Aug 1, 2004 12:00 PM

For marketers, a healthy dose of skepticism is just that: healthy. You don't have to be from Missouri to appreciate a “show me” mentality. It's endemic among most of the marketers I know (especially the promotional marketers), who won't settle for telling you their approach is better if they can prove it to you. As my high school mathematics teacher used to tell us, “The proof will set you free.” Free to make new discoveries, free to exercise creativity, free to improve on the common wisdom, and, in the case of brand marketing (if not geometry theorems), free to generate growth.

Several of our stories this month look at the ways brands are proving their progress through measurement — and testing the relevance of those measures. Associate Editor Tim Parry talked with several companies about the increasingly significant role of online marketing activity in evaluating their ROI (see p. 24). And Senior Editor Betsy Spethmann peels back the lid on the integrated marketing efforts coming out of Campbell's, where smart research and clear-eyed re-evaluation of old tactics have injected new energy and relevance into formerly tired brands (story begins on p. 28).

Then, in the first of a three-part series from PROMO, we take a look at the “testing, 1, 2, 3…” attitude of U.S. brands when it comes to wireless marketing technologies (known to the tech-heads as SMS for “short-message service”). Burned by the Internet bubble just a few short years ago, stymied by competing communication platforms, and worried about looming regulatory constraints, most companies are hesitating to invest heavily in this unfamilar space — even though the vast majority of consumers are now accessible 24/7 via that little computer called a cell phone, carried in nearly every pocket or purse. In this issue, and then in our September and November issues, we'll explore the success stories, the pitfalls and the opportunities ahead for SMS marketing.

By the way, have you ever heard the origin of Missouri's famous slogan? According to regional legend, the phrase is attributed to Willard Duncan Vandiver, who was Missouri's congressman from 1897 to 1903. In an 1899 speech, he declared, “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”

I don't like “frothy eloquence” either.

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