#map11

[naylanchan]

[Hexen] Shadow Wood: Part 2 Here, I wrap up the rest of Shadow Wood, get through an insanely hard battery of death traps (wait--isn't that half the entire game and three quarters of Rise of the Triad?), and unlock the second meta-secret in the next secret level. Next video, I'm going to the Hypostyle, where mortal combat (not the funny kind where palette-swapped ninjas uppercut each other and lose gallons of blood) awaits.

[adalyser-blog]

McDonalds love their data as much as we love their Big Macs

I have just got back from the 'Measuring Advertising Performance' 2011 conference at the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in London organised by Warc. The agenda was jam packed with nearly 20 presentations across 2 days from the leading lights of advertising - advertising agencies, research specialists and advertisers all sharing their ideas and thoughts on measurement and effectiveness of advertising. Nick Higham (BBC) was chairman and a great ringmaster, eloquently summarising points, asking probing questions and ushering proceedings along very well. 

There were case studies, bold statements, lots of graphs and charts, the latest ways to measure advertising responsiveness and effectiveness. Some fun, some unique, some were even a bit controversial. However even now in 2011 there is still a feeling that we're not quite there yet in terms of being able to properly measure the ROI of a fully integrated campaign across multiple media platforms.

 Day One 16.10. The McDonald’s story - 360 degree feedback, 365 days per year. The presentation showed in detail how well McDonald's marketing spend works for them and they had the data to prove it. Alastair Fairgrieve, VP and Chief Insight Officer gave us a very thorough overview of what drives a McDonald’s consumer to their stores for their 'fast food fix', or as he put it ‘Good Food Fast’. With 6900 restaurants throughout Europe (80% franchises) getting their marketing mix right is crucial, and with 80% of marketing spend on TV they invest heavily in tools to measure ROI.

We saw graph upon graph, showing econometric modelling detailing extremely granular data on how incremental uplift on specific ad campaigns on TV pushes the sales of a ‘big tasty’ and how their TV advertising campaigns throughout the year drove an increase in sales within each store.

What was really interesting and encouraging (along with the fact that Barry Manilow launched his career singing a jingle in an American McDonald’s advert back in the 70’s), was that here was arguably one of the biggest and most recognisable brands in the world embracing data, and I mean really embracing it.

They use this data to determine effectiveness of marketing investment at every level. Even taking into account certain ‘retail factors’, they see a 13% increase in sales down to the marketing spend and Alastair strongly believes in measurement tools. He said “Tools and measurement build and stabilise relationships with media partners”.

McDonalds seem to really know what they are doing in this area, at least that's the impression I got. What seemed crucial alongside the data and interpreting the data was getting buy in from the very top and working together with their media agency and the internal marketing teams to optimise their campaigns on an ongoing basis and keep looking at the data in as close to real time as possible. 

What else did I learn? 

There are a huge amount of media touchpoints these days - This makes mixed marketing campaigns very hard to measure.

A good creative campaign will be twice as efficient.

Having all of your campaigns measured together rather than in silos is the future.

Do not rely on one method to get to the 'Holy Grail'

There is no 'Holy Grail'

Oh yes and Ann Perkins of Heinz likes melted cheese and lots of pepper on her beans on toast, I know this because it was the last question of the conference...and I asked it.

If you want to read a more detailed (serious) overview of the conference visit the Warc website.