All readers who ran a fully-measured-ROI-based marketing campaign during 2003, stand up.

Uh, huh. exactly what I thought. The rest of you are either lazy, or well...lazy.

There has been no more significant a development in the field of marketing over the past 5 years, than the rise of truly, finally, measurable marketing, full-stop.

No, not the Starhub blimp, nor the animated subway ads, not even those annoying pop-up ads on the web. Clear, relevant, accountability is set to fundamentally transform our industry and yet most of the networks don't have a clue how to handle it. Like a lone wise sage over the years, only Lester Wunderman saw this coming, too bad most of us never listened.

Many people believe that all the dotcom bubble/burst gave us was flying hamsters, spam email and a lot of very reasonably priced, slightly used Porsche Boxsters. But that's not all, the web introduced the concept that marketing, and advertising specifically, could be made to be completely tracked and measured. Intelligent marketers have grown attached to their metrics reports and results-based budgeting. Now that these tools and techniques are being applied to "traditional" media the game gets really interesting. Nielsen's acquisition of Red Sheriff last month should be an indication of big things to come.

So, in an attempt to make a difference this year, I have laid out three New Year's resolutions that I recommend all those still sitting should think about taking.

1) Hire a new creative director

It's time to appoint the customer as your new creative director. I know, it sounds cheesy, but the fact is the customer knows what they want a hell of a lot better than any of us do. Maybe you hate the green treatment of that ad compared to the red one, but the fact is if it works, run it. With the proper tools in place a measurable agency can tell within 48 hours whats working and what is not. We've waited a hundred years to have the ability to tell the difference. We finally have the technology to quickly optimise media & creative trafficking, learn how to use it.

2) Follow the money

Here's a fun game, it's called "follow the money". Every month you pay your landlord cold hard cash for your swanky condo. You collect that money from your agency via an entirely too small pay package. The agency funds that pay package directly from your clients billings, which they can afford due to a mysterious increase in sales revenue following your last brilliant campaign which raised their company's position on the brand equity index by 2 points. .Hmmm, no wait a minute, we just ran out of direct correlations. I can guarantee you that next month the regional VP Finance is going to ask where all of last quarter's marketing budget went and if you can't clearly draw a straight line from your condo to his P&L sheet, then you and your client may both be out on the street.

The past 20 years worth of "quarterly sales went up 10%, good for us" B.S. is about to come crashing down. There are now direct measurable agencies and media out there today who will happily tell your client that for the $12,000 they spent on that small pilot project last quarter, they were able to directly generate $27,350 in additional sales from 6 new customers. Oh, and here are their names and telephone numbers. Now, when budget time comes around again next year, guess who's going to get cut, yours or theirs?

OK, Wilbur thank you. You can sit down now.

3) Look in the mirror

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, take a look directly into the mirror and practice saying: "I'm sorry, I was wrong".

Keep practicing each morning until you can say it with a straight face and actually sound like you mean it. Everybody hates it when someone else gets something wrong, but it's not half as bad as when they won't admit it. That's the downside of measurable marketing: complete transparency and accountability. When was the last time you stood in front of a big client and said: "you're right, we're sorry, that was a really bad campaign. It just didn't work." More typical is: "Ok, maybe sales were a little slower this quarter, but how do you like this Golden Toothpick we just won.umm, It's half yours you know!"

The fact is, if you are going to be measurable that means reporting the good as well as the bad: "Sure we get things wrong every once in a while, but here's what we learned from the experience and how we are going to use those learnings to reduce your spend by 17% next quarter while increasing market share..."

So that's it. If you're a sales-driven marketer you are probably singing: "Hallelula". If you work for a forward thinking agency, then hopefully you already have a plan. If you're neither .well, there's always PR.

Like it or not, 2004 is going to be the year of measurement .finally.