Marketing Mix Modeling and Agencies: Bupa and Atomic212 Perfect Working Rhythm

Summary

• From the beginning of their marketing mix journey, Bupa set strong expectations with their agency partners and Mutinex about roles and responsibilities
• Bupa and Atomic212 both benefit from high levels of transparency, which allow them to make decisions as true partners

Marketing mix modeling can revolutionise marketing outcomes, but businesses undertaking modeling need to work closely with their marketing mix providers and relevant agency partners to get the most from the process.

That’s the story told by Bupa and their media agency Atomic212, who have forged a close working relationship to ensure they can make cumulative gains from Mutinex GrowthOS.

In the sometimes complicated dynamic between big businesses, agencies and third party MMM, it’s easy to see where tensions could arise. But Mutinex APAC CEO Mat Baxter says that getting the balance between agency, software partner and business partners is crucial for the success of market mix. Too often, he says, businesses hold back crucial information from agency partners in a bid to maintain confidentiality.

“Many customers say they want their agencies to be a true partner and to be accountable for business performance,” he explains. ”But we do also observe them holding back crucial information about business performance from agencies either as inputs (revenue or sales numbers for example) or outputs (ROI results) of their models. Equally, sometimes we see agency partners dragging their feet on supplying data because of a reluctance to have their performance measured by a third party. To which we would say, why hold your partners accountable for performance but not allow them to measure it or optimise it?”

To nip these challenges in the bud, businesses should seek to actively and explicitly manage expectations and roles and responsibilities from the beginning of the engagement. Bupa Head of Performance Marketing, Angus Hill says, “From our perspective, there’s not much point in standing up a model unless you’re willing to have completely open discussions about the data. Otherwise you won’t get the outputs you need. So From the get go our agency partner Atomic212 were completely across the tool and data inputs.”

Hill outlines three clear areas of responsibility that each partner must commit to in order to get the most from market mix

1. Understanding and supplying sales, revenue data and competitive category data sets in a timely manner. This data is collected and submitted by the business (to avoid double handling), but Atomic and Mutinex understand each data set and how to read it.
2. Understanding and supplying media data in a timely manner. This data is submitted by the agency but Bupa and Mutinex understand each data set and how to read it.
3. Understanding the outputs of the model, which helps to power both briefs and recommendations. 

Ultimately, Hill explains, the trifecta works because every partner understands their individual role in doing due diligence on and supplying the right data, but has also committed to the outcomes of the project as a whole. “MMM is going to be far less accurate and far less useful if the data isn’t reliable, he explains.”

Now Bupa and Atomic212 are realising the gains of this strategy together. Hill outlines a monthly cadence of data refreshes in the MMM, which help to feed into quarterly briefing sessions where client and agency partner are already on the same page regarding business performance and can make better recommendations because of that.