By: Amelia Rowe, Sr. Director, Measurement & Insights
More and more, there is pressure on marketers to prove the return on their dollars spent in any given channel, and experiential is no exception. But unlike most other channels, there is no industry standard or widely agreed upon way to measure XM. There isn’t a standard CPM, GRP, CPC, or established ROAS that unanimously works. Instead, clients look for guidance and expertise from their agency partner. And luckily for us (and our clients!), we at Mosaic have spent the past several years building a department that focuses solely on measuring experiential activations, and ensuring we have the right expertise, tools, and measurement methodologies to deliver a clear picture of success regardless of type of activation, business goal, category, or target consumer.
For us, articulating and aligning to the ultimate result is where it all begins. We have a proven process called Measurement First™, which is our approach to strategy. We define the goals, and then work through various scenario planning exercises in a process we call Reverse ROI™, which in turn informs the right consumer journey map and channel strategy to deliver on that success. These insights become the launch pad for our creative team to jump off, and by working this way, it ensures we not only design great creative ideas, but great creative ideas that drive the desired attitude and behavior changes – the results.
One of the tools we lean on heavily through the Measurement First™ process is our historical results database. We have more than 15 years of programming results across all categories, business objectives, and activation types that we leverage to establish benchmarks and norms, that in turn allow us to set targets and KPIs by channel.
When setting KPIs, we always strive to look across 3 pillars of measurement: 1) REACH (the numbers of consumers we reach through our activation), 2) IMPACT (the impact we have on changing their attitudes and behaviors), and 3) RESULTS (the impact we have on driving business results in the short and long term). We have built an in-house set of measurement capabilities that allow us to properly evaluate the effectiveness of our programs in a cost effective and time efficient manner, giving our clients access to data quickly with the ability to optimize the execution strategy while it’s still in market.
Our goal is to ensure the measurement methodologies are seamlessly integrated into the go-to-market strategy and creative executions from the very beginning. And before we even step foot in field, we ensure all stakeholders are confidently aligned to the measurement plan, including KPIs and targets, methodologies, reporting templates and cadence.
While measuring marketing effectiveness will forever be an evolving practice, we believe that laying a strong foundation and appreciation for measurement through our Measurement First™ philosophy has set us on a path to continue to innovate, challenge, and optimize with the ever-changing landscape that we operate within.