The 60:40 Rule (Or, How To Divvy Up Your Marketing Efforts For Long Term Success)

By Andy Greenaway

Les Binet and Peter Field (who both work at Adam & Eve, London) have been pouring over case studies from the IPA data bank. They have been pulling sales and brand-growth data from thousands of effectiveness award entries. Ten year’s worth.

As a result of their analysis, they have revealed some interesting insights.

The key one is this: successful businesses over the long term spend 60% of their marketing budget on ‘brand’ communication. What do they mean by that? Simply this. Communication that builds on a brand story (or platform, as some people like to call it) which creates ‘fame’ for the brand.

Think Snickers. Cadbury Gorilla. Or Volvo trucks with Van Damme doing the splits between two lorries.

The other 40% is spent on Activation campaigns which drive short term effects. These include promotional activity that gives away freebies and discounts. Direct response campaigns that push benefits and features. As well as performance campaigns that drive traffic, leads and conversions.

And here’s the interesting thing. Those businesses that purely focus on Activation see short term success. But in the long run, they underperform by as much as 80%.

There will be some skeptical marketers out there who are addicted to the activation approach.

But here’s the key factor. Brand communication dramatically boosts organic search. Which, if you’re pushing for digital conversion (subscriptions, tickets, food delivery, e-commerce) the sales impact can be seen almost immediately.

If you’re a business who relies on digital advertising to drive sales. Get in touch. We can show you how to increase your sales by 50% (and quite often more).

 

TIME TO ENTER APPIES

The APPIES is an annual event that presents a rare opportunity for creative, media, digital and marketing agencies or brands to present their best campaigns to the industry.

This is the only event where Live Presentations meets Live Judging.

Similar to TED Talks, The APPIES is the chance for great presenters with outstanding work to show it off to some of the industry’s most important industry leaders.

This year’s winners will receive Gold, Silver or Bronze trophies for 21 categories, and 6 special Best of Best categories (red trophies) that require no submissions!

Campaign entries must have run between June 2024 to May 2025

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

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