Accountability Still The Number One Issue for Marketers

According to a study by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the number one concern facing senior marketing executives in 2006 was accountability. The ANA defines accountability as “the development and measurement of return on investment of marketing dollars, and how to implement processes to enact measurement.” The survey has been conducted for three consecutive years and marketing accountability has always been the number one concern.

In order of importance, the major issues listed by these executives include:

• Accountability
• Aligning marketing organization with innovation
• Building strong brands
• Integrated marketing communications
• Media fragmentation
• Impact of technology on marketing
• Growth of multicultural consumer segments
• Attracting and retaining top talent
• Consumer control over how they view advertising
• Advertising creative that achieves results
• Globalization of marketing efforts

The ANA is a trade association comprised of 370 major companies that together spend over $100 billion on marketing each year.

It is interesting to note that “aligning marketing with innovation” has moved into second position in the poll. Similar to marketing, innovation in an organization requires measurement to be effective, and that requires the right data. BusinessWeek Online recently had an interesting article on five key strategies for measuring innovation. Considering the rising importance of this issue, it is a worthwhile read. There was also a good piece on building an innovative organization here. It is by Paul Sloane, an innovation consultant from the U.K. and the heads up was courtesy of the Business Innovation Insider Blog.