The Measurement Trap: Why More Data Doesn’t Mean Better Marketing Decisions

[00:00:00] Tessa Burg: Hello and welcome to another episode of Leader Generation, brought to you by Mod Op. I’m your host, Tessa Burg, CTO, here at Mod Op, and I’m very excited to welcome Scott Sutton to our episode today. Scott is the director of media at CKE Restaurants, and he resides in Nashville, where I just got back from.

[00:00:19] Tessa Burg: Speaking at an awesome conference called Data Tune, and if you are interested in conferences, definitely check out Data Tune, and today’s episode is gonna be all about measurement. So a really nice continuation for me on some of the great conversations I just had. Today, we’re gonna be unpacking one of the biggest challenges facing modern marketers, and that is separating out meaningful outcomes from all the noise.

[00:00:43] Tessa Burg: Just because you can measure it doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. Happy to have you here.

[00:00:51] Scott Sutton: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:00:54] Tessa Burg: So before we begin, and we’ve already had just for listeners a very long conversation before this. And Scott has awesome background experience, but also just a naturally curious person and easy to talk to.

[00:01:07] Tessa Burg: So Scott, tell us a little bit about yourself and your career path up until now.

[00:01:12] Scott Sutton: Yeah, so I’ve always been kind of in the marketing and media space. Um, one thing that’s kind of funny is, you know, now I’m at CKE working on Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. And my first job I actually worked on Hardee’s. So it’s kind of like come full circle for me, um, on working on these brands.

[00:01:30] Scott Sutton: And it’s like. How much has changed, but how much hasn’t changed and how, you know, we reach consumers and all that fun kind of stuff. So, but yeah, my background, I’ve always been in kind of the, the space. I love it just because you’re, it’s always changing. Anybody that tells you, like, they know what’s, you know, definitively what’s going on is, is not being honest.

[00:01:53] Scott Sutton: Because there’s so many things in this space that are always changing, whether it’s how you’re reaching people, the technology, the tech stack, the measurement, all of those things are just always in flux, and I think that’s kind of what makes it fun. It’s, there’s always something new to learn.

[00:02:09] Tessa Burg: So I have a question about your initial experience at Hardee’s.

[00:02:13] Scott Sutton: Yeah.

[00:02:14] Tessa Burg: The first job was at Dairy Queen, and my dad called me “The Dairy Queen” because I just. I loved everything about it and I loved all the changes, and I loved the menu. Did you love Hardee’s?

[00:02:28] Scott Sutton: So when I, I abs I absolutely, when I started there was the big hardee which was like the big burger that they had that was out.

[00:02:37] Scott Sutton: Um, they had just opened a Hardee’s in, um, the hometown where I lived. It was kind of, well, it was like on the way. It was way out in the suburbs and it was like such a big deal. Ironically, the only thing that was in the town before was a Dairy Queen and a Pizza Hut. And so when Hardee’s opened, they had to get like a big waiver because when it is in the historic district, and it was like a big deal when Hardee’s opened.

[00:02:59] Scott Sutton: Um. Um, in our town. So yeah, I’ve always, I’ve always eaten Hardee’s. It’s evolved a lot. You know, when I was first started, they, that’s when they started breakfast and then they did like chicken, fried chicken. So it’s a brand that’s been always evolving and it, it, it’s fun to be kind of part of this new, new phase of what they’re trying to get done, which is fun.

[00:03:20] Tessa Burg: That would’ve been a dream for me because our Dairy Queen was a brazier and it had the fried chicken basket with the country gravy, and I always loved the toppings on Hardee’s burgers. So if I could have like mixed those two things together, that would’ve been like, that would’ve been my whole diet.

[00:03:37] Scott Sutton: Absolutely.

[00:03:38] Tessa Burg: So, let’s talk about measurement. You recently wrote that we live in a time where we can measure almost everything, but that can be a problem. What happens inside organizations when that becomes too overwhelming and when measurement isn’t helpful?

[00:03:55] Scott Sutton: Well, one of the things that, um, I used to always say is if you give like a brand manager a number, they’re gonna try to optimize to it.

