Convincing the C-Suite your Brand-building Campaign will Drive Short-term Results
The C-Suite wants marketing to deliver results now, or better yet, yesterday. As a marketing expert, you know that your new campaign not only needs to accomplish this but it must also drive future demand, ideally among new customers. Performance advertising can only get you so far among the pool of people in the market to buy right now.
Yet many organizations have adopted a performance-first approach as they face increased pressure to deliver value in the short term. Showcasing ROMI is critical to securing additional marketing funds and building trust with the C-Suite. Yet marketers are often judged against very short windows of time and practices like last-click attribution can muddy the measurement. Thus, the true long-term returns from a campaign can be missed.
A recent survey from Boathouse finds that nearly 63% of CEOs rate the Marketing capability of CMOS as “average” or “underperforming.” Yikes! What’s driving the lack of confidence? The annual check-in with 150 CEOS at top U.S. companies found that there is growing alignment between CMOs and CEOs, but CEOs are unsure of CMOs’ ability to drive tangible business results.
How can marketers create confidence among the C-Suite that a creative idea will drive short-term effects and long-term profit gain and market share growth? Proof is in the pudding, so let’s dive in.
“System1’s research was invaluable for helping us understand how the ad was working and how we could make improvements as well as giving our organisation and stakeholders the confidence that we are investing our marketing funds effectively.”
Susan Coghill, Chief Marketing Officer
Tourism Australia
Can the Long Accomplish the Short
In order for brands to move away from strictly salesmanship advertising that prioritizes short-term results over long-term brand building, marketers and the C-Suite need to speak the same language. And they need to understand that the long can also drive the short if done well.
System1’s research explored this in more detail. Our extensive Test Your Ad Premium database gives us a robust dataset. We looked at more than 40,000 US ads that aired on TV from June 2018 to May 2024. We noted each ad’s Star Rating (System1’s metric predicting long-term growth) and Spike Rating (measure of short-term activation potential).
The findings for this study mirrored our research for UK ads. Strong brand-building ads also perform well in the short term. In fact, 92.1% of ads achieving 4- and 5-Stars also achieved an above-average Spike Rating, showcasing their potential to drive sales, clicks, donations, etc. in the 8-10 weeks post launch.
These ads prioritize showmanship. They entertain through the use of right-brained elements that capture broad-beam attention, making them interesting even to those who aren’t yet ready to buy. Humor, characters with agency and interaction, melodic music, cultural references, a story unfolding sequentially – these are all features that support long-term brand building because they drive emotional engagement. Our research confirmed these showmanship ads also lead to short-term results.
At the same time, every CFO may be wondering, “But stories aren’t as straightforward as putting the product front and center. Shouldn’t we use our advertising to showcase new and revolutionary features and benefits?”
Don’t worry, we have a counterpoint. Our research also looked at the spread of Spike Ratings to see whether high marks on short-term activation frequently align with high marks on long-term growth potential.
Unfortunately, the ads in the top 25% on short-term sales potential score on the low end of our Star Rating scale (1- and 2-Star range) more than half (53%) of the time. Activation ads are flipping a coin on whether the creative will also appeal to out-of-market consumers and build mental availability that aids long-term brand building.
“Science has caught up with creative brilliantly, where we can now put work out there with huge confidence about how it’s going to work in the short and long term.”
Pete Markey, CMO
Boots
System1 recently partnered with WARC, BERA.ai, Analytic Partners and Prophet on The Multiplier Effect report to explore the important role of brand building and how organizations can right the marketing ship, moving away from the performance era to a more balanced approach that drives greater ROI.
Your C-Suite will be particularly interested in Analytic Partners’ chart showcasing the increased returns from equity & performance advertising’s combined power in comparison to the ‘performance penalty’ that happens with a performance-only approach.
Predicting Commercial Impact
So, how does this help you build your case with the C-Suite?
Pre-testing creative gives you a quick and easy way to showcase not only the anticipated short-term effects, but also how your ad will support your brand in the long term. This long term potential is key to driving exponential growth for your company.
Pre-testing allows marketers and agencies who are so close to the creative to bring the consumer perspective into the room. It can reveal insights that help further finetune creative to make it even more impactful. And in some cases, it can sell the CFO and CEO on a bold idea that may at first glance appear too risky when in fact it is exactly what consumers are craving in a world filled with dull advertising.
Pre-testing is a worthwhile investment when putting millions of dollars behind a campaign.
“Spending thousands on pre-testing our creative to make the millions spent on media work harder pays for itself many times over.”
Ben Case, Managing Director, Consumer Strategy
Sky
Create with Confidence
Test Your Ad enables you to capture consumer insights from the early stages of the creative process through to finished film. Test with a nationally representative audience as well as target audiences to predict and improve the commercial impact of your advertising for TV, digital, OOH, audio and print. Plus, System1’s Test Your Premium database gives you access to metrics for all of your ads and your competitors ads to benchmark your performance.
