More than a century has passed since the Philadelphia department store magnate John Wanamaker famously complained that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

The good news is that advertising has become more efficient in the past 100 years; now only 37 percent is wasted, according to Rex Briggs, CEO of Marketing Evolution. And he told LSB Brandworks University 2008 participants where to look for the waste in their marketing efforts.

In the research for his highly respected 2006 book “What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds,” Briggs identified three failures that account for two-thirds of the waste:

1. Misaligned advertising, including spending past the point of maximum return and under-spending, especially on new media.
2. Not understanding why consumers buy. For example, the predecessor to Colgate’s Total toothpaste totally failed until it was rebranded to match consumer motivations.
3. Poor creative execution. This is a particular failure of online advertising, Briggs claimed.

“Getting motivation, message and media mix working together is critical to cutting out waste.” Briggs said.

Briggs spent most of his time at Brandworks University coaching participants on how to execute social networking strategies and, more importantly, how to measure their success. The key is to trigger what he called the “momentum effect.”

While traditional advertising and community pages have a strong effect, over half the impact of social network marketing comes from the momentum effect that occurs when one consumer uses the brand as a reference point in his or her own personal profile or passes along the information to a friend, Briggs explained.

“Giving consumers the tools to add the brand to their wallpaper or opportunities to make a dream come true through brand connected programs are two methods we measured to great effect in this research.”

Traditional models of advertising ROI only capture the direct effect of corporate messages on factors such as consumers’ brand awareness, positive brand attitudes and intent to purchase, Briggs said. The momentum model adds the effect of consumers passing along the brand message, which can account for a majority of the campaign’s impact and significantly lower the cost per consumer.

Briggs cited campaigns by Electronic Arts and Adidas in which the momentum effect generated more than 70 percent of the final market impact. “When consumer-to-consumer communications are added to the value equation, the average cost to influence each person on purchase intent dropped to $.34 for EA and $.40 for Adidas. This is three times better ROI than the average for online advertising impact not including the momentum effect.”

The strategy starts by changing the marketing question, Briggs said. “Don’t ask how to get more people to come to your Web site. That’s the wrong question. Ask how you can get people to take the elements of the brand out of the page and put it on their own page.”

Unfortunately, Briggs said that while consumer behavior and media usage are changing dramatically, the metrics marketers use to measure effectiveness and allocate dollars are not keeping pace. He recommended three changes:

1. Approach market research like it’s done for research and development; ask what we don’t know and structure marketing research to answer the questions.
2. Break free of corporate reliance on measuring systems and budget allocation systems that were built for a different world. “We need to be able to measure the effect of events, break down market segments and get results in real time.”
3. Understand which tactic works best for your marketing problem. TV is not dead, Briggs asserted. TV still does an excellent job of awareness and reach. But it needs to be part of a “surround sound” marketing system that can measure results from awareness through purchasing influence.

Is the new world of digital two-way marketing a challenge or an opportunity? Briggs suggested that it could be a fabulous opportunity. “If you can reduce your waste by being smarter on motivation, message and media, you’re going to build your brand faster than your competition.”

Briggs is internationally recognized for both his research on Web site effectiveness and online advertising, and his work to clarify the combined effectiveness of old and new media. AdWeek named Briggs one of the dozen “Best and Brightest” in Media and Technology; Brandweek named him one to “watch and learn from.”