Marketing Industry Score

Over the last week I have probably watched too much Olympics but I got fascinated by a New York Times Analysis of how much the swimming world records have improved over the last decade, in absolute reductions of seconds as well as percentage wise. It shows a dramatic improvement in speed cause by various factors, including improved pool design and faster swimsuits.

It occurred to me that we have nothing similar in our industry, nothing to truly understand if our marketing work has become better, more efficient, or more effective, just anything that could compare work over time. Is it only because the results of our work are tough to quantify? Or is it because our industry has such a strong aversion against measuring itself? Maybe it’s time to put the top 10 marketing indices and scores together and see how we have performed over the last 20 years. And at least we don’t have to wear swim suits that take almost 30 minutes to get into…