Letting ROI determine the success of your marketing is a bit like letting the tail wag the dog.
Because ROI isn’t necessarily a good measure of marketing performance, says Jean-Paul “JP” Jansen, SVP of marketing and CMO for North America at Mars Pet Nutrition, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Jansen joined Mars – which owns a large portfolio of pet-focused brands, including Temptations, Sheba, Whiskas, Pedigree, Iams and Greenies – in 2021 after more than four years in executive marketing roles at beauty company Coty and 16 years at P&G.
Brands go through cycles, Jansen says. They start out with a focus on mass reach and mass media before “getting almost mesmerized” by the power of digital marketing.
Personalization and customization are great, but when marketers go overboard with targeting, they don’t cast a wide enough net to attract new customers and foster growth, Jansen says.
As in, don’t forget about the importance of reach. Sustainable growth is about striking a balance between reach and finding high-value audiences, he says.
For example, one of the key insights Mars gathers from dog parents is whether their pet is a picky eater, which is a strong signal to target them with ads for wet food.
“That’s targeting and that’s using data,” Jansen says, “but it’s still at scale and making sure we have sufficient reach.”
Also in this episode: Taking a hybrid approach to measurement, investing “deeply” in retail media, experimenting with DTC and the correct way to say “good boy” in Dutch, French and German.
