New report explores the design elements necessary for successful MMM implementation

New York, September 13, 2023 – MSI (The Marketing Science Institute), a division of the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation), today released its latest Blue Ribbon Panel report, “Charting the Future of Marketing Mix Modeling Best Practices,” which reveals how Marketing Mix Models (MMMs) have evolved in response to a rapidly changing marketing landscape, identifies challenges and outlines opportunities for innovations, as well as means to assess those innovations.

“As MMM stages a resurgence, the landscape resembles a modern-day Wild West – a terrain teeming with new players touting pie-in-the-sky claims,” said John Lynch, MSI Executive Director. “However, identifying credible, trustworthy solution providers poses a challenge for businesses seeking to maximize their marketing investments. MSI’s new Charting the Future of Marketing Mix Modeling Best Practices equips executives and analysts alike to assess those claims, separate the wheat from the chaff, and align the marketing organization to capitalize on new innovations in MMM.”

As new privacy regulations have disrupted firms’ ability to employ individual-level consumer data to understand the impact of their marketing spend, the report introduces an essential toolkit designed to empower both seasoned executives and budding analysts to assess current MMM offerings, make informed choices, and steer their marketing organizations toward success.

In partnership with leading academics and industry authorities, the research found that advertisers use marketing mix models for three key areas: demonstrating that marketing contributes to top-line and bottom-line performance, forecasting and optimization. New innovations like machine learning and stricter privacy guidelines have made it more difficult for marketers to use MMMs to meet these needs, with the biggest challenges emerging around use cases and design elements.

Lynch continued: “We are committed to a more effective MMM ecosystem for all. With the release of this report, we have commenced a multi-phase initiative to set industry standards for best practices in MMM. Developed by the very pioneers of MMM, this report is the first phase in developing tools to help the industry and our members improve their MMMs.”

This authoritative report by MSI academics identifies surprisingly common pitfalls that can lead to bad decisions about allocating marketing dollars thereby undercutting the reputation of marketing in the C-Suite. While a preview of the report is available for public perusal, the full breadth of insights is exclusively accessible to MSI member organizations. In upcoming phases of the initiative, MSI is developing an MMM Checklist for companies to document and evaluate their MMM operations by benchmarking against best practices, followed by a diagnostic phase for MSI to provide feedback and recommendations to participating firms. Participating in this first phase are industry leaders from: Airbnb, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Domino’s, Google, Kantar, Meta, Nike, Pinterest, PNC, TransUnion, Wayfair and more.

For more information on this transformative report and how to participate in the next stages of the MMM initiative, please visit MSI’s MMM Initiative webpage.