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In marketing circles, there\u2019s a lot of talk right now about two particular strands of execution \u201cbrand awareness\u201d marketing, vs. \u201csales activation\u201d marketing.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re unfamiliar with these two terms, allow me to shed a glint of light on the subject. Contrary to what many people think brand awareness marketing is not a mood board, a color palette, and a logo. It\u2019s the work of building what marketers refer to as distinctive assets<\/a> so that, when buyers move from \u201cout-of-market\u201d to \u201cin-market\u201d, our brand pops up in their head and feels safest to them. Brand awareness marketing plants the seed in future buyers\u2019 heads, so that we come to mind once they\u2019re ready to purchase. An example of brand awareness marketing? Pretty much every Coca-Cola ad you\u2019ve seen since at least the early 1970s.<\/p>\n Sales activation, on the other hand is the \u201cbuy one, get one free<\/em>\u201c, \u201cfree delivery for all orders received this month<\/em>\u201c, \u201calso available in blue<\/em>\u201d type stuff. It\u2019s about reducing choice friction with precision: the most appropriate channel, media, timing, message, and offer. It\u2019s a sales assist, as opposed to a sales replacement. The best sales activation communication is often boring: communicate the offer, provide a time-sensitive driver, speed up the site, simplify forms, answer objections on the product page, that kind of stuff. Buyers don\u2019t need another interruption; they\u2019re looking for a smoother path to purchase.<\/p>\n Brand awareness advocates argue that such an investment compounds over time, improving customer loyalty, price resilience, and market share. It aims to keep the brand top-of-mind when buying decisions happen, even if those decisions occur months or years later. Critics, in contrast, note that awareness campaigns are harder to tie directly to revenue and can be inefficient if not paired with a clear path to purchase. <\/p>\n The strength of sales activation work lies in measurability and quick ROI, making it appealing for budget-conscious businesses or those under pressure to show short-term growth. However, an over-reliance on sales activation can erode long-term brand equity, leading to price sensitivity and ultimately diminishing returns as audiences tire of purely transactional messaging. Research suggests<\/a> that the most effective marketing strategy is a blend of the two, with brand building as the foundation and sales activation layered on top to convert demand into actual sales.<\/p>\n But what\u2019s actually going on in most boardrooms isn\u2019t a battle of marketing philosophies at all. It\u2019s a quiet but chronic capital allocation failure<\/strong>. The sort of failure that politely erodes enterprise value over the years while everyone congratulates themselves on being \u201cdisciplined\u201d with budget. The choice gets framed as creativity versus performance; the reality is a choice between building an asset with a decent multi-year Net Present Value<\/a>, or strip-mining it for short-term optics and patting ourselves on our backs on the improved quarterly report.<\/p>\n Business owners and senior managers rarely admit they undervalue future demand creation. Instead, they say things like, \u201cWe can\u2019t afford the brand awareness stuff this quarter,\u201d which is like saying we can\u2019t afford to repair the leaky roof because we\u2019re too busy mopping the floor. Brand spend is CAPEX<\/a>, aka capital expenditure. It builds a durable, interest-bearing asset \u2013 it\u2019s just not one that accountants can physically touch. Sales activation spend, on the other hand, is OPEX<\/a> \u2013 operational expenditure. OPEX keeps the lights on.It\u2019s the everyday expenses associated with the day-to-day operations of the business.<\/p>\n The problem is we\u2019re focusing too much on OPEX and spending little time on CAPEX. If our investment criteria are tuned purely to OPEX-type returns (i.e. quick, measurable, and immediate) we will never properly fix the roof and spend the rest of our corporate lives buying buckets..<\/p>\n Our over-focus on OPEX is an organizational bias towards what can be measured inside a fiscal quarter and dressed up as ROI. Managers who play to that bias get promoted. Those who invest in compounding value beyond the quarter are accused of being \u201cfluffy\u201d or \u201ccreative\u201d, which is C-Suite slang for \u201cwe can\u2019t model it, so it must be risky.