For more than a decade, performance marketing has claimed an outsized share of CMO attention—and budget. But new research from The Multiplier Effect: A CMO’s Guide to Brand Building in the Performance Era reveals a deeper truth: the most powerful results come not from performance or brand alone, but from a smart, integrated approach that connects the two. 

Developed in collaboration with WARC, Analytic Partners, BERA and System1, this landmark report offers one of the clearest cases yet for full-funnel marketing—Prophet is proud to have played a central role in bringing it to life. Through our work designing and executing brand and demand strategies that deliver measurable business impact for our clients, we know that when brand and performance work together, growth multiplies. 

The Myth of the Performance-Only Playbook 

The research confronts a long-standing myth: that brand marketing can’t deliver provable business results. The data tells a different story: 

• Brand marketing alone outperforms performance marketing in ROI. 
• When brand and performance efforts are combined, the return on investment increases by an extraordinary 90%. 
• High brand awareness makes performance campaigns more effective at the bottom of the funnel. 
• Stronger brands enjoy greater pricing power—improving profitability, not just reach. In fact, a 1% increase in brand differentiation and relevance drives a 0.6% lift in pricing power. 

These insights are particularly important in categories where consideration cycles are long. In B2B, for example, just 5% of buyers are in-market at any given time. Performance tactics focused only on in-market buyers will always miss the majority of the audience. Investing in brand ensures you’re influencing choice long before a prospect raises their hand. 

Why CMOs Need a New Approach 

The distinction between brand and performance marketing is increasingly outdated—and, as the report shows, costly. Over-prioritizing performance at the expense of brand leads to a “performance penalty,” where revenue returns can drop between 20% and 50%. The solution? A more balanced and integrated investment strategy: 

• CMOs should allocate at least 30% of marketing spend to equity-driving work, with 40–60% considered best practice. 
• Marketers need to shift from siloed brand and performance teams to integrated planning, aligning campaigns around full-funnel creative platforms. 
• Budgets should account for the “media multiplier”—the longer-term value of media investments—which can range from 1.1x to 2x, depending on the channel. 
•  Have patience—but not that much… while performance marketing might show an initial bump in sales, within 90 days, 50% of the brand impact will be realized 

Finally, marketers need the tools to measure what really matters. The report encourages building a “measurement stack” that tracks both short- and long-term impact—from immediate campaign returns to effects on pricing, preference, and brand equity. 

How to Win Across the Funnel 

At Prophet, we’ve long believed that sustainable, uncommon growth comes from integrating brand and demand. That’s why we help CMOs and marketing teams not only define their brand’s purpose and positioning—but also bring it to market through strategies that drive awareness, conversion, and loyalty. 

Our work with clients like PENN Entertainment, FM, Inspira Financial and Curative demonstrates how a full-funnel approach pays off: 

• For Inspira Financial, we led a full rebrand from Millennium Trust, delivering everything from strategic foundations to campaign creative and media execution. 
• For Curative, an innovative health insurance challenger, we partnered across two phases: building the brand and go-to-market story, then developing a high-performance ABM demand strategy. The result? Record-breaking mid- and lower-funnel engagement and rapid customer growth. 

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We are excited to introduce a new WARC research report, “The Multiplier Effect: A CMO’s Guide to Brand-Building in the Performance Era” that Prophet contributed to in partnership with experts from Analytic Partners, BERA.ai and System1. The report is based on data and insights from this first-of-its kind coalition to highlight why it’s critical to get balance between brand and performance marketing investment right – or risk leaving revenue-generating opportunities on the table. Download a free copy today.  

Infused with data and insights from our report “Brand and Demand: Marketing’s Greatest Love Story” this research explores the gap in how companies approach advertising: the silos between brand and performance across creative, media, budgeting and measurement. 

Through our data and analysis, we found that the strongest returns from advertising investment come from using brand equity as an accelerant for commercial performance. By fully integrating this investment in brand equity with performance tactics, you can unlock growth and maximize the return on your spend. 

Read this report if you are a marketing or business leader looking to build brand equity and turn your performance marketing into a high-impact growth driver.  

Download Report

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Caroline Chulick is the Head of U.S. Marketing at Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive, where she leads brand strategy, media, data & analytics, integrated commerce and public relations for a premium pet food business. 

Kate Price: Given the increased focus on accountability and ROI in marketing, how has your experience been, and what shifts have you observed in your approach to demonstrate impact? 

