Balancing long-term brand building with short-term activation content

You need both, in a 60-40 balance

Current trends and the rise of AI ask for a better balance in content. Unfortunately, nowadays, we tend to overly focus on the short-term activation content, with the sexy KPIs and vanity metrics. It's all about sales. This is a logical consequence of the pandemic and cost of living crisis. Invest your budget in what immediately generates sales.

And we sort of forget or have less urgency on the long-term brand-building content.

I get it. The long-term brand-building content is hard to measure; the ROI is very, very long-term, and you can't attribute it to a specific campaign or effort. Hence, there is less measurability and less focus. You can only spend your budget and time once.

However, according to Les Binet and with some common sense, we need brand building to be successful and stay in business. And if we add AI to the mix, this becomes even more important; the more AI we have, the more we value authenticity and personality.

The 60-40 content rule for 2024

My kind advice is to get your brand storytelling with long-term brand-building content in place. Today. Show who you are and why you do what you do. Claim your leadership. Then, follow up with short-term activation content.

Long-term brand building and short-term activation content need each other. You need the long term to show who you are and that you care; you need the short term to generate sales.

According to Les Binet, there is about a 60-40 balance between brand building and brand activation. Brand building takes over as the primary driver of growth from sales activation after six months.

For more information, I kindly refer you to Les Binet and his work for the IPA. Boldy, I am making the assumption that what goes for the overall communications from a brand, also goes for 'content'. Hence, I embrace their work and love their research.

Universal rules for brand growth

Copy pasted from IPA as they explain this excellently. According to Binet and Field’s research, there are some universal rules for all brands in all contexts.

All brands need brand building – the Brand building is the main driver of long-term growth and involves the creation of memory structures that prime consumers to want to choose the brand. Without brand strengthening, growth will be weaker, activation will be weaker, pricing power will not improve, and profitability growth will be severely reduced
All brands need sales activation – Sales activation dominates short-term sales uplifts and involves behavioral prompts to encourage consumers to ‘buy now’. It is strongly boosted by brand building and is essential for efficiency. Without it, the investment will be weaker, and growth will suffer
The optimum balance between brand building and activation varies by context, depending on the relative ease/difficulty of the two tasks
The key factors that drive the optimum balance are the relative levels of emotional and rational consideration in consumer choice – where emotional consideration is high; brand building is easier; where rational consideration is high, activation is easier; where both are high, the budget should be shifted towards the more difficult task.
Penetration growth is always the main driver of growth for all brands. While penetration and loyalty go hand in hand, loyalty doesn’t increase without penetration

Contextual factors to consider

In addition, this latest research reveals that there are six contextual factors that brands must also consider and offset accordingly:

Which sector your brand is in – e.g., Durables, FMCG, Financial Services, Other Services, Retail
How consumers purchase your brand – e.g., offline, online, serial, subscription
How your brand is priced – e.g., value/mainstream, premium
The level of innovation applied to your brand – e.g., none, any, new variant, new sub-brand, entry into a new category
The life stage of your category- e.g., new, established, declining, stagnant, or low growth; medium or high growth
How big your brand is – e.g., launches in first 1-2 years, launches after the first year, small brand, medium brand, large brand.

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Embrace long-term content strategies

The focus of my articles and content philosophy is all about the long-term content. Storytelling. Show who you are and why you do what you do. How you add value and that you care.

Especially with the rise of AI, your authenticity and personality will become even more important. The more AI we have, the more we want to connect and know that the other is real.

For short-term activation content tips, check out all the amazing tricks webinars and seminars on how to develop a kick-ass, effective activation campaign for social media.

Disclaimer

This page is a re-publish from January 2020, updated in the fall of 2023 and again in summer 2024. This page and the long-term brand building topic keep popping up in my statistics as very well-read. Great content deserves to be shared again and again, as it makes an impact again and again.

Credits to Les Binet for his amazing work.