In an article in Advertising Age today, Zenith Optimedia are about to release some data that shows:
a) Friends and family are the most influential touchpoint when it comes to influencing our shopping decisions
b) TV is still top dog for creating brand associations.
What Zenith have done is create a database of all the studies they have undertaken using the Market Contact Audit (MCA) methodology, a proprietary research and analytics methodology belonging to Integration Marketing Communications that is used by many brands around the world (many agency groups have licenses to sell and use the MCA).
Being one of those agencies and having used the MCA with a number of clients as part of our Connections Planning approach (we’re fans), these aggregated findings that Zenith are going to make available don’t really surprise. The level of detail they share though will be interesting.
One mistake that I’ve seen clients make when using the MCA is to look only at the surface level measures – like those shared in the AdAge article. What gives the most ‘clout’ in this category? How is our brand performing in each channel (through the association measure)? This is to miss a great deal of the value in the methodology and is a superficial look at the findings. The MCA delivers so much rich insight into the return that channels are generating, messaging effectiveness and competitor strategies amongst other things. It is a great single source approach when you know how to read it and apply it properly. If you have any interest into how your marketing is performing and the return it is bringing, you should consider it.
Really looking forward to what the is shared by Zenith and their aggregation exercise
