Brand vs. Performance.

Recently, I was at a conference listening to a panel discussion involving three CMOs that head up significant Australian brands. Towards the end of the session, the mediator/host asked possibly the most repeated, yet redundant, question in our industry.

“Brand vs Performance?”

The fact that this question is continually being asked, and vehemently argued, is a sign in itself of how lost we are. Shipwrights arguing over whether we should only build a hull or a sail.

And one response consolidated the fact.

The responder, at the helm of the biggest brand on the panel, awkwardly paused, stumbled a little, and said something to the tune of “I want to say brand, but I feel like I have to say performance.”

It was probably the one major thing I remembered from days of talks and presentations and keynotes. Seemingly inconsequential, yet so symbolic of the state we’re in. (And in their defence, I completely understand and felt their trepidation.)

“Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.” - Howard Gossage

The fact is, ‘brand vs. performance’ isn’t a binary argument. It’s like asking what’s more important? The heart or the blood? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that’s not a panel discussion at Cardiofest 2024. Prior to the digital era, it was ‘brand and retail’. Before that, it was probably ‘brand and direct’. Brand work creates fame, familiarity, and mental availability. It primes people to recall our brand when they’re ready to buy. And retail/direct/performance catches them when they are. Showmanship and salesmanship. (Apologies for the outdated terms, but you get what I’m saying.)

“You cannot bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them.” - David Ogilvy

People don’t like being sold to. Especially cold. We don’t need data and research for this, we know it innately. We hate being pestered in stores. We hate pop up ads. We hate cold calls. We know that we hate it. However, we do warm up to wit and charisma. Humour and charm. Some form of disarming connection. And once familiar, we often form habits with the places and people we do business with. Whether it’s a local cafe or a multi-billion dollar sport shoe brand. It’s just how we’re wired. Once we’re comfortable, we don’t mind a sales pitch. And for eternity, advertising has operated the same way. Brand breaks the ice, lowers the guard, creates comfort and familiarity. Retail closes the deal. You need both. It’s Brand x Performance, not Brand vs. Performance. And it always has been.

“Design is to invent with intent. If you take away the ‘invent’ bit, you have an engineer. If you take away the ‘intent’ bit, you have an artist. - Rebecca Reubens

Until now. Now we’re told that human behaviour has changed. Digital marketers have unlocked the key to altering human evolution overnight. (I’m not sure why they’re wasting their time trying to sell me 10x funnels in my LinkedIn DMs when they could be bio-engineering superhumans in a lab somewhere.) The performance marketing machine argues that, today, we want to be targeted. We want to be followed and harassed around the internet. We want ‘personalised brand experiences’. That we live in a perpetual state of wanting to be sold to by brands we’ve never heard of nor have any connection to. Of course, none of this is true, and if it were adblockers and skip buttons wouldn’t be so in vogue.

“Someone is sitting in the shade of a tree today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” - Warren Buffet

I want to be clear, this isn’t an anti-retail/performance marketing, it’s just a pro-reality one. It’s all an ecosystem. But like any ecosystem, it requires balance. And that’s what we’ve lost. The discussion should be around the right balance of brand and sales, not pitting them off against each other in some sort of ridiculous cage match. Because all we’re actually doing is cheering on either our left or right hand while we punch ourselves in the face. The obsession with measuring only what can be measured, whether it works or not, and short term sales above all else, has meant that we’ve lost the bit that actually makes brands great over time. The ‘brand’ bit. The human bit. We’ve stopped planting the seeds, yet increased the harvesting, and debate why the yield keeps shrinking.

The fact that a mediator posed this as ‘the big question’ is proof that the tail is wagging the dog. And this particular CMO’s response said it all. They knew that their own brand had lost that balance, but perhaps felt they weren’t allowed to say it. This is a vibe that I’m reading across the entire industry. Marketers who’ve been banned from thinking and feeling and forced to sing from the spreadsheet. I’m of course making assumptions, but maybe the other folk with a ‘C’ in their title ought to get out of the way and let the marketers be marketers again.

“Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.” - Jerry Della Famina

Advertising is, and has been, an incredibly powerful force (for better or worse). But it’s at its most effective when it entertains. When it has fun. When it has wit and charm. When it respects the audience. When you do all that, you roll out the red carpet for the sale. That’s what makes the performance stuff sell harder. If you don’t do that, you’re no different than a cold caller annoying the hell out of people. And I reckon we’re all a bit sick of feeling that way, to be perfectly honest.

Let’s be interesting again. Let’s be entertaining. Let’s have fun.

The conversation isn’t ‘Brand vs. Performance’, it’s ‘Entertain vs. Annoy’.

So, for goodness’ sake, let’s stop punching ourselves in the face.