CMOs: Stop obsessing about where you say it

Message ultimately beats media and Forethought’s Ken Roberts and Darren Stein discuss how great creative should start with a foundation of marketing science.

According to McKinsey & Company, “You may think brand success is all about the media budget but it isn’t. Message beats media.” (Marketing Performance: How Marketers Drive Profitable Growth, Bauer, T et al, 2016).

McKinsey believes “what you say is more important than where you say it.”  If you accept such a premise, then you would be expecting that at least as much science goes into advertising content decisions as the media placement decision. You would be very disappointed to learn the reality of what goes on behind the scenes. The ratio of the science and investment of ascertaining where...

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