At Diageo, for example, the marketing team has set up a tool, called Catalyst, that aims to bring together data and analytics to enable marketers to make better decisions on where to invest in real time.

Andrew Geoghegan, global head of consumer planning at Diageo, says: “For our brand managers, [Catalyst] helps them optimise every pound and penny they spend against the activities to get to better outcomes.

“The system has enabled us to overcome all the difficult things – the time it takes in pulling data together, the expertise you would need in running scenarios, the direct link it gives us through into our media-buying agencies. It’s just made all the pain points go away and given our marketers direct access to a tool that saves them a bunch of time, as well as enabling them to think differently about the kind of scenarios they could use when preparing to spend their money.”

Meanwhile, at Direct Line, the marketing effectiveness team remains separate but takes a consultancy approach, aiming to steer marketers’ decisions and thinking but without “wielding a stick”, according to Ann Constantine, head of insight and marketing effectiveness at the company.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.marketingweek.com