At the end of July, the AMC show Mad Men returns to television for its fourth season. The world of media and marketing has changed since the early 1960s advertising heyday. Aside from the obvious cultural changes (drinking, smoking and sexually harassing women in the office were completely acceptable, along with being racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic), the biggest difference is the introduction of an essential measurement that clients now expect their agencies to show: the marketing return on investment.
The Mad Men days were golden ones for media companies and agencies because there was little to no accountability. Marketers spent millions on TV, radio, billboards and magazines, but there was scant actual proof any of it worked. Yes, companies could look at brand sales during the same period of time as a campaign and make some judgments, but it was hardly an exact science. Media decisions were often made based on the personal—and subjective—logic and taste of the executive who carried the most weight.
Think how much money has been spent—and likely wasted—sponsoring golf tournaments and advertising on Sunday morning news shows. These are purely ego-driven buys with little defined value. Several generations of ad sales people got wealthy selling promises they knew they’d never be called on to prove.
I was one of those making the promises back in the glory days of trade publishing. We had stacks of research and presentations to back us up, and when that failed, we took the client out for an expensive dinner, spa day or ball game.
There were ad readership studies and some companies did try to attach sales measures to their ad campaigns. Direct marketers could track 800 number calls, but even that definitive measurement was of no help to companies selling through retail or distributors/resellers.
Because so much of advertising was dependent on data extrapolation and blind faith, the media business, more than any other business, was—and continues to be—transformed by the Internet and advances in technology. In fact, the ability to track and measure may be the single biggest factor driving media companies and marketers today.
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