The outsider’s view of marketing effectiveness

In the third in our video series, created in partnership with Thinkbox, we speak to those outside the marketing world about marketing’s challenge in the boardroom, gaining the trust of the CEO and the view of effectiveness beyond marketing.

Marketers may have their own view of what makes effective marketing, but that needs to match up with the company’s view of success.

In the third episode in this series on marketing effectiveness, created in partnership with Thinkbox, we get the outsider’s view on marketing, speaking with CEOs and finance bosses to understand what they’re looking for from their marketing department.

For Mary Basterfield, UKTV CFO, marketing effectiveness comes down to the “relationship between spend and revenue and, ultimately, profitability”. While expectations might be different for each campaign, overall marketing must be seen as leading to profitable growth otherwise it’s seen as a cost.

READ MORE: How brands overcome the challenge of data overload to boost marketing effectiveness

That warning is echoed by Thomas Barta, Marketing Week columnist and the author of The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader. “If marketers aren’t seen as delivering profitable revenue, what are they? They’re a cost. And, rightly so, a cost should be reduced,” he explains.

Barta recommends marketers “get in bed with the devil” and work with finance, and talk to the rest of the board about budget, revenues, customers and profit.

READ MORE: How marketing is working with finance to shake off the ‘us versus them’ attitude

“When marketers go into senior meetings and talk about millennials, attribution, segmentation, people are losing their will to live because why would they care? They care about revenue. Very simple,” he adds.

Ian Whittaker, head of European media research at Liberum Capital, says this is becoming even more important as big companies come under pressure from activist investors. “For marketers, the more evidence they can show that what they’re doing actually works and it contributes to the bottom line, the more influence they will have.”

For more insights into the outsider’s view of marketing effectiveness watch the video above. And head here to watch the other videos in the series.

Ebiquity and Gain Theory ‘s report on making the business case for advertising can be downloaded here. 

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