[00:04:03] Scott Sutton: So you have to be really careful what numbers you share with leadership and with the brands because they’re always gonna want to like tweak it or fix it. So part of, I think our job is media folks is like, what are the measurements that actually matter? And then how do you use them to make really smart business decisions. Because, you know, I, I, you know, I don’t mean to be a hater about like brand lift studies, but I’ve never actually done anything because of a brand lift study.

[00:04:32] Scott Sutton: So one of the lenses I always try to look at when I’m like looking at data is like, what? We’re gonna measure it, so what are we gonna do about it? If I, I’m gonna find out this information, does it mean I’m gonna do more or less? Or how am I gonna feel about it? What is the outcome that we’re gonna have?

[00:04:46] Scott Sutton: Because we’re actually measuring it. And for me, you know, I, I’m all about driving incremental sales. So that’s kind of the lens that I look through everything with. Is, is this gonna help me make decisions? Is this gonna drive more sales? And, and, and kind of optimize what our mix is.

[00:05:02] Tessa Burg: So tell me, let’s unpack the incremental sales, because when I’ve worked in retail before, that always feels like something people wanna get to.

[00:05:13] Tessa Burg: But right or not, it’s almost like internal politics start to get involved. Well, how do you know that was the baseline? How do you, did you take into consideration all these other environmental factors? How do you measure or go about getting to a clean, incremental sales without getting like bogged down by it being absolutely perfect?

[00:05:31] Scott Sutton: So I, I think you have to get alignment on what you’re gonna measure. So for us, we use market mix modeling, market mix analysis as kind of our North star. And you know, there’s certainly challenges within that framework. I mean, none, no, I don’t think any measurement is absolutely perfect. But we’ve used market mix, uh, to get our franchisees on board with the big changes that we’re making.

[00:05:53] Scott Sutton: And there’s been a huge evolution within CKE with how we kind of approach things. Um, our brands, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. Were together. Like five years ago. So we’ve had two brands. They’re very different that they put together for media reasons, which is really unusual because how many times does like media drive a brand decision like that.

[00:06:11] Scott Sutton: But they wanted to be really efficient and get into network. Um, network cable and it really didn’t work out because the brands are very different. And while you were able to achieve the media efficiency, it really, you lost some of the brand personality. So then we kind of had to migrate from national cable to spot television.

[00:06:34] Scott Sutton: Then that wasn’t super efficient when, so when I got on board about two years ago, we were making this big switch to digital. Um, and you know, the promise with digital is, oh, you can track everything and you have, you can customize everything. So we use market mix to kind of help sell in that leapfrogging as we’ve gone.

[00:06:51] Scott Sutton: And now we’re at a place where we’re trying to figure out how do we get a little bit more micro peel apart how things like CTV are working. On a more individual level, whether that’s through how we target through audiences or through our channel partners, um, and through content. Those are all kind of the levers that we’re working on to kind of tease out what elements are working within there.

[00:07:13] Scott Sutton: But I think to answer your question, you really wanna have that framework. What is our, our touchstone gonna be for us? We measure incrementality through that. And for our business, you know, it also shows you what the other parts are, you know, so you have. You know, your price, your promotion, how your product’s doing, what your competitors are doing, all of those things go into the model and kind of is able to tease it out so you can kind of compartmentalize, you know, who’s responsible for what and who’s driving what.

[00:07:41] Scott Sutton: But it’s, it’s certainly a challenge in QSR because things are changing so much. Um, you know, our product changes all the time, you know? The competition is changing all the time right now. Pricing is really tough with consumers. So all of those things factor in and it makes it, and definitely makes it a challenge as a marketer to tease out, you know, well, what is actually moving the needle and what’s not.

[00:08:04] Tessa Burg: And you mentioned something really important about bringing the franchisees along. What has been their response to seeing the market mix modeling and, and having that separation of brands and knowing that you at the corporate level are, are focused on incremental sales?

[00:08:23] Scott Sutton: Um, so we do spend a lot of time, first of all, we have really great franchisees.