Caroline Chulick: In my 20 years at Colgate-Palmolive, there has been a consistent strategic focus and commitment to driving ROI and measurement. However, recently there has been a noticeable shift in expectations and the way we approach demonstrating impact. With increased investment in brand building, there is greater rigor in tracking where these investments go. The key lies in aligning investments, tactics, and the entire funnel with well-defined business goals in the planning phase. The C-suite places trust in the marketing team to deliver results, but there is certainly a heightened expectation for faster feedback cycles. The cadence for presenting outcomes has increased, particularly in short-term, behavior-driven data, requiring a faster test-learn-pivot cycle. For marketing to be successful, educating senior leaders on evolving marketing approaches and technologies is a crucial aspect. There’s a general acceptance around continuous learning and our leaders understand that the traditional approaches may not be effective in the current landscape. And, we’ve found that they are always excited to learn more. 

KP: Within your organization, how has cross-functional collaboration evolved, especially in terms of partnering with other internal business units? 

CC: In the realm of CPG marketing, cross-functional collaboration has always been fundamental. However, the transformation lies in how this collaboration has evolved, particularly in the past three years. The game-changer is the increasing maturity of data within the organization. While traditional collaboration involved departments such as supply chain, sales, finance and legal, the difference now is the profound impact of data across every facet of the organization. Data-driven partnerships have become the norm, influencing how we go to market in areas like warehousing, frontline sales and end-user interactions. 

As an example, we initiated a data partnership for media purposes, which unexpectedly transformed how we approached veterinary clinics in our sales strategy. The newfound data visibility allowed us to discern critical differences between two seemingly similar clinics. Through our data, we discovered that Clinic A was loyal to our brand and distinct from Clinic B, which was also ordered just as much from a competitor. This revelation reshaped how we engaged with each clinic, providing tailored conversations and sales strategies. The availability of this data has revolutionized not only how we approach the market, but also how we tier and equip our salesforce for more effective interactions. 

These evolving dynamics in B2B marketing showcase the potential for leveraging data to achieve precise, personalized interactions akin to the one-to-one marketing approach in the consumer space. 

KP: We published a report called Brand and Demand: A Love Story which talks about the tension between the two functions. How do you balance your brand and demand marketing investments? 

CC: The dynamic between brand and demand is a nuanced one for us. Brand, which has traditionally been associated with long-term equity building, now intertwines with demand, which is focused on short-term actions. For us, the two are interlinked, and we’ve observed that our short-term (ROI) for brand building is as impactful, if not more, than it is for product-specific initiatives. Our data-driven approach allows us to find a unique balance, where we test and optimize the mix to align with our brand’s specific strengths and audience penetration. For us, it’s the strategic fusion of both that typically yield the best outcomes. 

An important component for creating an optimal balance is our team dynamics. Physical collaboration spaces and a culture of curiosity and continuous learning have been key in breaking down silos and fostering cross-functional collaboration. Our team operates with a shared understanding that we’re not just building a product; we’re crafting a brand, a lifestyle, and a connection with our audience. This distinction motivates our team, aligning their efforts to build equity and deliver a meaningful brand experience. The nature of our category, focused on pets and families, adds a layer of emotional engagement, creating a sense of purpose for our team.  

We’ve also shifted our key performance indicators (KPIs) to encourage collaborative achievements, reinforcing that synergies between different strengths and focuses lead to more impactful outcomes. My role as a leader involves connecting these dots, facilitating collaboration and removing any barriers the teams encounter. 

KP: In the report, we found four common principles of brand and demand: anchoring marketing investment in business objectives, experimentation, building a modern marketing organization and putting the customer at the center. Do you agree with these and how do you apply these to your organization? 

CC: I do agree with these principles. Anchoring our marketing investment in business objectives is a fundamental principle that we actively embrace. Each year, we set ambitious goals, some with a short-term focus and others with a strategic, three-to-five-year horizon. The key lies in translating these objectives into actionable plans through what we call a brand growth plan. This plan serves as our roadmap, and KPIs are the compass guiding our progress. The process involves a continuous cycle of testing, learning, and pivoting, ensuring we stay agile and effective in achieving our business objectives. 

As it relates to experimentation, it is not just encouraged. but ingrained in our culture. I recall a valuable lesson several years ago from an executive leader and mentor that came while I was working on a new direct-to-consumer project. He actually urged me to fail! The rationale was clear: if we’re not failing, we’re not pushing the company beyond its comfort zone. Failure isn’t a setback; it’s a sign that we’re challenging the status quo. Experimentation, accompanied by a willingness to fail, is vital for growth and innovation. 

Building a modern marketing organization requires a dynamic approach. In my three years in the current role, I’ve repeatedly recognized the need to adapt our organizational structure. The pace of change and growth demands a constant pulse on the people, structure, tools, and resources within the organization. 

Being customer-centric is not just a philosophy; it’s a way of life in our organization. Every initiative, product, or experience starts with a customer insight or a pain point that needs addressing. The commitment is to solve problems or make lives easier, ensuring that each effort is purpose-driven. 

