‘It’s given us a lot of credibility within the business to keep pushing’: Samsung Australia’s Carl Bunn on using MMM to prove what’s working – and win over sceptics

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The problem with Samsung’s previous market mix models was they were too slow, says Carl Bunn, Head of Data and Solutions at Samsung Australia. By the time results came back in, “we’d moved on,” says Bunn. Part of that was on Samsung: Consistency of data is key, says Bunn, and lack of it scuppered much prospect of MMM agility. But having done the “single source of truth” hard yards and plugged into Mutinex’s platform, the marketing teams are now getting more “credibility” within the organisation. They know in near-real time “what’s working and what’s not” in terms of media investment – and that’s getting more departments onside within Samsung. “It’s proven what we thought should be happening is actually happening,” says Bunn. “We can put data and numbers behind what we’ve been saying … and that gives you a lot of credibility in the business to keep pushing.”

Samsung’s agency team at CHEP wasn’t initially convinced. The prospect of yet another data source telling everybody what’s ‘working’ was met with some scepticism, says strategy chief Lilian Sor. Until they all started using it. Samsung and CHEP last month landed gold at the Effies, Australia’s ad effectiveness awards, with its use of media mix modelling to prove results cited prominently by judges. CHEP was also named Australia’s most effective agency overall. So something’s working.

Mutinex boss Henry Innis has only one ask: That everyone steps talking about market mix modelling and instead focuses on ‘market mix decisioning’. “If the industry moves away from the drudgery of legacy MMM models and towards the effectiveness of better market mix decisions, we'll have a more effective and respected industry,” says Innis. “By the time we're done at Mutinex, I would hope that no marketer in the world is seen as a cost centre.”

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