Brand marketing trumps performance, for now | WARC | The Feed

Brand marketing trumps performance, for now

When it comes to brand marketing vs performance marketing, most businesses do a bit of both, but among the minority who focus on one or the other, brand marketing is by far the preferred option. 

Why it matters

At a time when marketers are under pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their spending, a shift towards performance marketing would be understandable. And, indeed, a third of respondents (34%) to Marketing Week’s Language of Effectiveness survey said marketing spend and success is easier to justify and quantify when focusing on performance as it is more “measurable”.

But a fifth (21%) pointed to the long-term benefits of brand health – including mental availability and distinctiveness – as an important reason for focusing on brand. And, overall, it’s the brand marketers who edge out the performance marketers. 

While that’s encouraging for those who adhere to the Binet-Field school of thought and a broad 60:40 split between brand and performance spending, the immediate future may see brand marketing under greater pressure than at any time in the past 40-50 years.

By the numbers 

The survey of 1,610 brand-side marketers assessed where their companies’ marketing efforts were focused: 

• 14.9% were focused on brand marketing
• 8.6% were focused on performance marketing.
• 27.6% did both but had a greater focus on brand marketing. 
• 23.7% did both but had a greater focus on performance marketing 
• 22.1% did brand and performance equally.

Sourced from Marketing Week