“Marketing alone typically contributes only 5-20% to overall business growth,” says Kevin O’Farrell, vice-president, Analytic Partners. But the difference between being stuck at the bottom and breaking into the top tier, he says, comes down to getting the fundamentals right.
And he’s got the facts to back it up: this speed session on marketing effectiveness lifted the lid on 25 years of data across 50+ countries, 1,000+ brands, and billions in marketing spend – all number crunched by Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome intelligence platform.
Speaking alongside Rupesh Patel, head of insights at Samsung Electronics UK, and Christian Jähnert, regional data & analytics lead, Beiersdorf, O’Farrell and the panel explored the three killer facts that get brands into that 5-20% club and beyond.
The panel began by tackling fragmentation in the media landscape. Once-reliable channels, like TV, now sit below the indexed ROI average, revealed the ROI Genome data. But that opens the door for CTV, influencer partnerships, radio, and podcasts to deliver incremental gains.
With new channels, fluctuating CPMs and shifting audience habits, finding the right mix is critical, agreed the panel. It’s about knowing your product and audience – then building the right channel mix around them, said Patel.
And playing a long game – not just flipping your budget overnight, added Jähnert, on Beiersdorf’s household name brands such as Nivea and Coppertone: “We experimented a lot, and this was a great learning… you can’t shift from one year to another, from one channel to the other. You need to go step by step and test and learn along the way.”
If there was one stat that turned heads, it was this: two-thirds of the impact of a video impression comes down to creative quality. Media choices matter, but without strong creative, performance collapses.
Jähnert agreed, explaining that’s why Beiersdorf brands “have very strict pre testing routines. Everything has to be pre tested, and only then we air it, because we know how important quality is.”
While Patel added: “Don’t just pre-test your ads: make sure you test the froiinal film. That’s where you’ll see why ROI is up or down across channels.”
Short-term wins are important, but long-term brand building consistently outperforms performance-only approaches. In fact, brand-led messaging beats performance-led 80% of the time, and brands with the highest media ROIs dedicate at least 30% of their budgets to brand.
Consistency creates a multiplier effect, boosting performance marketing returns and sustaining equity across product lines.
“Brand messaging outperforms performance messaging 80% of the time,” said O’Farrell. “A strong brand makes performance marketing significantly better and accelerates both short- and long-term growth: it’s the beating heart of the business.”
Stay tuned for the full video from the event coming soon to The Drum TV.
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Analytic Partners is the leader in Commercial Analytics. Our platform, GPS-Enterprise provides adaptive solutions for deeper business understanding, right-time planning,...