KP: What excites you about the market in the next couple of years, and how are you preparing your organization for upcoming shifts? 

CC: What excites me most about the future are strategic partnerships and a focus on audience-first planning. We are actively seeking unconventional partnerships across the pet space, expanding our role from a nutrition company to a comprehensive pet health solution. Additionally, the shift to audience-first planning is a key evolution in strategy. This approach, which is rooted in understanding and addressing audience needs, goes beyond traditional campaign planning. The challenge lies in balancing the emotional and product-centered needs, ensuring that personalized, audience-centric strategies coexist harmoniously. The exploration of these new frontiers aligns nicely with our commitment to continuous innovation and adaptation to evolving market dynamics. 

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Colin Westcott-Pitt is the Global Chief Brand Officer at Glanbia Performance Nutrition where he is responsible for the development and oversight of their brand portfolio. 

Kate Price: Given the disruption of the last few years, marketers are being asked to take on greater accountability and demonstrate the impact and ROI of their marketing investment while creating tighter alignment with overall business objectives. How have you shifted your strategy in response to these challenges? 

Colin Westcott-Pitt: Certainly, the disruption in recent years has been a significant factor in reshaping our marketing priorities. Although, I’ve never viewed business outcomes in conflict with marketing outcomes. In fact, we’ve always operated with the mindset that one leads to another. At a brand’s core, it comes down to revenue and margin objectives. While there might be instances where marketers are overly focused on awareness or perception, in the current landscape it’s essential to strike a balance and recognize that marketing plays a crucial role in driving revenue and overall business success. 

To address the disruption, we’ve adopted a balanced scorecard approach to measure impact and ROI. This involves incorporating both short-term and medium to long-term measures. Recognizing the importance of a balanced strategy, we understand that there is no long-term without the short-term.  

We’ve taken a hard look at the role of data and how to apply it effectively has become essential for identifying growth opportunities, ensuring a balance between existing and new consumers, and ultimately driving strategic decision-making. The challenge lies in ensuring that the organization, at all levels, is fluent in interpreting and applying this data effectively. It’s crucial for the insights and analytics group to simplify complex data for broader understanding. 

KP: How have conversations with your C-suite evolved in light of recent disruptions and how has that impacted the role of brand at your organization? 

CWP: Our conversations have changed significantly. Our leadership team is increasingly engaged and curious about the changing landscape. They increasingly understand the shifting dynamics and ask more of marketing. They often begin with business objectives, emphasizing the importance of linking marketing initiatives to broader organizational goals. 

However, while marketing has undoubtedly become more data-driven and shifted towards performance metrics, the role of storytelling cannot be overlooked. We strive to find a unifying principle that everyone can align with, and that principle is often the brand. We reject the notion of silos where marketing is solely responsible for the brand. Instead, we emphasize that everyone plays a crucial role in shaping the brand experience. This approach helps break down barriers and encourages collaboration. We recognize the importance of each function, whether it’s marketing, manufacturing, or sales, in contributing to the overall success of the brand. Small initiatives, like rewarding employees with branded merchandise, can foster a sense of unity and shared purpose. 

Challenges arise when the brand is not perceived as fundamental. In functions such as finance or manufacturing, for example, it is a key task of marketing to help these teams understand the role of brand across these various departments. To do this, it requires a meaningful effort to communicate that everyone contributes to the success of the brand and, by extension, the business. It’s about instilling a sense of appreciation for the unique role each function plays in achieving overall success. We come back to the phrase “everyone has a unique contribution to success” which reinforces the idea that each person, regardless of their role or function, is integral to the overall success of the brand and the business. It doesn’t always have to be a big initiative. We hit a major milestone in our business this year and handed out t-shirts to all of our teams, which was a relatively small thing, but from an internal employee engagement, it made everybody feel like part of the story. The small things can sometimes go a long way. 

KP: How do you navigate the tensions between brand and demand, especially in the context of demand marketing and short-term performance? 

CWP: I think the key is to avoid viewing brand and demand as an either-or situation but rather embrace the idea of “both-ism,”. Balancing brand and demand is crucial, it really requires a disciplined brand planning process. Our process involves a systematic approach that aligns brand strategy with demand opportunities, setting clear objectives that include pricing strategies, promotions, and channel roles.   

To deliver against this “both-ism” approach, balancing the long and short term, the key is starting with a comprehensive situation assessment and aligning brand strategy with demand opportunities. From there, the brand planning process sets clear objectives, including pricing strategies, promotions, and channel roles. It’s crucial to recognize consumer moments (e.g., New Year’s Resolutions) that matter and retailer moments that matter (e.g., Amazon Prime Day). Success really requires a systematic and collaborative planning approach that considers each function’s unique role at different moments in time.  

