Getting marketing effectiveness principles to stick at major companies is harder than proving they work. Even when the data shows brand activity drives 65% of sales, internal structures and human psychology work against long-term thinking.

This week, Elena and Rob are joined by Simon Peel, managing partner at The Other Lot and former Global Head of Media at Adidas. Simon shares how Adidas discovered that brand activity was driving 65% of sales across all channels, not the digital performance marketing in which they were heavily invested. He reveals the internal battles, years of education, and structural changes needed to make effectiveness principles stick at large organizations.

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] Why Adidas publicly admitted their digital advertising mistakes
• [10:00] The marshmallow effect and why humans default to short-term thinking
• [16:00] Differences between US and European adoption of effectiveness principles
• [20:00] Why measurement needs econometrics, randomized tests, and attribution
• [26:00] How light buyers drove 80-90% of revenue at both Adidas and Haleon
• [30:00] Why AI will perpetuate bad media buying practices 

 





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Resources:  
2019 MarketingWeek Article: https://www.marketingweek.com/adidas-marketing-effectiveness/
2019 Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbT8TqBUgOs
Simon Peel’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-peel-28a83215/?originalSubdomain=uk 



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