The problem is that the school of thought on the latter seems to be a hymn sheet only the marketing industry sings from. Anyone outside marketing considers it a cost, albeit a cost with some potential return, on some measure, at some point, with some caveats (all things being equal this should deliver x). An investment usually implies a quantifiable return that can be largely attributed to the initial stake. And that’s where things slowly start to fall apart.

I don’t think A&P departments are being treated unfairly when asked to provide justification for marketing budgets. It seems perfectly acceptable to me that in any instance or project where significant amounts of money are being spent one should be entitled to ask “what is the expected return on this?” whether that’s investment in an IT upgrade, a revamped website or even an advertising campaign.

As an industry we need to get better at due diligence, the “trust me, I’m a doctor” line doesn’t work anymore, CEO’s/FD’s want to see the wound and want a post-surgery report.

As an industry we are getting better and I commend TAM Ireland for taking the reins on this but we still have a lot to do if we are win over the doubters. I’m being facetious in saying that nobody outside marketing believes that advertising works, of course everyone would agree that advertising works on a macro level but when you try and isolate the effects on a micro level, whether that is on a specific campaign or a specific channel it becomes difficult. Even in digital channels it becomes difficult as we always attribute the sale to the last click without fully understanding the digital journey, never mind the offline journey of influence, before a search query or sale.

At Dentsu, whether it’s through the media side of our businesses in Carat, Vizeum or iProspect or through the creative side via Isobar, we are increasingly working with data to identify the effect of media on a client’s business. We have access to best-in-class econometric statisticians who model advertising effectiveness and at a group level we are working on next generation real time data analytics modelling with enhanced predictive capabilities. One of the problems with econometrics in its previous guise is that it’s always retrospective, telling you where you have been and what has already happened.

Another problem, particularly in a market the size of Ireland is that entry level costs for a weighty econometric project are disproportionately high compared to a UK client wishing to engage in such a project. There is an onus on media agencies to continue to prove a case for return on investment but return on investment should also consider investment in creative rather than just the media investment. As an industry I would like to see a united front from media owners, there are lots of intra-media studies around the effectiveness of television, or search, or outdoor, but we need more robust case studies on total advertising effectiveness generally.

Clients are finding themselves increasingly pressured to make a case for advertising investment. As an industry we often struggle to answer what, from an outsider’s perspective, seems an obvious question. How much should I invest? What does it take to launch a brand in this category? How much do I need if I want to grow to x% market share? What happens if I increase my budget by 50%? Should I make a new TV ad? While one can never give an exact answer, we should at least have a bank of research upon which to draw from.

While this is a great first step I think at an industry level it would be even better to get ourselves on par with UK in terms of an advertising intelligence resource and a sizeable knowledge bank of case studies.