Thought-provoking stuff as ever – thanks Richard. Your points about digital segregation connected a few thoughts in my mind.

One of the things that attracts marketers to digital communications is the fact that they allow us to perform straightforward cause-and-effect analyses. It’s easy to prove whether specific activities drive sales, and that’s very useful. However, we seem to have become caught up in the reporting, and we’re increasingly focusing on the activities that are easiest to measure. We obsess about measurement, rather than on the outcomes the measurements should assess in the first place.

However, by not measuring the more complex, brand half of the equation, we risk returning to a commoditised approach. We’re placing greater value on linear returns, and as a consequence, each interaction is in danger of becoming a one-off transaction.

Perhaps this imbalance stems from a disproportionate emphasis on short-term results. Our focus on the present quarter means we’re losing sight of longer-term planning and the continued growth and success of the brand. There’s no denying that each quarter’s sales are critical, but to the same point, so are next quarter’s sales, and those 5 years from now.

But this is a classic case of missing the forest for the trees: we don’t need to choose one over the other.

Building brands and driving sales are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they should exist in symbiosis. They’re the yin and yang of brand success; we need to balance both in order to survive.

In that respect, any activity that prioritises one over the other is a sub-optimal compromise.

Some brands have already proven that we can achieve this balance. Ben & Jerry’s have shown that free sampling can be used to build a strong, durable brand at the same time as driving quarterly sales. Their success lies in the fact that everything they do engages people on an emotional level, rather than merely enticing them with free or cheaper product.

Of course, this strategic model requires more up-front thinking, consistency of purpose, and patience, but nothing worthwhile ever came without effort.

If anyone doubts this can work for their brand, feel free to get in touch via twitter: @eskimon

Great thoughts Richard - and indeed Eskimon - thank you for this.

Couple of points to add:

1) The job of advertising is to sell. Always has been. Brand building is a component part - not THE part. It won't work in isolation of the other bits unless you have a superior product legacy. It is increasingly apparent everything should be brand responsive as we move into the conversation age - which incidentally is just good customer service right?

2) The Maysles brilliant film 'Salesman' is a perfect allegory for the times we are in now as the worn out Bible sellers couldn't afford to be just 'liked' they had to sell to eat. Would it have been different if they had an ad campaign behind them? Possibly - but it was not essential to create sales. Oh and the product was great.

3) Eric Du Plessis did a fairly respectable job in analyzing the drivers of future purchasing intent (Erik du Plessis, Admap, May 2005, Issue 461 & The Advertised Mind). It came down to likability through emotional triggers leading to rational assimilation. The issue of attribution of advertising effects is still an issue - you and I know how hard it is to write a paper that qualifies advertising effects (except for Craig's brilliant piece for Sainsbury's a few years back). Liking the ad has never definitively led to sales. If we could prove it we wouldn't be having this debate and there would be more and easier to write papers for IPA and APG. Equally I can't categorically recall a dislike of an ad leading to a drop in sales.

4) Good distribution plays an enormous role in a successful sales legacy. A great product sells itself and through technology people are now telling others like them about it in greater numbers so they buy it too. One strategy that is emerging is to give the product away free to a handful of people in exchange for them talking about it. That is a form of advertising too. No need for traditional advertising here other than a reaffirmation that you made a good choice. Worrying.

5) CEO's and CFOs are using the moving annual total model to determine efficacy of marketing spend. When there are successive quarters of positive short term results they are interpreted as a trend. If it didn't work - they wouldn't do it. It seems to be working.

6) The context that surrounded previous examples of spending on your brand in a downturn (there aren't that many are there?) may be totally different to the circumstances we face now so may be largely irrelevant and are probably why they are largely discredited or ignored.

7) 'Like the brand' and 'buy from the brand' may actually be the only model required in future as people are creating their own context within which they choose to 'like to buy from the brand'. They don't need to be told what it is - they can find that out for themselves and - increasingly do.

8) Putin is relentlessly building his brand as a strongman because Russia has lost its way and he needs to stand for something - not policies but physical strength. It is working. I worry that in the future companies and the brands they create may end up doing the same thing reducing advertising to the level of glorified corporate videos. Let's hope not.

Thanks for the great posts and the insightful comments from Eskimon and Holycow. It’s a wonderful and thought provoking discussion.

You've probably seen or read the marketing model that claims marketing, advertising included, aims to move people through a continuum starting with awareness, then interest and finally preference (the preference to buy). Advertising is sometimes so good, and has enough frequency, that it punches right through the whole continuum and actually makes people purchase and (maybe) simultaneously builds the brand…but it usually only does this with one or two segments of it’s total possible audience…those who relate most to the ads.

I think marketing/advertising can both sell and build the brand, but it requires a different way of looking at the audience. Each brand has a story to tell, but it should be told differently to each person. Just like common story lines are adapted for kids, adults, and in the case of salesmanship "stories" are adapted for each person. The marketing continuum is a lot like the process we use to get to know people: awareness, interest, preference–stranger, acquaintance, friend.

We all have different spheres of our lives and relate to the people in those spheres differently. It’s an ability most of us figure out for our own interpersonal lives. We don’t do that with advertising and marketing though, maybe because it seems impractical. But by targeting messages to different audiences and then measuring the right stuff (what each person clicked on, what they downloaded) you can understand what each person finds compelling and adapt your efforts to meet their tastes. It’s building a brand and it leads to an ongoing relationship.

Those bible sellers probably were keen observers of people and the good salesmen, adapted their pitch to for the different people they encountered. We could probably learn a thing or two from them.

Interesting.

I think you might find a lot of smaller agencies actually deal with Brand Response already. The smaller budgets and spends mean that you usually have to do two jobs regardless.

I agree it's an issue for digital marketers, and one that will probably only get louder whilst they answer the other question of whether digital agencies should remain seperate or now be part of an overall team. Cakes or deaths?