Attitudes Towards Measurement: The Great DivideWhen it comes to attitudes towards measurement, there is a great divide between marketing, advertising and PR people on the one hand and senior management on the other. Many ad/PR people don't measure at all. Many others do measure, but they concentrate on navigational metrics; they downplay or even ignore evaluative metrics. Very few concentrate on evaluative metrics.
To GeneralizeMost ad/PR people tend to think of measurement as navigational.Conversely, most senior managers don't think about marketing measurement at all. They tend to regard marketing as a not-especially-productive expense, like the cost of landscaping at the company headquarters. Those senior managers who do think about marketing measurement overwhelmingly think of it as evaluative. They think of it in dollar-denominated terms because they think of everything in dollar-denominated terms. To Put It BluntlyThere are metrics denominated in dollars (or other currency) and there are metrics that are not denominated in dollars.Most ad/PR people try to avoid talking about dollar-denominated results. They will do almost anything to avoid it. Most senior managers think almost exclusively in terms of dollar-denominated results, because that is what the owners (shareholders) want them to do. The difference between these two points of view can, and does, frustrate both ad/PR people and senior managers. It also can, and does, lead to embarrassing or even career-damaging events (not embarrassing or career-damaging for the senior managers, you may be sure). See Don't Wait for a detailed discussion of these perils.
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