[00:08:27] Scott Sutton: They’re super engaged. Um, they really care about the business. They care about what we’re doing in marketing. They have tons of questions. You know, market mix is very technical, so we do a lot of, um, kind of like. Uh, like we just did, like a town hall where we took them through like literally the mechanics of how market mix works and the regression models and all the details.

[00:08:48] Scott Sutton: Um, so I, I feel like there’s a confidence that we’re not grading our work, so we use a third party to, to measure that. And, you know, there’s a lot of, um. Data behind it that goes into it. So I think, I think they’re more comfortable with it, but you know, at the end of the day, it’s really about is the cash register ringing?

[00:09:08] Scott Sutton: So, you know, if, if, if I’m saying that everything’s green along my list, but the register’s not, you know, ringing in the way that they want it to, they’re gonna challenge us. Which is fair because, you know. It, it doesn’t matter what the media metrics are. We, we need to increase sales in our, in our stores and, and keep the momentum up going on there.

[00:09:27] Scott Sutton: So I, I think that they, they have trust in it. Um, I think they, it, it’s good that we’re, you know, we’re measuring it and we kind of have goals against it. But like I said, at the end of the day it’s about, you know, what’s happening, what’s happening in the stores, um, are we driving traffic?

[00:09:44] Tessa Burg: I love that, and I like that you expose that to them and it feels that the ultimate metric is their success, and I’m sure you get a lot of positive feedback and even just real feedback on where there might be other factors impacting that.

[00:09:59] Tessa Burg: One of the challenges that you recently spoke about as it relates to driving that media is CTV and. We on this podcast have probably interviewed at least four or five different CTV vendors and there, there are a lot. What, when we think about the different ways to evaluate a CTV vendor, how do you recommend brands approach?

[00:10:26] Tessa Burg: Like what factors really matter?

[00:10:30] Scott Sutton: Well, for, for me, you have to have great partners, right? So on the agency side, you know, we have great partners because that help kind of cut through and kind of, you know, compartmentalize talk about like what all the different components are because it’s not anything that I can keep up with.

[00:10:45] Scott Sutton: The technology is changing so fast and all the different ways that you’re, you have in to buy the inventory. Um, and the things that I asked for is like, transparency is so important, you know, I wanna know. What ran, where it ran, you know, who, who saw it and, you know, did it drive a sale? So there’s tons of different ways into there.

[00:11:07] Scott Sutton: Like I said, we use market mix, but we also use other data layers like, um, credit card data, like we use Attain for credit card data, which has been a big win for us. Um, you know, what I look for in a partner, you know. I think it’s, I don’t know if it’s controversial, but this whole, you know, I felt there’s this whole notion of like, what, where do you pay a premium for? What’s quality inventory?

[00:11:28] Scott Sutton: And there’s always like a big debate about, you know, well, what’s quality? You know, for me it’s like attention and it becomes important, like how do you measure attention. Because I kind of don’t care. What you’re watching, you know, as long as the brand safe and it, it makes sense from, you know, word to run, but I don’t whether it’s the Olympics or you’re on your phone watching, you know, TikTok videos.

[00:11:51] Scott Sutton: If I grab your attention and I have an ad that like relates to what you’re interested in, I know that you’re kind of in the market to stop by one of our stores, that that’s what matters most to me. Um, how you get there is, is tough. I will, I will tell you, foot traffic I feel like has been. Not a great tool for us.

[00:12:11] Scott Sutton: Um, it’s kind of a proxy that we use in between our market mix, but I think there’s so many different. It’s very black box. I don’t, I tend to not like the black box things as much because it’s hard to peel apart well, what’s working and what’s not working. And for me, like a red flag is when you use one vendor and then another and you get totally different results.

[00:12:32] Scott Sutton: That just sort of, kind of brings a lot of that into question and there’s, there’s so much into the foot traffic world that’s modeled. Um, I don’t have a ton of confidence in that, but I would say we’re always trying out new ways to get it, the get it measurement. Uh, and like I said, it for me, at the end of the day, it’s sales. Like I want incremental sales.

