In early 2004, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton undertook a study to examine the relevance of marketing, marketing departments, and CMOs (whether they operate under that title or another) in today's business climate.² Among the findings:

• More than 75% of marketers and non-marketers said that marketing has become more important to their companies during the past five years. But at more than half of all companies, marketing and the CEO agenda were reported to be misaligned.
• Higher expectations for marketing have driven nearly 70% of all companies to reorganize their marketing departments during the 12 months prior to the survey. Yet a major component of many such reorganizations -- the position of chief marketing officer -- remains ill-defined.
• Measurable outcomes are now expected for marketing programs -- 66% of executives say true ROI analytics are marketing's greatest need. But most companies are still using "intermediary" metrics -- such as awareness -- instead of working toward strong links to financial value.

The pressure on companies to find new sources of topline growth has placed a renewed emphasis on "marketing." Such traditional marketing-centric activities as creating new products or services, finding new markets, and maintaining and growing existing customer relationships are increasingly being shared across the organization in customer service, operations, manufacturing, and elsewhere. It's arguable that the company's marketing needs have outgrown the marketing department.

At the same time, the general business climate is demanding robust measurement and financial controls in all areas of the organization. In most organizations, this has shifted considerable decision-influencing power to finance. For marketing executives, this has been quite a wake-up call.

The problem is compounded by the fact that freshly trained marketing recruits from business schools get little if any preparation for the challenges they're most likely to face today.

As competing divisions within the firm get more proficient in measuring their own initiatives and performance, they're seeking greater accountability and support from marketing. In many cases, division heads think, perhaps rightly, that they know the marketing function better than the marketers do.

That front-office conflict may be the smoldering fire sending you one or more of the following smoke signals:

• Nobody credits marketing with any specific impact on the bottom line.
• The budget cycle is a tension-filled fight to keep last year's spending levels intact and protect programs and headcount.
• Your CFO isn't buying your marketing-mix model or any efforts to link brand equities to profits.

Data-driven measurement of marketing is nothing new. Since the evolution of the marketing function in the 1940s and '50s, companies have always attempted to gauge the effectiveness of their marketing expenditures. In those days, the modest technology of the times and the near absence of rapid media cost escalation or academic involvement led marketing executives to focus mostly on "intermediary" measures like awareness, preference, and other "researchable" variables.

Today, the Internet and the 24-hour information cycle have transformed the way buyers get information. Yet marketing measurement methods haven't adapted to accommodate these realities that have utterly changed the ways we do business.

Today, for better or worse, we face three driving forces:

• fast-changing technology that allows us to capture, warehouse, and analyze previously unimaginable amounts of data in near real time;
• rapid cost escalation in media and message distribution that requires us to re-educate ourselves and sharpen our expenditure patterns ruthlessly; and
• the broadening number of brilliant academics who are now focusing exclusively on the marketing discipline -- even if they are driven by their own competitive need to get published, they are advancing mathematical science in marketing in some extremely innovative ways.

Do you feel you're in the loop with all of these developments? If not, you're not alone.

Marketing is dancing as fast as it can, but it's clearly not fast enough. Opportunities to gather data may be improving through technology and information-sharing, but the underlying skills and business processes of your people are probably not keeping pace.

How do you know if you're in trouble? Consider the following:

• Factions within your own marketing department are fighting for budget dollars and attention in a battle of politics and power. Note that these are people you thought should be working together.
• You have dozens or possibly hundreds of projects going, but no idea which ones are making the greatest financial contribution to your company's bottom line.
• No one can say for sure -- least of all you -- what the impact would be if certain key initiatives were dropped completely.

These are big challenges we're talking about. But by working to build alignment, instill measurement discipline, demonstrate objectivity and transparency, and promote accountability, the marketing dashboard might help you put these problems in turnaround. It is most certainly not a panacea to all (or even most) marketing ills. But in today's increasingly complex organizations, a return to focus, simple process discipline, and attention to only the most important goals should be paramount.

Today, we find ourselves at an inflection point in marketing measurement. For the first time, we really are in a position to measure what we should, not just what we can. That leaves us with a lot of choices. To make the right ones, marketers need a structure that allows them to learn and evolve quickly and efficiently.

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