We are also relentless in our measurement. Goals are tracked through a strategic performance pyramid that encompasses business objectives like household penetration, market share, and consumption. The pyramid narrows down to more specific metrics like website visits, search levels, and media reach. This provides a clear structure for tracking leading and lagging indicators at both strategic and tactical levels, ensuring the brand’s performance is measured comprehensively and preventing over-reliance on a few seductive metrics. 

KP: In our report, “Brand and Demand: A Love Story” we outline for common principles of brand and demand: anchoring marketing investment in business objectives, experimentation, building a modern marketing organization and putting the customer at the center. Do you agree with these and how do you apply these to your organization? 

CWP: Absolutely, I think these all apply. I’d say recently we’ve especially shifted towards more enthusiasm and passion for experimentation, fostering an environment without fear of failure. As we put a greater emphasis on experimentation, we’ve been able to encourage a culture of trying new things quickly, building curiosity and being data-driven. Our approach to agile learning is facilitated by having specialists delve into emerging areas, utilizing social listening and even experimenting with artificial intelligence. 

I also think we are living in the golden age of effectiveness. Building a modern marketing organization involves understanding contemporary principles and building off models like Ehrenberg Bass. Distinctive assets, a key aspect of discussions, have become more formalized and structured. Our conversations around consumer-centricity have evolved, emphasizing real-time insights and quick feedback mechanisms. We put a greater emphasis on tapping into consumer behavior through super consumer groups and communities, ensuring a continuous effort to stay agile and adapt to changing consumer dynamics. We have a small group of consumers that we tap into on a regular basis for quick feedback. Everything is changing really fast, so having the ability to tap into real-time insights allows us to stay on top of new consumer trends.  

KP: Last but not least, what keeps you excited about marketing?   

CWP: There are a couple of things that I’m particularly excited about. The first is this shift towards being measured against business outcomes. If this is the golden age of marketing effectiveness, and when we’re doing a good job, then our business results should reflect that. Witnessing the tangible results of effective marketing is exhilarating. On the consumer side, the joy lies in working with brands that can make a positive impact on people’s lives. Whether it’s contributing to a healthy lifestyle, performance improvement, or weight management, seeing the positive change in consumers’ lives is truly fulfilling. The happiness and satisfaction of consumers after using the product, like completing a marathon with a smile, adds to the overall excitement.

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Chief marketing officers are some of our favorite people, and as we were putting together our annual list of predictions for the year ahead, we got a fast reminder why. Despite an uncertain economy, changing expectations from CEOs, and fast-rising media rates, marketers remain as optimistic as ever.  

We spoke to more than 25 senior marketers to get their take on the challenges they’re facing and where they plan to prioritize in the coming year. Their belief in the power of creativity and new ideas keeps growing. And they’re continuing to beat the drum on the importance of testing and learning, innovating, and being at the forefront of leveraging AI to help them achieve uncommon growth. 

As CMOs settle into the expanding remit of their role, they’re increasingly confident about broader opportunities. Many now have ownership of growth initiatives and transformation efforts. They are overseeing efforts to drive both brand and demand and are responsible for orchestrating numerous, impactful touchpoints throughout the entire customer journey. One leader we interviewed told us it’s like that movie, “We have to be everything, everywhere, all at once.” 

These leaders see themselves as fully in the driver’s seat, organizational change-makers, providing the voice of the customer to advocate for new capabilities. They are connecting dots across more functions. They are operating at two speeds: balancing the need to deliver in-quarter results with setting up longer-term growth moves, all while navigating continued outside-in disruption. 

Here are four predictions we expect to see in 2024. 

Trend #1: Finding Uncommon Growth in the Storm 

It’s certainly not news to CMOs that they’re navigating turbulent markets. Yet they’re cautiously optimistic about what lies ahead, with 49% saying they are more upbeat about the U.S. economy than last quarter. According to a recent study by Deloitte, only 22% are less optimistic. According to Forrester, 80% expect a marketing budget increase, albeit a modest one, going into 2024. No wonder 75% of senior marketers in a recent Gartner survey say they’re expected to do more with less. 

They’re on a tightrope, juggling near-term tactics while planning long-term growth goals. A recent Salesforce survey of marketers finds that 76% say they feel more responsibility to drive growth – proof indeed that more enterprises are recognizing marketing’s power to increase revenue. 

As many marketing leaders have taken on more commercial responsibility, that pressure keeps building. “Previously, my role focused on communications and driving colleague engagement,” says the CMO of a leading advisory firm. “Now it’s shifted to driving topline growth while carving out greater differentiation.” 

“The world has gotten very complicated, yet organizations are facing pressure to grow at the same pace as when the world was less volatile,” agrees the CMO of a commercial real estate company. “All of this is making it even more difficult to get your message out.” 