[00:12:52] Scott Sutton: Uh, the other thing that, that’s kind of good news on the CTV front, you know, we, we’ve done this big migration. We’ve got our franchisees, um, on board with doing, um, CTV and, you know, when we have like a great product, a great message, a great price, great offer, great media, when all of those things fire, we see a huge lift in sales in inside our, inside our stores, which is, which is great.

[00:13:17] Scott Sutton: So I would say that, you know, my biggest watch out is, um, making sure that you’re firing on all cylinders. No matter what media type that you’re in, whether it’s CTV or sports or you know, audio, whatever the case may be, everything’s gotta be firing. And if you have everything firing, then you have a chance to kind of break through.

[00:13:36] Scott Sutton: But, you know, media alone’s not gonna do it. You know, creative alone’s not gonna do it. You, you kind of have to have the whole package.

[00:13:43] Tessa Burg: Yeah, no, that’s a really good point. Do you do any type of testing before you run? Certain mixes to get a sense of like what’s gonna work where, or have you found that there is that sweet spot of context where when you catch your target audience in a specific setting or watching a specific type of programming, that the message resonates more.

[00:14:08] Scott Sutton: Absolutely. I mean, we’re always testing at all kinds of stuff, probably almost too much. ’cause you know, we, the way that we’re set up is we do kind of individual plans market by market, and we’re in like over 150 DMAs. So we have a lot of different activities. Um, we have a lot of regionality com uh, components to our business.

[00:14:26] Scott Sutton: But absolutely, I mean, whenever we, we we’re always looking for those segments that match up really well. So the context. So we use some tools to look at the context of ads, um, making sure that matches up with our creative. Um, we’re always testing, you know, we’re big into testing influencers, um, testing, social media, um, all of those different components to go in there.

[00:14:51] Scott Sutton: And, you know, it’s, it’s hard because. Everything’s always changing. I would say price has become such a huge component in the QSR space in the past year where, you know, in the past you could get away with running an LTO and just having a, an amazing product. Now everybody wants price and they’re, consumers are almost skeptical if you don’t have a price in there.

[00:15:12] Scott Sutton: Um, so that’s been a huge driver in kind of what’s going on in the QSR space Most recently. But yeah, I’m always, I love testing. I think contextual stuff makes sense. Anything that’s gonna make the creative work harder, um, and, you know, making sure you’re matching up the media is, is huge. Sports is huge for us.

[00:15:29] Scott Sutton: Um, I was surprised that it, it works so well. ’cause, I mean, there’s often a premium involved, but, um, it really resonates with our consumer. And, you know, we’re, we’re starting to get into the NASCAR space as well, which is gonna be kind of big on the Hardee’s side. So we’re always like. We try to like iterate and evolve.

[00:15:47] Scott Sutton: Iterate and evolve and um, that’s kind of what we’re doing these days. And then with regards to content and sports.

[00:15:55] Tessa Burg: That’s awesome. Yeah, I. Remember going to even NASCAR races with my uncle and his dream was always to sponsor a car, just to be a more, more, to have his brand be inside of that experience. Do you see other ways in the future where Hardee’s and Carls Jr will like come to life in a shared experience in different ways?

[00:16:23] Scott Sutton: Well, I mean a hundred percent. That’s what you’re always looking for. What are those shared experiences? So, you know, we’re kind of like a little fighter. We’re a little fighter. I mean, we’re not. Compared to McDonald’s, everybody is, is, is pretty small. So we’ve gotta be aligned on McDonald’s money. So we have to be really scrappy with how we approach the market, right?

[00:16:41] Scott Sutton: So, uh, it’s all about creating those moments where you can surround the consumer with, you know, whether it’s social, being around the conversation being the actual races, like in the, in the case of nascar. So we try to kind of surround. Our brand around the entire conversation that people are having, that they’re interested in.

