Einstein Pushes "Return on Intimacy"

This article is over a month old, but it's definitely worth a read. In it, Jeff Einstein, a founder of of the first interactive ad agency (Einstein and Sandom), bashes the spreadsheet culture in online advertising that mandates continual focus on, and improvement of, Return on Investment.

According to Einstein, banging the ROI drum continuously keeps the online marketing industry trapped in its own inertia - which is indicative of an addiction. If you work at an interactive agency, you know that continual focus on ROI leads clients to expect significant ROI performance gains from quarter to quarter every quarter. But, as Einstein points out, "The digitally-induced ROI mantra of 'faster, smarter, better' has already succumbed in many minds and hearts to the lurking and growing suspicion that faster, smarter, better will simply never be fast, smart, or good enough, no matter how hard we try, how fast we run, or how much intellectual muscle we flex."

Einstein's solution? Move our focus from ROI to the pursuit of intimacy, which will help us rediscover the true power of interactive media. I'd like to add that this would be no easy task, as most brand managers and VPs of Marketing on the client side currently are evaluated on their ability to do more with less over time. If our clients are evaluated on ROI, it becomes difficult to pitch them online advertising programs that don't focus on it.

Posted by tomhespos, April 29, 2004 11:01 AM | | TrackBack