“The big challenge now is not to overcompensate,” says a leading building supply company marketer. “We didn’t overspend when things were good. So let’s not underspend when things are bad.” 

But these leaders know their role is more significant than deciding where to dial back spending. “What got us here won’t get us there,” says a CMO at a top-tier financial company. And like 83% of respondents in the Gartner study, the marketing strategies her team has come to rely on in the last two years are markedly different than those of the past.  

Critical to this evolution –and any and all growth– is a greater-than-ever push toward customer centricity. “Do we really understand our customers? That’s what keeps me up at night,” says a top marketer at a financial advisory company. 

As marketers grapple with being asked to do more with less resources while simultaneously proving value from their marketing investments, it will become even more critical in 2024 to be able to prove ROI by translating business objectives into quantifiable customer goals. Actively defining and measuring against clear KPIs will be key to allowing marketers to quickly pivot to optimize their efforts to deliver better outcomes.  

Trend #2: Acing the Marketing Basics While Leaving Room for Experimentation 

Most of the CMOs we spoke to say that they are getting more comfortable operating in a post-pandemic marketing environment that is often turbulent and unpredictable. 

Finding better ways to integrate brand and demand strategies is at the top of that list. While there is a short-term swing towards demand, brand continues to play an essential role. Finding the right ratios remains critical, but the old-school separation no longer works. “Companies that separate budgets and teams between brand and demand do so at their disadvantage,” says the CMO of one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies. “Every touchpoint informs perception of the brand, and every brand touchpoint needs to deliver business.” 

“I want my budget all looked at through an integrated model,” agrees a top financial marketer. “I’m a big believer in brand and demand.”  

Generative AI, already critical to 56% of marketers, is taking on more importance, with 80% of those in the Forrester survey saying they intend to use generative AI in the next year. Blogs are the most common use, named by 65%, followed by website copy at 62%. 

Updated techniques to track ROI, with data and analytics emerging as the new rocket science, are also on top of CMOs’ “must-do” lists. Even as 63% of the marketers in Forrester’s research are amping up martech investments, Salesforce finds that 72% struggle to measure the impact, and 43% find it hard to track customers across the journey. CMOs are becoming increasingly vocal about these glaring blind spots. “Someone needs to figure out …” is a refrain constantly echoing throughout marketing departments when it comes to marketing measurement and attribution.  

Leaders are determined to remedy that problem in the coming year. “We look at marketing-attributed revenue, particularly inbound leads driven by digital or other channels,” says a senior financial services marketer. “We also look at how effectively we sell differentiated service bundles tied to our client needs. To measure the success of our business development enablement, we look at win rates and the service portfolio’s overall growth.” 

Other hot-button issues that were mentioned? More innovative ways to track the cost, benefits and risks of influencer marketing, and social issues, particularly in reaching Gen Z.  

What does this mean for marketers in 2024? Despite pressures from boards and executive teams to deliver near-term results, CMOs need to continue to support longer-term priorities that they know will be important over time. Allowing space for experimentation, whether it’s with new AI technology, martech or channel strategies, will help guide where to invest without over-indexing on long-term or short-term growth ambitions.  

Trend #3: Acting as Organizational Change-Makers 

Getting the foundational basics right is vital. But it’s not enough. To create transformational growth, CMOs are becoming digital leaders, stepping more forcefully into corporate grey areas. Although marketing leaders currently lead 70% of digital transformations, even more are grabbing the reins. “There is a void,” says a marketer at a large regional health organization. “No one owns the full digital transformation, so we are just taking it on.” 

As the role of marketing has expanded, they believe it’s time to shake up the operating model. In Gartner’s research, 86% of marketers agree that their organization must change how it works to achieve sustainable results. 

CMOs need to think about themselves as connectors and integrators. They should think cross-functionally across departments, linking channels and disciplines across products and experiences. This year, 37% say their teams are fully integrated, up from 19% a year ago according to Deloitte’s CMO study. 

For those lucky enough to work for C-suites who have fully bought into this level of collaboration, it’s easier to make progress. “Building strong relationships between functional leaders based on transparency, empathy, and mutual benefit, has been instrumental in breaking down silos and achieving better outcomes,” says a CMO from a large retailer, who now calls her bond with the head of product one of the tightest partnerships she’s ever had. “It’s been an absolute game changer.”’ 

As marketing’s responsibilities shift and expand, finding opportunities for cross-functional collaboration not only helps break down internal silos but also creates better outcomes for customers. Marketing leaders have a real opportunity to be catalysts for change across their organizations, and they should be ready to lead the charge.  

