Brand Marketing is Bullsh*t

I spent most of the time on the road to Chubbies' IPO thinking brand marketing was B.S. However, these 5 ideas changed that.

They helped me gain confidence that
1) Brand building is something modern consumer brands NEED to do
2) There IS a way to connect brand building to financial results
3) Doing so generates MORE PROFITS than direct response alone

Cliffs notes on the 5 ideas and what you can do about it:

IDEA 1: The 95/5 Rule

EXPERT: Prof. John Dawes; Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
CONTENT 1: The 95:5 rule is the new 60:40 rule
URL: https://lnkd.in/grVu7-KS
POINTS:
- Only 5% of buyers are in-market to buy right now.
- Effective marketing increases the probability the brand comes to mind when the buyer goes in-market.
TAKE ACTION:
- Focus on the 95%
- Make creative that gets remembered.

IDEA 2: Physical and Mental Availability

EXPERT: Byron Sharp; Ehrenberg Bass
CONTENT: How do you measure 'How Brands Grow'?
URL: https://lnkd.in/g3Rvswmu (translate 2 English)
POINTS:
- Brand growth comes from growing the following two things
a) Mental availability: buyers think of the brand when in the market to buy.
b) Physical availability: buyers can buy the brand when and where they’re ready.
- When you build mental availability, you increase the likelihood people buy from you without being prompted by a conversion ad.
TAKE ACTION:
- Building mental availability is priority numero uno.

IDEA 3: There's an optimal split btw Brand Marketing and Activation (conversion) marketing to maximize profits

EXPERT: Les Binet
CONTENT: The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing
URL: https://lnkd.in/g2fbT3JT
KEY POINTS:
- Objective data support a 60/40 split of brand building & conversion as the ideal mix of base sales growth and sales spikes TOGETHER.
- Brand and DR creative is v different.
TAKE ACTION:
- Determine if ur current split is ideal

IDEA 4: Connecting Brand building to financial results is possible

EXPERT: Prof Dominique Hanssens at UCLA & Les Binet
CONTENT: Consumer Attitude Metrics for Guiding Marketing Mix Decisions
URL: https://lnkd.in/gXGm7YKa
POINTS:
- Measuring the financial impact of brand marketing is a 2 step process:
1) marketing activities impact consumer attitudes
2) consumer attitude changes lead to future revenue changes
TAKE ACTION:
- read 5 below

IDEA 5: Measuring digital behaviors is the modern method for doing idea 4
EXPERT: Les Binet

CONTENT: Share of Search - a new way to track brands advertising
URL: https://lnkd.in/gup8fKSa 
POINTS:
- Digital behaviors like share of search predict future sales
TAKE ACTION:
- Identify the digital behaviors that lead to the largest future $ impact
- Focus brand building on increasing those metrics

And there you have it: How to turn Brand marketing from Bull Sh*t to Holy Sh*t
—
Thanks for reading. If this post was helpful, here are 4 things you can do right now to 

• Get more strategic + tactical nuggets on brand building, 

• Tactics on connecting brand building to financial impact, 

• And specific things you can do to build strong emotional connections with your audience: 

1) Subscribe to the Brand Builders podcast on YouTube or Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. 
2) Apply to join our brand builders slack community (suuuuper small group exclusively for brand founders and operators), 
3) Follow Tom and Preston on Linkedin for regular posts on this stuff
4) And heck, share this with someone