[00:16:59] Scott Sutton: And that, and, you know, NASCAR is, you know, those fans are so rabid, they’re so loyal. Um, there’s something to follow every single week. Um, I haven’t really been a huge NASCAR person, but now that I’m actually in the sport and figuring out it goes, it’s like, it’s, it’s super fun to keep up with it. There’s a, there’s a lot of talk and a lot of energy that goes all around it.

[00:17:20] Scott Sutton: So we’re, we’re excited about unlocking more stuff in that space.

[00:17:24] Tessa Burg: Yeah, it’s a really cool community and

[00:17:26] Scott Sutton: absolutely,

[00:17:27] Tessa Burg: you really do not know what’s going to happen. I know that’s the case with all live sports, but in NASCAR it’s like. It, something can change in in less than a second, and it could come from any driver anywhere, and

[00:17:41] Scott Sutton: that’s what makes it so exciting.

[00:17:42] Scott Sutton: Yeah. That’s what makes it a really fun sport. Absolutely. I love that.

[00:17:45] Tessa Burg: Yeah. I was telling a friend that, and they’re made a comparison to hockey. They’re like, no, I know they’re gonna get in a fight. You know? Like that’s, for me, it’s predictable, but how, who might crash? Who’s gonna pull through, who’s gonna cut off?

[00:17:58] Tessa Burg: Who’s gonna have a good run? Like there’s, I feel like. Similar to CT CTV, there’s a lot of factors.

[00:18:06] Scott Sutton: Yeah.

[00:18:07] Tessa Burg: Um, well we’re just about at time. This has gone by so fast and so I just wanna recap some points and see if you have anything else to share. But when brand media managers are looking at this landscape, it’s really important for them to first hone in on what is important to measure, why are they measuring it?

[00:18:24] Tessa Burg: Make sure they have that reason. I loved that you were transparent and brought along the franchisees, and that you’re taking that feedback into account and really showing that you’re working for them and the incremental sales that you’re driving. I also like that you emphasize the people part of CTV and the importance and the strengths and those partnerships and alignment with the measurement.

[00:18:46] Tessa Burg: I think a lot of the conversations we have on this podcast are about AI, and it’s like optimization and predictability should be a given. But the difference is the people behind it and their interest in alignment with your brand and that in the future when we think about attention, the landscape of attention is gonna change so dramatically.

[00:19:09] Tessa Burg: So it’s gonna allow that creative to come to life in new ways. Is there anything else that you think, especially marketers on the client side looking at media should keep in mind as we continue this journey through a fast changing landscape in 2026?

[00:19:25] Scott Sutton: I mean, I think the biggest thing that I’ve, um, has kind of come full circle to me is just how important it is for like the creative message and everything to be kind of aligned.

[00:19:35] Scott Sutton: Having that partnership cross-functionally and not getting like all myopic about, well, like it’s all ct, it’s, you kind of have to be flexible with what the message is or. You know, what’s gonna play the best? And having that relationship kind of across, you know, with operations, with the brand team, you know, with your operators, all of those things becomes so important.

[00:19:55] Scott Sutton: And when you can relay that to partners and they know what you’re looking for, they can be much more effective in delivering solutions for you. That makes sense. So really it’s communication across all of those components. Is what’s really gonna help kind of move the needle because if you’re just looking at like CPMs or you’re just gonna look at, you know, how, you know, what’s this measurement?

[00:20:15] Scott Sutton: If you’re not looking at the whole picture, it it, it’s gonna be a lot harder to be successful.

[00:20:22] Tessa Burg: Yeah. I love that. Well Scott, thanks so much for joining us and thanks for hanging out even before this interview and chatting and getting to know each other. Uh, if people have questions for you. How can they reach you?

[00:20:34] Scott Sutton: Um, they can always email me at [email protected].

[00:20:41] Tessa Burg: Awesome. Perfect. And if you are interested in hearing more episodes of Leader Generation, you can find them at modop.com/podcasts or just search Leader Generation wherever you listen to your podcast. And until next time, Scott, we will be talking again soon.

[00:20:59] Tessa Burg: Have a great

[00:20:59] Scott Sutton: thanks for having me. Thank you. Yeah.