Advertising Made Accountable

Last year, broadcast advertisers invested hundreds of billions of dollars in 30-second commercials. Only a handful of those marketers were able to gauge the exact return on their investment. Small wonder that Advertising Accountability was one of the central topics at this year's ANA Conference.

If 30-second campaigns are often a case of the blind leading the blind, then direct marketing campaigns may well represent the enlightened leading the enlightened.

Within days, sometimes hours, you can begin to gauge the effectiveness of your message according to whatever response mechanisms you decide to place in the advertising. If your message is working, you may choose to increase your media investment -- especially since, at that point, it will indeed be an investment as opposed to an expense. If your commercial is not working, you can dial down your expenditures and adjust your messaging. And, of course, you can also gauge the effectiveness of different messages in different markets.