More Think, Less Ink
Before you add budget, find the weakest link in the work behind it.
A campaign can show green on every dashboard and still rest on a thin brief, surface-level insights and a strategy that's little more than a list of channels.
Effectiveness comes from four things multiplied together. Think (Insights and Strategy) is the upstream work that sets the potential. Ink (Creative and Media) is the visible execution.
(Insights × Strategy) × (Creative × Media) = Effectiveness
You can't multiply a zero.
The terms multiply, so green dashboards can't make up for a missing diagnosis.
Most buyers are future buyers, but most time goes on Ink
95% of buyers are future buyers, yet most teams spend 95% of their time on Ink. We put the rigour where the growth is.
A rushed Think phase costs you later
The cost moves into Ink, where it shows up in two places. We call this the Translation Tax.
In Creative
It shows up as dull, safe work.
In Media
It shows up as wastage, paying the same CPMs to reach people with no reason to notice.
Performance stops at the weakest link
Effectiveness isn't a single achievement, such as one CPA or one winning ad. Big media spend and award-winning creative can still fail when the Insights × Strategy link is broken, and the media agency gets the blame, incorrectly.
A few years ago, I worked on a big brand campaign as the measurement consultant. The media spend was massive and the creative was supposedly award-winning, but we were targeting the wrong audience with the wrong message. It led to millions in media wastage. Who initially got the blame? The media agency, incorrectly so.
Media, across paid, owned and earned, holds most of the data points, which flow back into Insights as a centralised data system. Disconnected KPIs work against that. They give each of the four teams different motivations, and so a different language, which is what turns them into silos.
What the formula can't do
The formula shows where to look. It can't score your marketing by itself, and the numbers in the slider are there to show how the terms multiply.
Where we use it
Where this comes up
When the board asks for the numbers, have the answer.
Tell us where it hurts: the budget conversation, the agency relationship, or numbers nobody trusts. We'll suggest where to start.
TALK TO NEIL →