It’s Possible. Marketing and Finance Working Together – The MASB Summer meeting

MASB logoI keynoted the summer MASB meeting in Chicago this past F

riday. Former ARF CRO Joe Plummer played an important role in launching the group, but I never had the opportunity to attend until now, as a keynote speaker on digital measurement. As you can imagine, I was very honored to address executive leaders from billion dollar brands, industry bodies, consultants, measurement firms, and academics.

My keynote outlined the Field Guide, what makes a good metric, a way to develop a measurement plan, and discussions about the tensions in measurement and the shifting towards a more humanistic mental model concerning measurement. But I found the 

topics, discussions, progress reports, questioning, and camaraderie not just engaging but downright practical.

I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me because the group formed about seven years ago. But what I heard was that in the last couple of years the momentum really shifted as the meetings turned from “what should we look into” to “here’s what we’ve accomplished.”

So what was on the agenda? Here are some highlights:

  • accounts of how pairing internal finance and marketing people contribute to accountability
  • data and findings from the brand investment and valuation project
  • valuing and reporting of brands as assets
  • improving financial reporting
  • MASB metrics catalog
  • measuring CPG return with Customer Long term Value
  • measuring return from online/interactive

I expect that the a number of the presentations will be posted on The MASB site. Past presentations are freely available here.

Author: stephenrappaport

I write and consult on achieving brand growth. My long-term advisory roles are with Sunstar, Inc., a global manufacturer of consumer products and Suretys, Inc. an insurtech. I was a Senior Fellow at Wharton’s SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management for 5 years and am the author of 3 books on digital marketing and measurement.