• by Todd Wasserman , June 26, 2023

A new survey by a British trade publication shows that 86.7% of brand-side marketers believe that digital channels are an effective tool for building brands, compared to 80.1% who think the same of offline media.

The poll, based on interviews with 1,300 marketers, challenges the belief that digital is more effective for boosting short-term results. More than a third (38.3%) of B2B marketers say digital is “very effective” at building brands, compared with 34.9% of B2C marketers who believe the same.

The larger the company, the more that marketers believe in digital. Marketers who work for companies with fewer than 250 employees believe digital (83.3%) is more effective than offline (74.4%). But with larger firms (more than 250 employees), 90% say digital is more effective than offline, compared with 85.6% who say the same for offline media.

The marketers surveyed may have been influenced by budgets. Digital media spending has jumped by 48.3%, while the marketers’ offline spend has fallen by 25.6%.

Another factor is trackability. Some 71.8% of marketers say it is easy to measure the efficacy of a digital campaign, versus 38.1% who say the same of offline campaigns.

Whatever the case, the poll shows that most marketers believe that digital has the edge for brand-building right now.