Trend #4: Leaning into Creativity 

What’s perhaps most exciting, is that even as they build teams with new skills, capabilities and competencies, leaders are less bashful about what drew them to marketing in the first place: The power of creativity and ideas. 

CMOs say this creativity still plays a critical role in differentiating brands. They find joy in investing in the brand and seeing how creativity helps them stand out, increase revenues and gain relevance. They are building moments that matter, and ultimately that lead to sustainable growth. 

“I still believe in the power of big ideas,” says one CMO. “When problems need solving, traditional creativity always wins.” 

As pressure builds to deliver and prove ROI, creativity often takes a backseat. But it would be a mistake to overlook the power of creativity, and how it allows brands to connect with customers on a meaningful level. Marketers understand this and should continue to push for inspiration that’s driven by deep and authentic creativity. 

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Ask any marketer, and they’ll tell you that 2023 has been a year of budget cuts and canceled launches. According to Gartner’s CMO Spend and Strategy 2023 Survey, 75% of senior marketers reported being asked to do more with less. As budgets decrease, marketing expectations significantly increase, with 86% of surveyed senior marketers agreeing their organization must undergo significant changes in how they work to achieve their goals.   

Right now, that near-universal do more with less directive is an especially bitter pill. Marketers still have whiplash from the last few years, with some businesses seeing massive contraction during the pandemic and others experiencing dizzying growth, resulting in competing interests between brand and demand. Many hoped for at least a glimmer of normalcy.   

Between inflation and rising interest rates, the likelihood of a recession has become a daily odds-making game for economists. The risk is falling. Yet many, including CEOs, investors, legislators and consumers, are already entrenched in a `vibecession.’ They feel things are bad, even if economic indicators don’t support that view. In conjunction with the disruption of the last few years, it has become almost impossible for marketers to rely on historical planning processes and requires them to maximize flexibility, even as budgets and resources diminish.   

This uncertainty isn’t necessarily bad news for the creative and agile marketer. After all, disciplined belt-tightening can allow marketing leaders to reflect, establish new ways of working, and find creative ways to deliver maximum value with their current resources.   

As marketers look to close the year strong and head into 2024 planning, we’ve identified seven critical steps marketing organizations should take to strategically balance and blend brand and demand marketing agendas and inform next year’s planning efforts that are fast upon us. 

1. Translate Business Objectives Into Quantified Customer Goals  

The first and most important part of doing more with less is to remain diligent in driving business outcomes with a customer-focused lens. All activity should point directly at delivering business value for the short and long term. Ensuring you have customer-focused goals based on acquisition, retention, cross-sell and upsell and making your brand worth paying more for is the foundation to maximize resources.   

Once you have set your goals, you must regularly track and align your efforts to the business outcomes your organization expects marketing to influence or drive. To do this, we recommend developing a leading and lagging metrics ladder and establishing quarterly check-ins with your team. By doing so, you will know what is working in your marketing plan and feel more confident that every element of your marketing budget is maximized and driving ROI. And if you notice that marketing efforts are underperforming, you’ll be in a better position to quickly pivot your efforts.  

Learn more on how you can anchor your marketing activities and investments in business outcomes in our global research report, Brand and Demand: A Love Story.  

2. Do Fewer Things 

Peter Drucker famously wrote, “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.” The same is true with marketers. Every dollar works as hard as possible, but the success of your budget is dependent on whether you invested those dollars appropriately, which is why marketing leaders need to prioritize growth opportunities and continuously analyze and optimize to ensure those efforts are practical and efficient.  

Obvious, right? But in a world where specialists and digital marketing skills are at a premium, many companies are overspending to build executional muscle in modern marketing tactics. But while they are actively improving their search and social skills, for example, they may lose focus on why they are in those channels in the first place. 

Companies can do more things right by doing fewer things and staying laser-focused on driving business outcomes and customer goals. Before greenlighting any initiative, even small ones, you must ensure they support those goals. When calculating the cost of your marketing efforts, measuring the cost in dollars and the resources and time your team needs to invest in executing is critical.   

Here are some key questions to help marketers prune the marketing calendar. If you’re feeling advanced, you can build a scoring system to help you prioritize.  

3. Prioritize Moments That Matter Most in Your Customer’s Journey 

As our Brand and Demand: A Love Story report noted, journey-based planning has become critical in the digitally driven marketers’ toolbox. However, as marketers adopt this concept, many need to work harder to make the most out of every moment in the journey, which spreads resources too thin and splinters impact.   

Studying the journey keeps organizations customer-centric and uncovers opportunities. But to maximize usefulness, marketers must decide on the most critical barriers to address and seize opportunities to build out the signature and memorable moments. 

