It might be that I’m one of The Chosen People. Or perhaps it's my years in the investment industry. Whatever the reason, there is no acronym that makes my heart flutter quite like ROI. In my previous career as an equities analyst, return on investment was at the crux of all my investigative efforts. And in my personal life as well, it’s never far away. Whether it's forecasting how many espressos that new coffee shop must sell to break-even or calculating how many tomatoes I must cut to justify purchasing a pricy new knife sharpener, ROI is always on my mind.

So as a newcomer to this industry, it should be no surprise then that I’m curious about the ROI of branded entertainment initiatives. I’m not alone; the advertising industry is joining forces to try to uncover the ROI of online initiatives. Why? Because clients are demanding it. In a recent study by Forbes Insights, marketers were asked what attribute is most important to marketing strategy? Forty nine percent answered, "Tools and metrics that measure ROI and ensure accountability for outcomes." So it’s resistance from the CFO that is the number one reason most marketers are not adopting social media advertising.

I find the rush to find the ROI of social media amusing. Thats because marketers have forgotten one simple fact. With the exemption of vouchers, infomercials and click-to-buy campaigns it's virtually impossible to isolate the ROI of any advertising campaign, let alone social media. The emperor — print & TV advertising — is wearing no clothes.

While I’m a details guy, sometimes it's good to take a step back from the trees to look at the forest. In this forest, stepping back would reveal that not only is the emperor naked, he’s hideously bloated too. For instance, while the numbers vary — depending on what the study’s source is trying to prove — all the statistics I’ve seen show Internet usage dramatically outweighing print usage, and coming up fast behind TV. Yet Internet ad spending - at 18% of total ad spend - is dramatically lower than both TV (39%) and Print (23%).

Marketer's loyalty to "tried-and-true" advertising mediums is particularly disconcerting when you consider the impact of technology other than the Internet. For instance, in the past, TV advertisers had to worry about viewers channel flipping, making sandwiches or going to the bathroom to avoid watching their crummy commercials. But nowadays, TIVO has made such exertions irrelevant. Yet media agencies have yet to factor TIVO into CPM (cost per thousand) calculations. In other words, what’s the true “M” in CPM? Nobody knows. This is not a problem in the world of branded entertainment, where not only is the M known with certainty, but can explode to viral heights at a fraction of the cost of a TV commercial.

But there’s another point to consider. As our Chief Listening Officer, Brendan Howley points out again and again, there is a wealth of social media data available on a branded entertainment campaign that you’ll never get from a TV ad. This data can help marketers learn more about their consumers than any traditional ad can.