Part two of our Insights Series on Future Demand in Action (from the Commercial Communications Council report 2024).
What Do We Mean by Brand and Performance Marketing?
Performance Marketing - this is campaign activity that looks to convert current category demand into a sale. Traditionally this is price and promo based marketing - looking to convert people who are ready to buy right now. This is the space the global tech giants such as Meta, Google and Tik Tok sort of conquer with their shoppable features and last click attribution modelling.
Brand Marketing - this is the type of activity that makes a brand famous and establishes it as a household name. The creative usually is emotive, and designed to make consumers feel something towards the brand. This sort of advertising recognises that the majority of people are not in-market for your product right now, but they could be at some point in the future. Therefore this marketing tactic is about building future demand for your brand.
So Why are They Better Together?
For too long brand building and performance marketing have been pitted against each other, with performance marketing often winning larger shares of spend due to ease of measuring impact in terms of website traffic or online sales. However, brand and performance are two sides of the same coin and investing in both positively impacts both short and long term sales growth.
In most categories, between 5% and 15% of ‘category buyers’ are in the market at any given point in time (current demand), and between 85% and 95% are not, but will come into the category later (future demand).
Performance Marketing focuses solely on converting current demand within the category (i.e. people who are ready to buy now), however it is much easier to convert current demand if you are a brand that consumers are already familiar with. When people come into a category they gravitate towards the brand they’re familiar with. (e.g. the exposure effect)
Therefore brand building communication or investing in creating future demand is a very powerful tool for marketers. When brands focus on building brand awareness and familiarity with people who are not in the market yet, people are more likely to remember and choose these brands when they do enter the market.
As brands create more future demand they become more effective at converting the current demand in their category.
MediaWorks is well placed to help brands both harvest current demand with our data-led solutions that can hone in on consumer intent, as well as grow future demand through our broad reaching, radio and outdoor offerings.