The Future of Agencies and Marketers is Proof-Based

Where success will be greatest we wager will be where the agency strives to deliver both of these things There will need to be third party proof about the performance partThe agency would be wise to propose including clauses in client contracts that would enable the compiling of ROI results anonymously for marketing of the agencyAgencies of the future who will be the most successful will be ones that are so confident they work for cost plus share of incremental sales andor share of incremental equity valueSuch confidence is only possible to the degree that the agency adopts scientific rigor The Advertising Research Foundation ARF whose mission is to increase the use of science in marketing advertising and media has just announced RCT21 a new initiative with 605 Central Control and Bill Harvey Consulting which provides peerreviewed scientific Random Control Trial verification of the hypotheses derived from attributionWe are looking to convert the industry to a system that follows the workflow of science In science first you observe then you experiment All of the attribution methodologies are in the schematic below in the curved arrow called quotObservationquot The attribution suppliers are what generate the questions and hypotheses Without observation first science stops dead in its tracks Marketers stop there and place our bets on the roulette wheel of reality Science doesn39t stop there it goes on to test the hypotheses by means of experimentation That way they can be certain of facts and learn knowledge That way marketers can stop gambling and be sure of outcomes before we make our multimillion dollar movesAdding experiments to what we do does not reduce the role of attribution instead itVerifies or disconfirms the hypothesesMakes attribution better Attribution companies will seek to improve their algorithms to better predict the findings of RCTsMakes the attribution companies stronger as in the end they will be the ones doing the RCTs RCT21 is to develop the training materials for them to take over the taskIn marketing and advertising the use of experimentation has gone by the wayside We delude ourselves to think that what we learn from the coincidences of the past is robust enough to predict what will work this next time MMM MTA TRA NCS Shopcom 605 et al are all observational and we all use inductive logic to tease out what might be findings about X causing Y or not We stop at that point make a judgment call and like a gambler without solid proof we bet that this will be a good investmentYour current gut judgments are what guides the tens of millions of dollars you spend Wouldn39t you like to be able to make decisions with more certainty about what the results will beThe most successful of us do not stop with correlation The FAANGs DCTs Direct Marketers they use Random Control Trials RCTs experiments Is that why they are so much more successful and roll over the preexisting marketing geniuses in category after category In a word YES That is indeed the whole pointThe media costs are all working media costs Putting them under the measurement of the RCT does not diminish their marketplace impact The minuteness of the research cost for true science is now a reality Please look at RCT21 It is not a lot of work for the marketer or agency nor a lot of money How often do you get to be protected by peerreviewed researchThe practitioners of the near future will learn this lesson so well they can teach itThe way it has been up to nowWhat it shall beSomeday soon a very successful agency will offer Proofs of Concept POC to new clients based on RCTsClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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The Future of Agencies and Marketers is Proof-Based

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Bill Harvey

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