ROI, ROMI, and the Measurement Trap
The productive tension
ROI as the universal language of accountabilityandas the systematic bias that has hollowed out brand investment for two decades
both views are right, and the resolution is methodological, not philosophical
The synthesis
ROI is a real and useful metric but it is backwards-looking, short-term, and structurally biased against the kind of marketing that takes years to pay back. It measures what is measurable, not what matters. The evidence-based marketer uses ROI alongside longer-horizon metrics — brand equity, market penetration, share of voice, share of search — and never lets ROI alone set the budget. The paradox to internalise is this: the more accurately you measure short-term ROI, the more biased your decisions become against the long term, because measurement asymmetry is itself a form of mismeasurement.
Learning objectives
- →Define ROI and ROMI precisely and identify what each formulation does and does not capture
- →Explain why short-window ROI calculations systematically under-credit brand investment
- →Describe Binet & Field's findings on the 60/40 brand-to-activation split and the multi-year payback curve
- →Apply Tim Ambler's distinction between measuring and counting to a real budgeting decision
- →Recognise the attribution assumptions buried inside any ROI claim and interrogate them
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