Since 2008, we have been very focused on the short term. Which is no surprise giving the focus we have on quarterly results. We know that brand building effects come, on average, into play after 6 months. That is two quarters and to long for most of today's CMO's.
But perhaps we need to take a step back and reconsider our short term focus. As Binet and Field have shown over and over again, the effectiveness of our campaigns is decreasing both on business and brand building since our attention switched to the short term.
What is troubling is that we know what brand building efforts can generate. It as if we choose to ignore it.
1. Analysis by Kantar Millward Brown demonstrates that strong brands generate superior shareholders’ return – in fact, the top 10 global brands outperform S&P 500 by over 50% and MSCI over three times over the last 11 years.
2. Brand building brings resilience in challenging times. When the share price of brands dropped during the economic downturn, it took strong brands just six months to recover versus three years for average brands.
3. CMOs agree that brand advertising works (81% of 350 CMOs of the largest advertisers interviewed by UBS) and that brand advertising is particularly important in an increasing eCommerce world.
More details on the importance of Brand Building are in this article