• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 23, 2009

Commission Junction’s Kerri Pollard go the “Flight To Search and Performance-Based Media Panel” off by turning the tables, and posing, not answering a question.

“I have a question for this panel, ‘What is performance based?’,” she said sounding like a neophyte, or a heretic.

Actually, she was just posing a philosophical point worth thinking about, and noting that the real essence of “performance” requires a real understanding of things like “attribution and path to conversion,” but she cautioned any brand marketer from pulling back on branding, because it ultimately “hurts,” not helps search.

“What the hell does a consumer know what to search for, if they’ve never seen a branded message in any shape or form,” Pollard said.