\u201d Yet the irony is that brand\u2019s effects show up exactly where finance already looks: gross margins, LTV\/CAC ratios, price elasticity, resilience in downturns. We\u2019re just looking for them in the wrong timeframe.<\/p>\n Capital discipline isn\u2019t about choosing one or the other, it\u2019s about sizing both by volatility and horizon. The rational choice is to hold a blend. Use some short-cycle levers for the here-and-now, and some long-cycle positions for the later-and-larger. But the moment cost of capital rises, there\u2019s an automatic temptation to dump the long-cycle stuff because its benefits are \u201charder to prove.\u201d f we burned down our orchard because the apples took too long to grow, we shouldn\u2019t wonder why our fruit bill keeps going up every year.<\/p>\n Attribution is useful, but attribution as a belief system is dangerous. Our industry has built a giant telescope for spotting anything that happens within 30 days of a click, then concluded that anything outside that viewfinder doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s like the old joke of a drunk looking for their keys under the streetlight because the light\u2019s better over there.<\/p>\n Brand investment suffers under this theology because its benefits are diffuse, delayed, and delightfully messy. It improves mental availability<\/a>, primes category preference, and builds trust. All these things make activation cheaper and more effective. But because these benefits don\u2019t show up neatly in last-touch marketing analytics software, they\u2019re written off as \u201csoft.\u201d And so begins the doom spiral: we cut brand awareness to feed sales activation, sales activation becomes more expensive and less effective, so we cut brand awareness even further to \u201cfund\u201d it.<\/p>\n Before long we\u2019re in a situation where we\u2019re paying premium rates to rent the very attention we used to own.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying the cure is to abandon measurement. I\u2019m saying we should demote it from some kind of divine scripture, to decision support. Use mixed-media modeling<\/a>, run incrementality tests, keep an eye on leading indicators like Share of Search<\/a>. Above all, we should make sure the CFO hears the connection between brand spend and hard outcomes. If we can\u2019t make that case, the marketing budget will be cut (and the CFO will be right to cut it)..<\/p>\n Supposing we think of brand awareness marketing as a kind of \u201cmarket permission.\u201d The right to command a premium price, to be the default choice when the buyer\u2019s brain is on autopilot, or to have the benefit of the doubt in a tender process<\/a>. Then we think of sales activation as yield, or the harvesting of demand spikes as and when they occur. Framed in this way it should be glaringly obvious to anyone that these are complementary rather than rivals. Selling our brand awareness budget to fund more sales activation is just going to make our lives harder down the road.<\/p>\n From a portfolio perspective, brand awareness is our long-duration, low-volatility holding. Sales activation is our short-duration, high-volatility play. The weighting depends on many variables such as our market, cash position, and our competitive set. But regardless of that, we definitely need to have both in place. If we\u2019re looking for proof, simply pause all sales activation efforts for a month. Does product demand evaporate, or just slow down? Now do the same for brand awareness, this time for a year (since brand awareness works on as different timeline). Now see if Customer Acquisition Costs<\/a> have risen, or profit margins are sagging, even if top-line revenue stays steady. Businesses with genuine market permission can twiddle the sales activation dial up or down without there being a crisis.<\/p>\n Most \u201cbrand vs activation\u201d arguments have less to do with marketing than with the bizarre incentive structures of corporate life. The CMO is paid to hit acquisition targets, the CRO to hit quarterly revenue, while the CFO to there to protect the cash position. What\u2019s crazy is there doesn\u2019t seem to be anyone on the payroll who\u2019s paid to strengthen the company\u2019s ability to grow more cheaply next year. As a result, funds flow to the activities that can be justified line-by-line in a budget, not to the activities that compound enterprise value<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhy we treat Brand Awareness as a vacation and Sales Activation as a mortgage<\/span><\/h2>\n
Attribution theology: The religion of measurement <\/span><\/h2>\n
A portfolio view: Market Permission as the asset, Activation as the yield<\/span><\/h2>\n
Why the CFO and CMO should stop with the animosity already<\/span><\/h2>\n