Kantar launches marketing effectiveness practice
Professional services firm Kantar has established a new marketing effectiveness practice. The branch will help clients determine their marketing strategy and measure the return on their investment.
The economic and social turmoil of the last three years have been unforgiving to brands that were unable to adapt to drastic changes in the way they did business. Looking ahead in 2023, marketers continue to face major challenges, with a focus on consumer privacy, changing consumer spending behaviours, and budget cuts all looming.
As marketing departments look set to have to do more with less, measuring marketing effectiveness is more important than ever. To help examine the key metrics at play, pick out strengths and weaknesses, and improve each campaign, Kantar is launching a new means to support that.
Based in the UK while advising clients globally, the firm’s new marketing effectiveness practice will be led by Dom Boyd, Managing Director UKI for Kantar Insights, and Richard McLeod. Previously Head of Media in the UK, McLeod now becomes Head of Marketing Effectiveness.
McLeod commented, “Marketing effectiveness is top of the agenda as CMOs battle to defend budgets during the current economic climate. Many teams will be tempted to switch spend to short-termist tactics in the coming months as stakeholders ask for immediate sales impact from activity, but we know this is the wrong way to go, slowing down brands’ recovery in the long run. By bringing together the full strength of the Kantar toolkit, our new practice will help guide teams through this storm – shaping marketing strategies rooted in data and insight that can deliver sustained growth.”
Bringing together expertise, data and insight from Kantar’s analytics, media, creative, brand and consulting offerings, the team will work with marketers to identify the right balance of long-term opportunities and quick improvements. Particularly, the team will emphasise how digital channels can be better used to enhance brand equity and price power, not just deliver short-term sales targets. Kantar will use new AI-driven econometrics and campaign performance tools to predict the brand and sales impact of different marketing activities in the context of macroeconomic conditions and previous revenue data.
Kantar Insights’ UKI Managing Director, Dom Boyd, added, “The conversation around marketing effectiveness has been evolving for some time, but the broad 60:40 split between long-term brand building and short-term activation remains generally accepted. The challenge for brands now is how to apply this rule of thumb in practice in the cookie-less, connected on and offline world they’re in, and drive additional value in an inflationary environment. As teams come under extra pressure to justify their decisions commercially in the boardroom, it’s vital they maximise every pound of investment.”
