It seems that not all 'digital' advertising spend is great for brand building.

Information coming out of 'Adidas' would suggest that they have neglected to maintain a front of mind strategy when it comes driving sales?

Brand building is the sexy part of any paid media strategy, but Adidas have also been looking at a econometric model in order to better understand 'attribution'. 

Welcome to the world of digital advertising along with the nightmare of fraud and real time attribution that many online companies have been wrestling with since the tsunami of ad platforms arrived with 'programmatic mindset that not only made agency lands life easier and more lucrative, yet also has proven to be their undoing.

The sports brand’s global media director, Simon Peel, explains that four years ago the company didn’t have any econometrics, its attribution modelling was based on last-click and it didn’t do any brand tracking. It also focused on efficiency over effectiveness, leading it to look at specific KPIs and how to reduce their cost rather than what was in the best interests of its brands.

The whole area around digital paid advertising continues to come under greater scrutiny, particularly in relation to that 'last click' attribution model adopted by most ad tech platforms and agencies. 

From research (link here) that's just been released it seems that there is sufficient rationale to support the theory that most sales would have been made without those digital intrusions. 

The research suggest we've been in a 'Dot.com bubble' for some time, and that bubble is digital advertising.