The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) is encouraging marketers to adopt a formal learning agenda to drive effectiveness, in a new report.
The ‘Making Effectiveness Work’ report introduces a new approach to effectiveness culture, advising marketers to take a Model-Experiment-Simulate-Implement (MESI) approach to their learning agenda.
The MESI method involves a combination of approaches and can be used for tactical, campaign and strategic decisions, the IPA says.
The starting step is to begin with a model. That could be marketing mix modelling (MMM), data-driven attribution or consumer modelling. The aim of this is to map marketing effectiveness and highlight where changing the plan might be most effective.
The second step is experimentation. The IPA recommends that marketers experiment with the changes they are considering to find out what they need to know and move forward.
Finally, marketers must use all they have learned, implement it and scale, with evidence from the modelling and experimentation providing powerful persuasive tools to win over stakeholders.
The authors of the report describe a formal learning agenda as a commitment to experimentation, innovation and (hopefully) better understanding and better results. They argue it is more focused than a programme of research and analytics, and can also help cut by providing information that can change minds and decisions.
“This report aims to help steer marketers through the effectiveness thicket, using the core techniques of marketing mix modelling, experiments and attribution,” says the IPA’s director of effectiveness Laurence Green.
“What they will find is that the solution lies more in establishing a decisive, effectiveness culture than in chasing the perfect evaluation technique.”