Warning: Your campaign (process) is broken

As a marketing management consultant for Fortune 100 marketers around the globe, I see a lot of marketing briefs. I see a lot of marketing plans. I also see a lot of fuzzy ROI / ROAS analysis.

In this post, I intend to illustrate the challenges in this area and suggest a better way to get more value from your overall campaign planning process. The framework I will propose applies to marketing organizations large and small.

Our industry’s standard campaign creation process broke years ago. Today’s ways of working were born in simpler times. There were infinitely fewer media properties, channels, technologies, and techniques to measure campaign performance. Despite the advertising revolution, we still cling to processes that no longer provide value. In many instances, these old-fashioned ways of working actually reduce creativity, accountability, and value.

Status Quo

Let’s start with a high-level overview of the campaign planning process as it exists today in many marketing organizations.

The Brief

Someone, usually a brand manager, will spend hours, weeks, and even months developing a marketing brief to provide to your various marketing agencies. If you own a small or medium-sized business, this might even be you. Creating the brief is a tedious process that is spawned from a more extensive business planning exercise.