Sustainability reporting is a major, and contentious, topic. I wholeheartedly encourage academics to engage in topics like this — they matter. In theory, such engagement makes academic work extremely relevant. Consultants produce reports but sometimes these are over-optimistic, biased, or just plain wrong. This means academics can have an important place in improving the quality…
Category: Marketing Accountability
Putting Finance And Marketing Together
Dave Stewart has written a book packed with details of the financial impact of marketing. He surveys a large number of topics extremely connected to what I write about in this blog. (This probably isn’t too surprising. Dave is chair of MASB, which I am heavily involved in). What then is good advice for putting…
Customer Equity Statements And Financial Reporting
Think of a brilliant move in soccer. The player shows great vision, and excellent passing. There is some fantastic build up play where lots of people are involved. The movement shows amazing promise and then someone slips and blasts the ball miles away from the goal. To my mind that is where we are in…
Internal Measurement Of Brand Value
As regular readers will know I do a lot of work with MASB (the marketing Accountability Standards Board). Some of my colleagues at MASB wrote a paper about brand valuation. I want to highlight and reinforce their message. A key part of this is that the internal measurement of brand value is crucial to bringing…
Marketing Implications Of Financial Accounting
A book chapter I wrote with Jonathan Knowles and Moeen Butt has recently come out in the Review of Marketing Research (vol 18). In our chapter, we sought to give marketers a better understanding of accounting, specifically financial accounting. What then are the marketing implications of financial accounting? Keeping Score Marketers are trying to work…
The Marketing Common Language Dictionary
I don’t retell many biblical stories but the Tower of Babel is a useful one. I admit I am probably not getting it perfect but the general story goes that everyone spoke different languages. It was, therefore, all a bit of a disaster. Think herding cats or clearing people out of a bar at the…
TV Still Matters For Advertising
I am involved with the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB). An aim of this organization is to bring more rigor to marketing measurement. Top members of MASB took a lead in examining the effectiveness and efficiency of TV advertising. Their conclusion, TV still matters. Following Up On Past Research The authors followed up on prior…
Non-GAAP Disclosures and Implications for Marketing
An interesting phenomenon has emerged over recent years in financial accounting which could prove relevant to marketing. This is non-GAAP reporting by companies. What is, could be, the relatonshp between marketing and Non-GAAP disclosures. GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles The rules of external financial reporting, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, are known as GAAP. Non-GAAP reporting…
Understanding What Companies Are Spending On Marketing. SG&A Isn’t Great.
I often discuss marketing assets. Specifically, I worry about that the way marketing assets are accounted for in financial reports. This does not help us understand marketing effectiveness. For example, see here and here and here. This results of financial accounting choices creat a significant problem in understanding what marketing does. It means we can’t…
The Problem Of Goodwill And Marketing
Tony Tollington’s book on Brand Assets is fascinating. The book is not an especially easy read. Indeed, it gets into some pretty detailed philosophical debates around the nature of assets and accounting which can be tough. That said it is good to think about these things and Tollington definitely made me think. There is a…
