Is now the time to lean back into awareness and brand marketing?

Whether with clients or friends, this has been a common question that has been coming up recently. I don't believe in absolutes in marketing or in business, and the world keeps changing, but I've tried to aggregate some thoughts below. ?

To start, what do people mean with this question?? Typically, it refers to putting dollars behind media that isn’t expected to convert immediately but is expected to increase brand awareness (whether aided or unaided).? And usually it’s meant to target new/unaware audiences via broad distribution channels. Arguably it could less about the media channel and more about the message, creative, and CTA.

Part of what I see as a differentiator of this type of marketing vs. performance marketing is both the ability to measure impact more precisely (which has its own set of issues) and the time frame over which the value capture is expected to occur.?

I’d also say at the outset that I was initially trained as a performance/DR marketer (Beachbody’s infomercial model was the epitome of measured media - we had thousands of 800 numbers to uniquely track phone response for each TV airing).? That being said, I am not remotely in one camp only.

Getting to the question at hand, I typically start with the below questions:

1. What type of organization is the person asking the question in?
2. What’s really driving the question in the first place and are there specific measures they are looking to improve upon?

Let me dig in:

-The type of organization.? Said a different way, Context Matters.

To be clear, this isn't a criticism of any specific org or org type.? It’s more that it's important to recognize how the company has operated, the currency that’s used within the org, etc.? My guess is that an org that is asking the question when to “lean back in to” awareness is one that has its roots in performance marketing or where senior leadership is putting pronounced attention on the measurability and impact of its media dollars.? Measuring performance media vs. media that may be termed “awareness” or “brand” marketing is different.? (Side note, this is why I prefer to use phrases like demand gen and demand capture - since brand and performance marketing can be such triggers for many people. )

Regardless, an org with roots in performance marketing is one where I would expect to get more challenge/pushback re: the value of awareness/brand marketing.? The “precision” and type of metrics are just different - for example, even layering in an MMM analysis doesn’t provide the type of precision that a performance marketing org is used to - unit economics, CAC/ROAS, payback periods, etc.??

And so if the org has deep deep roots in performance marketing, there may be inherent and ongoing challenges with leaning (back) in to brand marketing, regardless of whether we’re in 2024 or 2021, when growth and spend generally didn’t have the level of rigor of oversight as they do today (not a criticism, just my perception).

All this to say the “fight” to justify bigger brand budgets, especially by someone with “brand” in their marketing title, may be longer and tougher.? (Spoiler - there may be ways to get at the real goals without it necessarily being labeled as brand marketing.)

-Which brings me to the other big question - what is driving the desire for increasing brand marketing in the first place???

One misconception that I hear from performance marketers about their brand counterparts is that they think the latter don’t measure the impact of the dollars they deploy.? Which I somewhat understand the basis for the thinking, I also feel like it's a silly sentiment.? It’s more that the types of measures are different.??

That all being said, when I ask a brand marketer why they want to push back into brand marketing, I’ll ask what they are concerned about or what they are trying to improve.? Answers and suggestions I pose include but are not limited to the following:

-Brand health metrics like Awareness, consideration, etc.?

-Traffic, whether to a website or retail

-Faster business growth

To the first bucket, very few orgs that I’ve been a part of or advised have the ability to tie awareness metrics to the P&L in a way that teams can have strong confidence. (I feel like I need 17 qualifiers on each sentence in this piece because for every statement, there is nuance, an exception, context that has to be applied. And I'm not trying to criticize any one thing, org, team, or approach - more just trying to share what I've seen). These aren't easy issues to address. ?

Of course awareness matters, but in a time where marketing dollars are under a closer microscope, and there is a strong desire to have confidence of impact, it is important to recognize that looking for that connection (causation not just correlation) between awareness and the P&L, well, some orgs have this ability. But many do not.? And so it might not be worth this fight.?

So what can be done in this current environment? Well, a few things:

-Bring more storytelling to the existing media. Just because the dollars are being deployed in certain channels doesn't mean that the message being communicated can't be improved. There are likely ways of telling the brand story, better communicating the USP and brand promise better. Segments can be better defined and targeted. Now, sometimes the updated message might feel "softer" in terms of driving a transaction - and that's a valid concern - but there's also a difference between losing 40% and losing 4% on conversion, if the message is better/stronger (and that can mean different things for different companies).

-Build a more cohesive and unified set of messaging (and creative) across channels - this was one of the bigger changes we made at GoodRx, driven by the team we brought in.? What this looked like was that our prior creative wasn’t necessarily at odds with one another, by channel, but rather it wasn’t cohesive or unified.? And while hard to quantify precisely, there is no question that consistent look/feel/copy/design adds up when it's deployed across channels.? It also makes creative testing easier - whereas previously each channel owner would make independent requests to the creative team, and then sometimes we would have to backtrack because we needed to factor in new channels into the mix, we (and really the team) changed the process of how new campaigns and creatives - whether for testing or otherwise - were deployed. To everyone's benefit.

-Champion the idea that brand is built everywhere.? Too often I’ve seen the responsibility of building the brand put to the marketing team, when in fact every role in an org affects the brand - product (whether physical or digital), customer service, engineering, and beyond - they all impact how customers experience and perceive the business and the brand.

To that end, make sure everyone understands what the brand stands for and that whatever is relevant in their respective area - that they are working to deliver on that promise. ?

-As for media channels, a) don’t underestimate the power of earned/owned media. Too often the focus is on paid marketing (I've done this plenty of times myself), when in fact PR, content, etc. can meaningfully affect the business; and b) leverage affiliates/influencers/UGC - which, when done well, can be lower lower financial risk, but can be great in terms of telling the brand story. Just pick these partners carefully - whether you think they are good representatives and advocates for your brand.

Finally, keep coming back to - what’s driving the question in the first place? What are you and/or the org trying to solve for - is it better storytelling, broader exposure, increased traffic, or possibly 25 other things. Keep in mind what type of org you're in. And then, especially if you're in an org that skews to the performance side, look at ways to ground the work in the currency your organization speaks.

We are definitely operating in a different environment than 2-3 years ago. The oversight and rigor around business performance, especially in the nearer-term, is different (higher) than it was previously. But that doesn't mean that communicating the brand story needs to be or should be ignored, nor that getting that message out to broader audiences should be deprioritized. It's more that the approach in doing so may need to be shifted given the dynamics in the marketplace today.

Yes, performance matters, now more than ever. But communicating the brand narrative (not just in marketing but throughout the organization) has been and always be critical in growing a business.