There is new evidence this week from GroupM’s business intelligence team that “brand-oriented” media buys may be gaining on so-called “performance”
ones.
The analysis -- part of a sidebar conversation during this week’s episode of its “This Week Next Week” podcast, co-hosted by Brian Wieser and Kate Scott-Dawkins -- came
up as they discussed the slowdown of so-called “digital endemic” advertisers, which emphasize performance buys to convert new users.
During the podcast, Wieser confided
that GroupM’s general-market brand advertisers have been asking the team about shifts in branding vs. performance campaigns, and while he acknowledged that there’s a “nuance that
goes into even trying to answer the question,” he said the slowdown by the billion dollar–plus digital endemic ad category will inherently boost the share of branding campaigns.
His rationale: If performance-oriented digital endemic brands are decelerating ad spending while traditional brand-oriented once are continuing to grow, “the overall mix of advertising
shifts possibly in favor of brand rather than performance. Isn’t that an interesting observation.”
Scott-Dawkins concurred, but added that she has been hearing people say
the whole brand vs. performance debate may be an “outdated construct,” because “all media is performance to some extent and all media is brand to some extent.”
Wieser agreed, offering an anecdote about an advertiser that buys a major retargeting solution normally intended to achieve performance KPIs to boost its brand impression, simply because
they were more cost-efficient than buying brand-oriented media buys.
“You can end up with a seller thinking they’re selling performance, but a buyer not necessarily
buying that,” he confided.
Wieser cited another factor that indicates at least a near-term shift to brand-oriented media: Long-term upfront commitments for buying
television.
Noting that TV typically is used as a branding medium and the fact that the terms of advance TV buys make them more difficult to cut or reduce during economic downturns,
it “might actually involve a shift to branding rather than performance, because of the budget commitments you made.”