One of my favorite blogs, MarketingNPV, recently posted an actual email recently posted an actual email from the CFO to the CMO of a global 1000 company.

The net of the email: Congratulations on being on MediaWeek’s list of “most efficient media buying organizations,” but what does this mean? Why can’t we connect the data across campaigns to get more meaningful insights into the effectiveness of the spend? What is the actual value of incremental media spend? How about we try spending nothing and see what the results look like.

For years, metrics and analysis have been arguing for validity among marketers. Sure, everyone talks about the importance, but as research has shown, this doesn’t always correlate to making its way into the budget. Even as recently as a year ago, I can remember being at a marketing awards show, in which one of the judges for the ‘measurable marketing’ category commented that the concentration was primarily subjective. Given the technology now available for tracking marketing spend, such a statement is now laughable. That said, the need for a ‘full spectrum’ analysis tool is growing at an exponential rate.