The Return of Brand Marketing

Last month Nike lost $28 billion of market capitalization in one day. The worst single day drop in the history of the brand. Then, last week there was a viral post on LinkedIn from a former marketing executive there laying out what he thought went wrong with the company over the last half decade. There was a part of it that resonated deeply with me and I want to share for you:

“Massive growth of programmatic ad investment (as of 2021, to drive traffic to Nike.com, Nike started investing in programmatic adv and performance marketing the double or more of the share of resources usually invested in the other brand activities)....Because of that, Nike invested a material amount of dollars (billions) into something that was less effective but easier to be measured vs something that was more effective but less easy to be measured. In conclusion: an impressive waste of money.”

This sentence—"Less effective but easier to be measured vs more effective but less easy to be measured"—captures the source of the tension inside of organizations that are still working on moving influencer to the center of their marketing departments, but I have to say I feel a vibe shift happening. After years of dominance from performance and programmatic marketing, the brands who are winning are the ones having more fun and leaning into influencer and brand.

At its core, I believe advertising is an expression of confidence, and it is the brands who confidently invest in those channels that we KNOW to be more effective even in the absence of direct data that will be the winners over the long term. Look at the breakout consumer brands of the last few years: SKIMS, Liquid Death, Vacation, Rare Beauty and even Abercrombie. All of these brands embraced brand and influencer as a core function of their growth.

That is not to say there are no metrics that help us understand why brand and top of funnel are so important. Recently, Joe Marchese, the founder of a performance marketing platform, said on a podcast “The only way to reduce customer acquisition costs over time is brand. And you can't measure brand on a short feedback loop." We talk about the difficulty of proving results without direct data in our Education Center for clients, which you can check out here.

I believe we are at a pivotal moment in marketing. As performance channels continue to become dramatically less effective, confidently shifting marketing budgets to the ‘more effective but less easily measured’ channels is going to be the difference maker.

Personal Corner

1. Negronis With Nord is back! Who do you think I should interview for it?
2. I have been loving the music of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, a nun(!) who composed ethereal, fluttering piano pieces (her most famous here). I originally discovered her music through another musician's recording of “Mother’s Love” and love the image of an elderly nun in her habit cranking out wildly original classic pieces, bravo.
3. I bought a gun that you fill with salt to kill flies, it has replaced the electric tennis racket thing I had, I love it.