Marketing's deadliest sin : Measuring the tip of the iceberg in advertising

One of the biggest sins a marketer can commit is scratching the 'tip of the iceberg' in advertising. It surprises me how often clients gauge the impact of their campaigns through superficial metrics such as awareness and message take-out.

Don't get me wrong. Awareness and message take-out are crucial in assessing the first level of impact of the advertising, but these are just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the actual impact of advertising. One campaign may have an awareness of 90% and the other 60%, but would this mean the latter is less effective? Even though the latter reached less people, it could have had a stronger impact on equity and subsequently on sales.

What goes on 'between' message take-out and the actual sale is referred to as the 'black box' in marketing. It is every marketer's fundamental responsibility to see through (or atleast try to see through) this black box. Advertising is ultimately intended to have the following two impacts: 1. short term sales impact 2. equity impact which then leads to sales in the long term.  So if you are not measuring these when trying to understand the impact of your campaigns, then what exactly are you measuring?

I may remember your ad, may love it and could talk all day long about it. But this still does not mean that the ad strengthened the power of your brand in my mind and if I will buy it. Awareness and message take-out will tell you if your brand reached people, but not if people reached for your brand!