… having your cake and eating it too.
When the market feels uncertain, the instinct is often to lean harder into performance marketing. It’s quick, measurable, and easy to explain to the board. You can point to the numbers and say, “Look, it’s working.”
But while that might keep things ticking over, doubling down on the short term often means missing out on something bigger – the long-term brand equity that actually builds value over time.
Why brand still matters – even now
Investors and analysts certainly think so. In fact, 79% of analysts say brand and marketing are key factors when valuing a business. But inside many boardrooms, brand still gets labelled as the “fluffy” stuff – a nice-to-have when times are good.
Performance, by contrast, is seen as the commercial side of marketing. It’s concrete. It’s measurable. It looks good on a dashboard.
The result? A natural bias toward the short term – even when it’s not the best long-term move.
The infamous Binet and Field research suggests the optimal balance is around 60% brand-building, 40% performance. (In financial services, it’s likely even more skewed: closer to 70/30). But in practice, we often see the reverse. Search and social spend has doubled in the last five years. PPC costs are creeping up. And longer-term channels like TV and radio are seen as luxuries rather than essentials.
At the same time, marketers are being asked to do both jobs – brand and performance – in one campaign. A tough ask. Because while strong brand campaigns can drive short-term sales, the reverse isn’t really true.
A more useful way to think about impact
So, how do we move forward and stop this short-term bias?
We need to stop thinking in binary terms – brand vs. performance – and instead consider three more meaningful dimensions:
- Impact – What business outcome does it drive?
- Efficiency – What’s the return vs. the cost?
- Time – Over what period does that return land?
This lens is much more useful. It helps move the conversation away from “channel vs. channel” and toward overall commercial value. And crucially, it helps reveal what a lot of performance-only thinking misses — that most of advertising’s return comes later, not now.
TV: A case in point
TV is often one of the first things to be cut in a downturn. But the data suggests that’s short-sighted. Research shows that:
- More than half of advertising’s impact happens after the first three months.
- Cutting TV can reduce profit by up to 24% within a quarter, leaving £300K of profit on the table for a brand with a £1M ad budget.
- TV also boosts other channels. When TV is live, performance channels improve by 13.7% on average.
And TV isn’t alone. Channels like audio, print and BVOD also drive performance – just on a longer timescale. They shape brand preference, build mental availability, and drive future buying decisions.
Take Thinkbox’s latest Profit Ability 2 as another case for brand advertising. It looked at 141 brands across 5 agencies. Only 24% of ad-driven profit landed in the first week. The rest came through over the next 14 weeks to two years — driven by the brand effects that compound over time.
It proves that brand investment is one of the most profitable moves a business can make – if you’re willing to look beyond the next quarter.
So what should marketers do?
First, ditch the idea that you need to choose between brand and performance.
Instead, ask better questions:
- What’s the timescale for return?
- How efficient is the payback?
- And are we measuring the right kind of impact?
You’ll often find that some “performance” channels actually build brand over time (like PPC’s role in mental availability), and some “brand” channels drive short-term response (like a punchy DRTV ad with a clear CTA).
It’s not about either/or; it’s about using each for what it’s good at, and giving them both the space to do their job properly.
Final word
Brand and performance aren’t at odds. But trying to do both in the same campaign, on the same budget, with the same KPIs, tends to land you somewhere in the middle – not quite effective at either.
The real magic happens when we treat them as complementary tools with distinct roles. When we use the right measure for the right job. By reframing how we think about advertising – and resisting the lure of short-termism – we can have our cake and eat it too.
Ready to balance your brand and performance strategy? Let’s discuss how Moreish, a specialist finance advertising agency, can help you achieve sustainable growth while hitting your short-term targets. Get in touch here for a chat.