Key Performance Indicators … that aren’t.

I bought some cheap t-shirts in Thailand a few weeks ago. They looked good and cost nothing.

Now … what’s that line about cost and quality?

Last week I had two rather different conversations about KPIs. One was stiflingly familiar … a procurement manager demanding that the agency meet the cost per thousand promises they made in ‘The Pitch’ … regardless of the ramifications.

The other was refreshingly different … a marketing director asking how they can develop agency KPIs that are more aligned to their business.

Yes I know that agencies should bloody well stop pitching for business that they don’t really want. And they should stop promising media costs that they know they can’t achieve without screwing up the quality …

But …

The biggest financial investment a marketer makes is on advertising media. Yet the decision on what performance goals govern its investment are increasingly driven by a procurement person, not the marketer.

Now, in my experience, it is rare for a procurement manager to fully understand advertising media. Most marketers struggle with it. But the marketers usually have a much better understanding of the cost and quality trade-off.

Five years ago I incurred the wrath of a rather large multi-national’s media procurement person. He didn’t like us saying that his multi-million dollar ‘savings’ were fictitious. He had driven pitching agencies into agreeing to media buying costs that were completely unachievable without sacrificing effectiveness. But ‘quality’ and ‘effectiveness’ were not part of the deal.

And since the costs were reduced, the budget could be cut too …

Five years later, I can’t remember the last time I saw any of their advertising.

OK, so this guy wanted to be a hero. Maybe he didn’t understand how he would be destroying his company’s brands.

But the marketers did.

It is time for marketers to stop surrendering their brand and business responsibilities to procurement managers.

And it’s time that KPI’s are linked to genuine performance and not misleading media metrics.

I pulled those Thai T-shirts out of the wash yesterday. The colours had run, they were half their original size and looked like ponchos for a two year old.