Rachel Kennedy, Byron Sharp's Right Hand: How Brands Really Grow
Professor Rachel Kennedy, a founding member of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing Science and ranked among the top 1% of advertising researchers in the world, will be coming to Bratislava for the first time on November 20 to speak at the Marketing RULEZZ-Double IMPACT conference on marketing that believes in evidence, not impressions.
“Invest in studying the laws of brand growth and understanding how brands compete and grow,” says Professor Rachel Kennedy. In an exclusive interview for the Marketeris.sk portal, she explains why it is not enough to believe in ideas, impressions or intuitions if we want brands to truly grow – and what it means to be evidence-based, well branded and focused on scale – also in line with the idea of “Double IMPACT.
M: You are coming to a conference in a country where there is no long-term tradition of evidence-based marketing. Marketing strategies are often not based on long-term empirical scientific research, but rather on classic marketing surveys focused on consumer behavior. What would you like to say to our marketers and agencies, but also to small and medium-sized companies?
RK: Embark on a journey and make sure your decisions are evidence-based. The scientific process leads to new, often surprising, insights, and evidence-based practice leads to better outcomes… whether in medicine or marketing. Invest in studying the laws of growth and a robust understanding of how brands compete and grow. Those who do so will find that a different language is more useful, that they measure different constructs, track different KPIs, and that their teams will be “blown away” by the new insights.
M: One of the nightmares of every marketer and agency during difficult times is turning off advertising or significantly reducing the communication budget. What are the effects of stopping advertising and what insights and recommendations does your institute have for CMOs and CFOs of companies in such situations?
RK: Yes, stopping advertising investment is risky. As Henry Ford said, “stopping advertising to save money is like stopping a watch to save time.” It seems to work until it’s obvious that it’s not working, and then it’s too late.
Read the full interview Pravda.