ROI or Bust

Recently, the famed word-of-mouth marketing agency, BzzAgent offered companies an opportunity to test their traditional media campaigns against a BzzAgent. If the agency did not outperform traditional media by 20%, the company’s money would be refunded.

AdAge Article
WOMMA Article

Although this may simply be a publicity stunt to bring attention to word of mouth marketing, I think more people should take notice. Marketers in general should be holding their partners more accountable for their campaigns ability to contribute to the overall growth of a business. If an agency is unable to craft a program that brings customers in and rings the register they should not be rewarded.

In today’s corporate environment ROI comes down to one thing – the sales numbers. If I’m not hitting my forecasts than neither your agency nor myself are being effective. When have you heard of a CMO losing a job because he couldn’t increase brand awareness? You don’t because they are always being canned because their company/brand has failed to meet its numbers at the end of the fiscal.

Now some may argue that the success in a media campaign is not always seen in the numbers. And my response is that you are absolutely correct. Unfortunately today’s companies are not judged by their brand visibility or reputation among the customer base – they are judged on the numbers. The same goes for the client, he/she is not measured on how flashy and well liked a campaign might be, and instead he/she is judged by how they increased sales.

It comes down to today’s agencies have to work harder for their clients because expectations and the repercussions are much higher.

Generation Y Will Change the Face of Marketing

The other day I was listening to the podcast "Six Pixels of Separation" with Mitch Joel, which I highly recommend, and an interesting topic was brought up by his guest Douglas Rushkoff. Basically they began discussing the importance individualized branding has become, especially among the millennials. I then started thinking about how we are affected by the always increasing brand messages that we encounter on a daily basis and what the impact is.

After much thought I came to the conclusion the constant bombardment of brand information makes us smarter consumers and forces marketers to step up their game to become noticed. It's like the teacher who has been around since the beginning of time and has heard every excuse for a student not having their homework. With the information at our finger tips we have the ability to see through the trickery and see those brands that are genuine and those that are not.

As this new generation matures and plays a larger role in society you will see a substantial change in the way marketers will be approaching consumers. Instead of a gimmick they will go back to the basics and develop relationships with their customers and listen to them. It is the beauty of the internet, it is the unique ability that can humanize a brand and allow customers to associate faces and personalities to it.

Don't Be Ashamed of 80's Pop

I'm waiting for the day Rick Astley is either on a reality series or in a commercial. It's truly amazing, this guy is all over the web and it has gotten to the point where you can't get away from him...not that it is a bad thing, it's actually kind of interesting. With the addition of the Rick Rolling phenomenon - which happened to get Never Gonna Give You Up the New York Met's Theme song this year (You Guys Rock) - makes him a marketers dream.