Prioritizing the moments that matter the most in the customer journey calls for tough choices, especially when you need to do more with less. Marketing leaders prioritizing customer acquisition will likely lean toward awareness and consideration moments, while those focused on retention and loyalty will probably lean toward post-purchase moments. One thing to note when prioritizing these moments is to make a list of those that you are choosing to ignore now. Eventually, marketing budgets will increase again, and the moments you deprioritize can be revisited.   

Once you have prioritized your moments, you must ensure your teams leverage these moments for brand and demand opportunities. After all, doing more with less is sometimes doing two things simultaneously! By doing so, it will be easier for your team to make the right choices about the appropriate channels, experiences and messages you need to serve your customers and, at the right time, to drive results for your organization. 

4. Sharpen Your Value Propositions- Superiority That Matters 

To stay relentlessly relevant and earn customer respect and loyalty, strong brands must deliver meaningful, purposeful connections that appeal to people’s emotions with distinctive brand Purpose, Promise and Principles. At this point, many brands clearly understand why they exist and what they do. Still, in this low-spending climate, where every dollar counts, brands should revisit how they think about functional benefits, quality and superiority claims.  

When budgets and resources are constrained, it is a best practice to revise and sharpen your demand-based value proposition at the umbrella brand and product level, ensuring that product-level promises are crisp, compelling and competitive.  And, even more than that, based on things that your target audience can experience. Superiority in the lab or around the margins is one thing, but superiority that people can see and feel, that makes a real difference is another thing. Weaving those promises to reinforce and inform the brand story, and vice versa and ensuring that they are reflected across all in-market executions can boost short-term revenues, even as they support long-term brand health.   

Revisiting your value proposition may mean returning to tried and true basics while challenging assumptions within your organization. It can also result in your team reconsidering old-fashioned benefits and features to sharpen your customer value story, which should evolve and grow as your customer needs change. 

As you do so you should think through these critical questions: 

1. What are the specific tensions, meaningful benefit pillars and proof points that are critical to deliver on the brand promise?  
2. Do these need to change for different customer audiences?  
3. How can we uniquely deliver superiority that matters to customers?  
4. Are our proof points ownable and tangible?
5. Are the brand and demand value stories tightly interwoven? 
6. How can you test and learn before market scaling? 

5. Give Your Creative Assets a Make-over  

In recent years, much of the focus for marketers has been on where and how communications are delivered. It’s impressive how far many have come as they build expertise in performance marketing, owned and earned media, SEO and SEM.   

But many people forget that data shows the success of a campaign is dependent on the quality of the creative. Brilliant campaign ideas and breakthrough experiences are a must-have. Creative work at every point in the journey needs to be branded and rooted in demand-based product truths. It’s not enough to love an asset on the drawing board. It has to stand out in the specific context in which people will discover it. 

During times when you need to do more with less, it’s a good step to build upon your basics. Below is a sampling of a few ways you can do this: 

• Add more demand marketing strategies to your top-of-funnel efforts. 
• Dial up your brand messaging during the purchasing stage of your customer’s journey.  
• Sweat your call to action (CTA). You should vet and optimize your CTAs, even if you’ve used them a million times.  
• Ensure every experience and touchpoint leads your customers to the next milestone in their journey and propels them to the conversion and loyalty stages.  

On a side note, many marketers are integrating AI into their creative process to drive efficiency in their process and execution. We will touch on this more below. 

6. Leverage AI to Do More With Less

AI and machine learning, have played a critical role for marketers for several years. After all, both power programmatic buying, personalized messaging, predictive analytics, buy-now recommendations and chatbots.   

But, with the recent rise of ChatGPT and generative AI tools, businesses have begun experimenting with new ways to increase productivity and effectiveness. It’s becoming clear that the marketing teams that leverage AI tools can magically add more hours to their days.   

While we are at the beginning stages of this new evolution of generative AI, we have identified four key areas of AI that can help support your marketing efforts and teams today. 

AI is evolving fast, and marketers must remember that what they learned last week is outdated. Yet even in its infancy, it has the potential to save money, free up hundreds of hours and improve effectiveness. 

7. Elevate Scenario Planning  

It sometimes feels like we are working in patchy fog. Will the “vibecession” give way to a real one? Will do more with less  be the bumper sticker for just a few more quarters or the foreseeable future? No one knows. But effective scenario planning can mean the difference between simply surviving unexpected curveballs or thriving because of them. It’s the difference between mourning and moving.  

People often think of scenario planning as dealing with the long-term future for outcomes that are years away. But why not use it for the near term to proactively address scenarios that may jeopardize the ability to reach any prioritized goal? It can even be used at the level of an individual initiative to ensure quick response to in-market performance.  

