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Mark Stouse's avatar

Let's not forget that this isn't a binary thing -- there are enormous benefits to constraints, and besides, there are no situations that are free of them. Specific to marketing, until marketers can demonstrate that they have relatively little wastage in their programming, no CFO is going to enthusiastically back expansion of their budgets. The issue here is more about Governance than MacGyver.

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Jacob Sanders's avatar

No binaries, only Sith think in extremes. You had to bring up waste! I'd quibble back and say, the way we're measuring things has a role to play here too. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-advertising-research/article/abs/waste-in-advertising-is-the-part-that-works/AC1F6AA154674A407103D666879570A5 - there is a potentially valuable signal in aspects of wastage, but this research I think is more for trad media, not digital, but even then, you'd have to wonder if there is an element of value in sanctioned wastage for alternative metric purposes aligned with business goals, stretch ones like Share of Market, maybe? And again, if innovation is the last advantage, you will have to set aside some budget or time or both to let experiments and teams run a little free, so if you don't parameter that, it could easily look like waste too, but could lead to huge wins. I think the CFO already got up and walked out....

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Mark Stouse's avatar

this is where causal AI plays the determinant role. Without that sort of evidence, this is always going to be what it has been for decades — an unresolvable argument. And B2B marketing is losing conclusively now to the larger requirements of the average company in the midst of massive change and volatility.

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