Return on Investment – or ROI – is one of the latest buzz phrases in media and will be the focus of a symposium tomorrow in Sydney and on Friday in Melbourne.

2UE chief, Bob Miller is among an impressive array of industry heavyweights, who will look at the best ways to develop strategies to ensure effective ROI.

For the past three decades, researchers, advertising agencies, clients and academics have assembled with leading international thinkers to examine the environment in which advertising operates and the role research has to play.

This week, at Sydney’s AJC Convention Centre and the Melbourne Convention Centre, the four key marketing bodies team up to focus on research’s role in providing evidence of return on investment.

Some of Australia’s most successful ad campaigns are on the agenda, presented by the ad agency executives, clients and researchers who made them happen, along with North American based speakers, John Philip Jones and Chuck Chakrapani. Both are prolific writers and highly regarded speakers, known for strong and sometimes controversial theories on the world of advertising.

AMR’s CEO of Research, Jim Alexander, who will chair a number of sessions, says recent reports show Australian ad spending has increased 7.9% – after a few lacklustre years – to $9.3 billion.

“Historically, advertising research was focused on measuring recall, but the focus is shifting. We need to recognise that it’s flawed to measure the stimulus only (where we expect the consumer to be an expert in advertising).

“We need to focus on measuring the response to the advertising. We should be more interested in what they’re doing and how they feel about the brand – and then linking this back to whether they’ve seen the advertising – rather than what they’re telling us about the advertising itself.

“Another big debate continues to be about how often you can expose people to an ad before it ‘wears out’.

“An equally important focus of the symposium is that ‘researchers make sure they don’t just race towards new methodologies’ and that new methods and techniques are tested thoroughly.”

Bob Miller will be a panelist in the opening session, ‘The Context for Advertising’, which will cover the current environment in which advertising functions, examining key social, political and economic factors, which are helping to shape advertising practices.