The Long and Short of Better Business
The life-changing, business-booming, brand-building research you’ve probably never heard of. Want to know how you can market most profitably? Deliver the biggest KPIs? Drive your brand forward? Hell, yeah. Who doesn’t? So why is it, almost seven years after it was first published, so many marketers have never heard of this groundbreaking study?
Binet & Field’s The Long and Short of It will probably change the way you think about marketing effectiveness forever, for reals. It was gleaned from studying an immense databank of the world’s most successful marketing campaigns. Les Binet and Peter Field analyzed 700 brands, 80 categories and 996 campaign case studies from the past 30 years — each of which had been submitted into the marketing world’s most droolworthy showcase, the IPA Effectiveness Awards.
Spoiler alert: Binet and Field seem to have done the impossible: cracked the code for how you can be more effective and deliver more value for your brand while driving change. And that will be music to the ears of those who seek ambitious, inertia-busting change — and who do it well. Their findings, presented in a series of crystal-clear charts and graphs, have been stolen, cited and otherwise bandied about for years by savvy marketers. And now, with a recent revamp for the B2B crowd (coming soon), even more will take a taste of the secret sauce.
Feast on them in detail here. Meanwhile, here are a few truths to whet your appetite. How true are these to your plans, budgets and actions today?
60:40 works. That’s the optimal budget ratio between long-term brand building and near-term promotional activation.
Penetration is the thing. It always beats loyalty for the greatest business impact.
Mind the gap. Short-term goals (<6 months) are met with short-term activation … BUT longer-term business effects suffer. Find the right balance between the two, and how you judge success.
Go with your heart. We’re big fans of this one. Emotionally led campaigns beat rational ones. Making consumers FEEL SOMETHING outperforms on all business measures.
As Peter Weinberg has said, “Binet and Field’s research has the potential to radically reshape the marketing industry by reorienting marketers toward brand-building strategies.”
So, the long and short of it: What the hell are you waiting for? Get hip to this research, and start the conversation with your marketing partners right now — before your competitors do.
