From The Message:
A continued emphasis on short-term tactical marketing, rather than longer-term efforts that prioritize brand, means Canadian businesses are “without doubt” missing out on potential growth opportunities, says advertising effectiveness guru Peter Field.
“You don’t achieve maximum growth when you go short-term,” said Field, regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on advertising effectiveness ever since the publication of his 2013 book, The Long and the Short of It. In the book, Field and co-author Les Binet argued against the so-called “performance marketing revolution,” in which a focus on brand building was dismissed as old-fashioned in an era of data-driven targeted advertising.
“There is a grave danger, and it’s clearly very present in the Canadian marketplace, of short-term metrics driving strategy and thinking,” he said. “When that happens you walk away from the potential for maximum long-term growth. It’s a really dangerous thing, and we have to push back against it as marketers.”
Focusing on short-term sales compromises long-term benefits like the ability to boost profit and pricing power, and grow market share. “These are the kinds of objectives that accumulate over time, and tend to be associated with long-term brand-building strategies,” he said.
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Brand-building efforts, he added, can also have a pronounced impact on pricing power. “We tend to be able to defend or grow our margins when we start brand-building,” he said. “Over the long-term, brand building gives us increased [sales] volume at increased margin, which is why it has such a profound impact on profitability.”
What is the balance? Can too much data make you blind?
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