Page 93 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle

93 CHAPTER 5 IMPLICATIONS OF THE MESSY MIDDLE

Measuring advertising effectiveness is a large topic, beyond the scope of
this report. Last year our research team published a report that looked at the
state of the art and the opportunities for improvement. 24

The first section examines how controlled experiments and causal inference
can be used to increase the accuracy of measured improvements in
marketing performance, and contains a number of useful recommendations.

Organisational implications

Over the course of the past year, we’ve taken our findings out on the
road, presenting them at large events and to individual marketing teams.
Something we’ve heard over and over is that many marketers feel our “messy
middle” metaphor actually serves as an apt description of the way marketing

departments have evolved over time.

Many marketers feel our ‘messy middle’

metaphor actually serves as an apt

description of the way marketing

departments have evolved over time.

Before the web it was easier for marketing to own the entire customer
experience. But over the past 20 years or so, the sudden rush of information
and complexity has led to organisational fragmentation, with different
departments owning web, mobile, data operations, and user experience. This

was understandable, as launching onto internet street required skills that
typical marketing departments of the time didn’t possess.

24 Taylor, M. et al. (2019). Measuring Effectiveness: Three Grand Challenges. Google. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/consumer-
insights/measuring-effectiveness-three-grand-challenges