Folks in the experience business know that brands exist in context, and this context is the lens in which consumers of products and services experience brands. This notion is in stark relief against prevailing attitudes of advertisers, who often seek to foist experiences upon consumers, turning simple experiences into grande spectacle. Better to distract consumers from their own experience, else they realize the product or service in front of them may not be something useful.
In this environment, it is not surprising a voice of change for the Advertising Research Foundation found he was beating his head against a wall.
Plummer’s Push to Find Metric for Tactic Ends Amid ‘Disappointment’
An industrywide engagement metric, that ever-elusive concept that has baffled some of advertising’s brightest minds, took a major hit last week when one of its leading proponents, Joseph Plummer, the Advertising Research Foundation’s chief research officer, stepped down from his post.
Joseph Plummer
As ARF’s poster boy for bringing precision and measurement to engagement, Mr. Plummer was at the forefront of moving the industry from a reach-based ad model (one characterized by TV’s gross rating points) to one that tried to capture how consumers reacted to ads (rather than simply reporting on whether they were in a position to see those ads). But the concept of engagement has been stymied by competing interests.
“Engagement has turned out to be such a controversial and ambiguous and sometimes contentious word,” said David Marans, exec VP, IAG Research. All eyes were on Mr. Plummer at a 2006 ARF event when he unveiled the advertising group’s definition of engagement: “Turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.” Some media executives were less than impressed with what came next. “I don’t think the industry knew what to do with [that definition],”one media executive said.
Read the AdAge.com article here