Marketing NPV and The Conference Board gathered some of the world’s leading CMOs and academic experts to address “Measuring Marketing’s Impact on the Bottom Line” at The 2005 Senior Marketing Executive Roundtable in New York City last week. Here are some commetns from the attendees:

    •     "When we don’t have the best metrics, we have to use the best-guess process that deals with the issues," from John Costello, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing at Home Depot. "With the right people making decisions based on those best-guess metrics, marketing will improve, as will its dashboard. If you want a seat at the table, you have to do better than anyone else. You have to be excellent."

    •     "There are some things that marketing wants to do that cause strife for the ‘quantifiable’ people in the organization," from Scott Deaver, CMO at Cendant Car Rental Group. "The tyranny of measurement tends to dumb down marketing to privilege just the measureable parts."

    •     Mike Winkler, CMO at Hewlett-Packard, say, "Marketing is about servicing customers’ needs. If you believe that, then marketing is your company. HP is customer-centric, and marketing sets strategy and long-range planning toward financial outcomes. It doesn’t start with the financials — it ends with the financials."

    •     Jim Garrity, CMO at Wachovia, describe his company as a place where "marketing partners with analytics and finance. They share ownership and accountability for marketing investments. All report to the CEO and enhance the financial contribution of marketing to the organization."

    •     "There is no one single ROI. It depends on who your customer is and where value is being created," from Paul Koulogeorge, vice president of marketing for EB Games.

    •     "Whatever ROI process you’re implementing, don’t get lost trying to start it all at once. Start small and grow and grow and grow," from George Ayres, a member of Ford Motor Co.’s special vehicle team for sales and marketing. "Marketing measurement is data-hungry stuff. The minute you don’t feed it, it fails. It’s a practice, not a one-time event. It becomes a way of doing business; therefore, somebody has to be driving it all the time."

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