Advertising And BI Sales Reporting

Consider using sales reporting techniques inherent in BI software to analyze your company’s advertising direction. If advertising decision-makers are armed with sales and consumer information based on properly framed queries of all relevant data sources, adequately analyzed, and professionally reported, the goals of performance management in the advertising arena can be achieved.

Another related factor to consider is the manner in which the advertising message is presented in the selected medium. Stephen Few’s comments on presentation of information in graphs and tables are very applicable to advertising. Few notes that superfluous information and other material that by the nature of its presentation misdirects or purposefully misleads the viewer is inappropriate. This is also true in bold letters for the product advertising community, whether it be print, broadcast, or Web-based. Too often we are faced with ads that have little or no relation to the product being promoted and only serve as an entertainment device. This may leave some consumers with an affinity for the product, but may drive others away. Use the tools of BI to query the data for clues as to when, how, and where to most effectively structure your advertising to get the desired impact, not the hype offered by the "21^st century Madison Avenue" types.