I attended a breakfast roundtable Thursday morning with senior marketers from RBC, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp (OLG), and The Home Depot.  What made it doubly interesting is that two CFOs also participated.  The most stimulating part of the discussion had to do with “agency math” versus “CFO math.”

That point was most clearly illustrated by Rob Moore, SVP at OLG.  Rob spoke about his days as a senior marketer at HBC, where he said the retailer compared favourably to Wal-Mart in consumer preference surveys, brand favourability and the like — yet Wal-Mart was killing HBC in sales.  The lesson:  marketing metrics don’t always align with business metrics.  Therein lies a prominent disconnect between the CMO and CFO.

Yet both sets of numbers are important.  It may be a sweeping generalization, but I believe that CFO math is usually short-term in nature and more aligned with business and financial goals.  Conversely, marketing math is a longer journey and bridges to consumer or customer research.  Only with constant and co-operative dialogue between finance, marketing and its agencies, can the two be linked to get the full picture of short-term performance and horizon marketing investments.

Another panelist, Alex Browning, CFO at LCBO , said he and most C-suite executives view marketing as an investment.  But like any investment, they expect a return and the return should be articulated when marketing develops and presents its plans.  The Home Depot Canada , which was represented by both its CFO and a senior marketing manager on the panel, spoke about how they are co-operatively developing a monthly dashboard to track performance metrics that include both short-term and long-term analysis.  Sounds like a great start.

Jim Little, Chief Brand and Communications Officer at RBC, said that in today’s economic climate, spending wisely must be a priority.  However, he emphasized that with so many companies cutting their marketing and advertising, the recession is an opportunity to leverage your spend because there is less competitive noise.  It will pay off for those firms that view the recession as an opportunity versus a threat once the economy turns.

All of the points and insight raised by the panel (and audience) were highly topical because marketing spends are coming under increased scrutiny.  Agency leaders also have a point of view:  share! 

In a February 2009 survey  that we conducted with 620 agency leaders worldwide, Canadian agency leaders said that 36% of their clients are “weak at sharing their performance results, scorecards and metrics” with agencies, much higher than in the U.S. (26%) or Europe (23%).  Clearly, some work to do to align and inform all players in an integrated marketing solution.

Once again, another thought-provoking roundtable put on by the Toronto chapter of the American Marketing Association, moderated by Alan Kay, The Glasgow Group.  The next one is May 28:  B2B Marketing in a Recessionary Economy.

Stan Didzbalis