River Island | Case Study
Enhancing Marketing Effectiveness Through Bespoke Measurement Frameworks Aligned to Business Performance
01. Overview
The economic climate of 2023 put marketing budgets under intense scrutiny across the industry. In the face of this pressure, River Island grappled with the challenge of making pragmatic budget efficiencies while still striving to meet ambitious sales targets. Coupled with this, they required a revised marketing strategy to more effectively communicate the value of their activities in driving customer consideration.
This issue was particularly prevalent within their brand marketing initiatives, where the existing measurement system was misaligned with business objectives, leading to a loss of trust among senior leadership.
02. Problem Statement
River Island needed a consistent and effective method to demonstrate how their marketing initiatives could drive profitable growth.
03. Our Solution
Our proposed solution comprised a robust measurement framework complemented by a detailed roadmap for its implementation.
Measurement Framework
Our initial step was the establishment of a measurement framework. A correlation analysis between various marketing metrics and the client’s core business metrics helped us identify marketing metrics that demonstrated a strong correlation with business outcomes. Building on this, we conducted causation analyses, which allowed us to define individual activity Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These tailored KPIs enabled teams to utilise the framework effectively for both planning activities and communicating success to senior leadership. This approach ensured a unified direction, while also catering to the diversity in activities.Roadmap for Implementation
Alongside this framework, we devised a detailed roadmap outlining the necessary actions across various teams and stakeholders to ensure a successful rollout and long-term integration of the new framework.
To facilitate this, we proposed using the “Educate, Align, Enable, Iterate” framework:
Educate
Equip all relevant teams with the knowledge of the framework, its components, and how to use it effectively within the organisation.
Enable
Provide the necessary tools, resources, and support for successful deployment.
Align
Achieve alignment across all teams on the vision, objectives, and priorities of the framework, ensuring cohesion with overall business expectations.
Illiterate
The solution represents the first iteration of media measurement and should evolve in response to market changes and River Island’s needs.
04. Results
Our structured approach garnered the support of the senior leadership, securing crucial internal investment for developer resources aimed at enhancing marketing technology capabilities. This investment played a pivotal role in realising the commercial outcomes of the digital marketing initiatives.
The newly implemented engagement structure fostered effective collaboration within the team and across the globe, instilling a focus on delivering both short-term and long-term results. The improved initiative design and facilitated deployments enabled local markets to develop their digital maturity, thus realising the commercial outcomes of the initiatives.
Through these improved efficiencies and effectiveness, the estimated return on investment of the new digital marketing operating model is an astounding 3500%. This figure indicates the potential of this new approach to not only streamline operations but also drive substantial growth across global markets.
In conclusion, our efforts led to the successful implementation of a new digital marketing operating model that is expected to significantly boost the efficiency and effectiveness of HSBC’s global marketing initiatives.
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