The end of proxies: the customer data revolution

Martin Hayward and Nigel Paice, from dunnhumby, believe that reliance on intermediate variables, such as awareness or attitudinal measures, will soon become a thing of the past for campaign evaluation.

The End of Proxies: The Customer Data Revolution

Martin Hayward and Nigel Paice

For too long, marketing has had to rely on imperfect measures to evaluate the impact of advertising expenditure.

However complex the advertising task, it is probably true that the ultimate aim for almost every campaign is to drive, or at least protect, sales and profits. Despite this objective, we have been forced to evaluate campaigns primarily on intermediate measures of awareness, attitudinal shifts and claimed behaviours, because it has not been possible to attribute sales effects directly to particular advertising exposures. It is little surprise...

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