ANA Marketing Accountability Task Force Findings

Background In a January 2005 ANA survey of senior marketers, accountability was listed as their number one issue. Work in this area has been and is a key initiative of the ANA and to respond to the concerns of its members, the ANA convened a marketing accountability task force. The purpose of the task force was twofold: () to review current best practices used by ANA member companies to improve their marketing accountability; and (2) to provide a practical catalog of accountability metrics used by industry practitioners from which marketers may choose those appropriate to their unique situation. Twenty ANA member companies participated in this task force and we are indebted to them and their representatives for sharing their accountability experiences, their organizational issues, successes and challenges. The fact that companies of this caliber and people suffering from permanent calendar-overload took the time to participate is testimony to the urgency and timeliness of the subject. We thank the ANA Board of Directors, currently chaired by Jim Stengel, Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble, for their invaluable input into this project. Lastly, the ANA thanks Gordon Wade, Founding Partner of the EMM Group, for his tenacity, enthusiasm and skillful leadership of this task force. We hope this report contributes to making marketing more accountable so that consumers and customers have an enhanced sense of value, profitable brands may flourish, shareholders may be enriched and marketing professionals may see their chosen profession recognized for its irreplaceable contribution to our economy and culture. 3 Every other function is held accountable for its return on investment. No longer can marketing expect a free pass from management and shareholders. Marketing is competing with every other function in the company for a limited pool of shareholder dollars. If this function alone cannot or will not prove its relative efficiency, management will not keep feeding the beast. Management has no other place to turn for additional savings. Every other function has been six sigma'ed and TQM'ed into fighting trim. Management believes the supply chain has no more slack. Management believes operations are wound tight. The view from the corner office sees the marketing function as the last grape with any juice left unsqueezed. Marketing can be measured more precisely today than in the recent past. The confluence of a torrent of data, powerful hardware and agile software has totally changed the measurement environment. Marketing can no longer …