and drilling down to sales results of products, region and category, marketers can save a lot of money and identify specific geographical areas and product categories which require more, or less, media spend.

Forecasting of stock has in the past proved to be extremely difficult for retailers as each media campaign may deliver very different results. A lack of accurate forecasting will have a negative effect on production, logistics, finance, sales and marketing.

The other advantage to scientifically calculating ROI is the ability to track competitive activity especially in the retail sector, quantify the rand value of the product you're selling, and provide an accurate gauge for how much of your advertising spend is really being wasted.

While I believe that 2009 is going to be tougher with several account moves, budget cuts and more pressure on marketers and brand managers to ensure their product or service retains its share of voice with less spend, accountability should be one less thing to worry about.