Rex Briggs is an author, award winning marketing ROI researcher. He began his career at Yankelovich Partners, where he was noted for his work inGeneration X Minority marketing. While at Yankelovich, he is noted for developing a theory called “The Psychology of disenfranchisement.” Briggs was among the first to research the Internet. Briggs is responsible for several innovations in digital marketing. In 1995, Briggs joined Wired, as Director of Research, focusing on their digital brand HotWired. He created the first study of Web banner advertising effectiveness. The research is notable because it was the first application of random sampling online, and used design of experiments to measure the in-market impact of online advertising. Briggs and his team at HotWired innovated one-to-one web marketing to deliver personalized content, and real-time web analytics, known as “HotStats”.
Online Advertising Measurement
In 1997, Briggs founded MBInteractive, with Joshua Grossnickle and Oliver Raskin under the ownership of WPP Plc. At MBInteractive, Briggs continued his work on marketing effectiveness creating the widely cited 1997 IAB Advertising Effectiveness Study., and inventing an early version of behavior targeting with leading online ad servers. During this period, Briggs coined the marketing terms “brand impact” and "Surround sound marketing.”
In 2000, Briggs founded Marketing Evolution. At Marketing Evolution, Briggs created a new form of research called “cross media research.” The research, referred to as "XMOS" for a time began with The Dove Nutrium Bar study. It was the first of its kind in that it showed the ROI of online advertising side by side with Television in Magazine, and thus provided insight on the share of the marketing budget that should be devoted to Online advertising in comparison to other media. The cross-media research expanded to other brands, and was publicized globally by the IAB and Microsoft, with Briggs co-presenting the results of the cross-media research with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at various locations around the world. In January 2006, BusinessWeek’s cover story, entitled “Math Will Rock Your World” featured Briggs ROI marketing analysis. Later that year, Briggs expand the research connecting online advertising to offline sales and published the cross-media measurement for the Ford F-150 campaign launch.
What Sticks
In 2006, Briggs co-authored the book What Sticks, Why Advertising Fails and How To Guarantee Yours Succeeds, named What Sticks the #1 book in marketing, and included Briggs among the 10 people who made their mark. Ad Age devoted a cover story to the book in August 2006. What Sticks has been widely cited for answering John Wanamaker’s quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Briggs and co-author Greg Stuart analyzed three-dozen blue-chip brand campaigns on behalf of marketing CMOs and calculated that 37 percent of advertising investment was wasted. Reasons for the waste include failure to understand underlying customer motivations for buying, ineffective messages and inefficient media mix investment. Briggs and Stuart suggestions for reducing waste in marketing were amplified by Bob Liodice, President of the Association of National Advertisers in an op-ed in Ad Age entitled "Marketers, Get Serious About Accountability. Their suggestion about improving ROI through systematic investment in innovation was emphasized by Mark Renshaw in his Ad Age op-ed entitled "The '70/20/10 Rule' and Why You Need It What Sticks is required reading at leading Universities including Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.
In 2007, Briggs advanced research in social media marketing with MySpace, Adidas, and Electronic Arts. He and his team at Marketing Evolution documented what he termed "The Momentum Effect" which is the influence of friend to friend sharing of marketer's messages in social networks. His work in this area was cited in books including Emmanuel Rosen's The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited, and Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, and The Chaos Scenario by Bob Garfield. In 2011, Briggs announced that social media effects can be predicted, and accountable like other media.
Marketing Technology
Briggs has published on the topic of marketing technology and automation starting in 2000 in a paper that won an Excellence in International Research from ESOMAR.. In 2011 he articulated how software to optimize budget planning forms a collective brain, and could be extending to the application of technology to proactively distribute marketing best practices in the marketing process. Briggs argues that SIRFs will be the "Face of Marketing" and the integration into software will be "transformative."