Think of scenario planning as a game. A game board like the one below can be used to help with thinking ahead on owned-asset performance. We recommend building a cross-disciplinary team to scenario plan for your next launch, campaign or initiative. You can use this gameboard to strategize how you might react to potential scenarios, such as shifting media spending, changing messaging or revisiting content and social strategies.   

From there, teams can think about how best to codify and socialize the contingency plans, including the owners of levers. 

The job isn’t over when the game board is completed. Identifying when, how and who is responsible for tracking and implementing is critical. Additional cross-functional planning sessions can allow follow-up on hot topics and assign owners to chosen levers.   

Learn more about scenario planning in our recent AMA article. 

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While Scaling Personalized Content, CMOs are Transforming their Companies

I joined Prophet just about nine months ago after leading the marketing services practice at one of the largest interactive agencies in the world. I thought I knew a lot about marketing transformation. I now work with CMOs who are responsible for leading their own transformation agendas. Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020 only reinforces how much of a marketing transformation is now focused on driving more personalized customer interactions and achieving the scale of operations required to support it.

The CMO Transformation Agenda is Focused on Personalized Experiences

Digital transformation, a term du jour, is often used to articulate the need to modernize an organization. Transition to the cloud, which my prior firm often spoke to, isn’t transformation; rather, it’s a means to modernize capabilities, streamline costs, and improve outcomes. In recent work, it has become clear that true transformation is anchored on becoming either a truly data-centric or customer-centric company. These are not mutually exclusive targeted outcomes but can be a different lens for defining and prioritizing company priorities. For the CMO, this marketing transformation agenda often translates into the ability to deliver a more personalized series of interactions to their most important customers who will have the most impact on their business performance. In fact, 52 percent of respondents chose personalization as their top capability to improve, while 37 percent prioritized improving segmentation—a direct input into personalization (Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020). The effort to generate more personalization requires both data-centric and customer-centric marketing transformation capabilities and measured outcomes.

Source: Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020

Measuring Performance

CMOs have been modernizing their capabilities with digital for years, with added sophistication in finding and reaching audiences through additional digital marketing channels. Another priority is improving performance on existing digital channels (42%), while investing in new ones (34%) (Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020). What is reinforced here is how the growing demands on new channels go together with the need for more personalization. Finding new or existing customers in new channels requires cross-channel understanding and insights to drive personalized interactions. The relevance and timeliness of these interactions will ultimately directly impact marketing performance going forward. Experiences are increasingly instrumented and performance understanding requires data to be captured, measured, organized and given back at the speed marketing works to be effective.

Scaling Technology

These large amounts of marketing performance data must now deliver insights that are integrated with the marketing technology platforms to enrich more real-time interactions in acquisition and conversions.

The top challenge, however, remains purchasing and integrating the right Martech platforms with 52 percent of those interviewed stating that purchasing or integrating the right marketing technology platform was their biggest obstacle (Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020). For most organizations, these investments in content management, customer relationship management, and marketing automation have been underway for years. There is still an ever-increasing need to connect more core marketing capabilities into these platforms. These integrations enable core capabilities that marketing now deploys to drive personalization, as well as the ability to measure and optimize based on desired business outcomes. The race is in reaching scale in efficiency and effectiveness of these new capabilities.

Source: Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020

Scaling Processes and Workflows

What is also apparent in working with leading CMOs on their marketing transformations is that most of the challenges they face are underpinned by the need to embed new ways of working. Forty-nine percent of digital marketers said scaling best practices across business units and geographies were their biggest challenge (Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020). Marketing budgets are not increasing to meet the needs of providing more unique and personal content to more people. Despite what many friends in technology will say, in practice, no platform alone will close this gap without fundamentally rethinking what new skills are needed, how teams are structured and how to best integrate their workflows to streamline and gain efficiency.

Source: Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020

Scaling Content

How a company presents itself in advertising, messages, on its website, in its mobile applications, etc. will matter greatly in terms of how CMOs build relevance and depth of relationship with customers. Content matters. Content matters a lot. While marketing budgets aren’t wildly increasing and growing segmentation increases demand further, the delivery of needed templates, images, copy and offers will not scale to support that demand. In order to deliver this marketing transformation, CMOs will need to turn to AI and machine learning to deliver Intelligent Content systems that tie together their marketing performance data, segmentation intelligence, content management and marketing automation tools to dynamically create personalized advertising, email, web, and mobile messages in real-time. Creating this system of “intelligent content” is a major success factor for advanced personalization, and it makes it much easier to introduce AI-assisted enhancements once a robust system has been built. Ninety-five percent of companies are able to personalize messaging and experiences in some form based on customer data, with almost a fifth utilizing AI-driven predictive analytics to do so (Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing 2020).  This growth in the need to leverage automation to deliver the scale necessary will only increase over time.

“The new CMO agenda is about personalizing customer interactions and achieving the scale of operations required to support it.”

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