Sandlines

My fellow AdVikings wrote a few days ago about the great MS launching their defense of the display advertising model. Unsurprising bit of timing: just as recession bites, and marketers flee from the gloss of ‘brand building’ in favour of actually closing business.

Is it a dog? Is it a shame? No, it's G1

Of course, as AdViking points out, the whole point of brand building was supposed to be about closing sales as well. And therefore I find it hard to disagree MS and their attempts to map the various touch points between the brand and the consumer in an attempt to allocate values to the various touchpoints.

But – and it’s a decent sized but – let’s not forget that marketing is an unholy balance between art and science… the numbers alone don’t tell the full story.

So, if you consider that T-Mobile’s current advertising campaign:

• their radio spots are (to these ears at least) a major disincentive to buy from them (hate them!)
• poster treatments work substantially better

Now I happen to be interested in getting the new G1 Android phone, which is only available from T-Mobile. (OK – I know it’s ugly, but this is an illustration, work with me here). The negative impact of the radio advertising is cancelled out by other things. But is there any way Microsoft’s Engagement Mapping can measure that successfully? Or, by buying a G1, do I tell the marketers that their awful radio ads had the desired affect?

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