How many Hispanic, African American, or Asian ad agencies do you know that have an analytics department. Heck, how many do you know that have a person on staff that is well versed in marketing analytics?

In case you’re not familiar with this marketing discipline, it is fairly new discipline focused on the use of data in making and optimizing marketing and advertising decisions. While analytics have been in the marketing and advertising world for a long time (particularly in the Direct Response side of the business and among the slew of marketing “consultants” that have filled in that strategic gap for years), it has become a bigger and more important discipline with the emergence of digital advertising and an increased focus on ROI in difficult economic times.

I would argue that the proliferation of Web analytics software tools, starting with enterprise platforms like WebTrends and Omniture (and their pre-merger predecessors like WebSideStory and HitBox), and then the omnipresent Google Analytics, has been a major catalyst in the emergence of analytics as a critical capability in advertising.

There are countless examples in the trades of how digital media and technology in general is changing advertising, forcing agencies to be embrace marketing data, such as Web Analytics and ad serving data, to guide their decisions. A recent WSJ article (“Ad Shops Eye Web Space – Firms Customize Digital Marketplaces to Stay in the Game”) illustrates how the largest ad agencies are developing sophisticated technology systems to manage and optimize their media buying decisions. This is some pretty technologically advanced stuff – we’re not talking about Account Planning here.

So again to my question – how many multicultural ad agencies do you know that have analytics capabilities? We’re not talking about the ability to develop a proprietary technology platform ala Mediabrand’s custom digital ad marketplace (again, see WSJ article referenced above). I’m just talking about marketing professionals that can evaluate and crunch data to make smarter advertising decisions.

I think you know the answer to this rhetorical question – and it is one of the many deficiencies that continues to put multicultural agencies at a competitive disadvantage to their general market brethren, and is ultimately doing a disservice to their clients.

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