The Rise of Brandformance: How Marketing is Evolving

The digital marketing landscape is constantly shifting. New platforms emerge, consumer behaviour changes, and strategies need to adapt. In this dynamic environment, a powerful new approach is gaining traction: Brandformance.

Brandformance bridges the gap between traditional brand building and performance marketing:

• Brand building: This focuses on creating a strong, lasting impression of your brand in the minds of consumers. It's about storytelling, brand identity, and fostering emotional connections.
• Performance marketing: This is all about driving measurable results, like website traffic, leads, or sales. Performance marketing campaigns are data-driven and optimised for specific goals.

Traditionally, these two areas have operated in silos. Brand-building campaigns might struggle to measure their impact on sales, while performance marketing efforts could lack the emotional connection that builds brand loyalty.

Brandformance changes the game. It recognises that these aspects are not mutually exclusive. By combining the best of both worlds, brandformance allows you to:

• Build brand awareness and achieve performance goals simultaneously.
• Craft marketing campaigns that resonate with your target audience on an emotional level, while still driving conversions.
• Gain valuable data and insights from your campaigns to continuously improve brand perception and performance.

Why is Brandformance on the Rise?

Several factors are contributing to the rise of brandformance:

• The cookieless future: Third-party cookies, a traditional tool for audience targeting, are being phased out. This makes it harder for marketers to rely solely on past browsing data for targeting.
• Brandformance, with its focus on brand storytelling and audience connection, becomes a more sustainable strategy.
• Attention fatigue: Consumers are bombarded with marketing messages every day. Brandformance marketing helps cut through the noise by creating engaging content that resonates with their values and interests.
• Evolving consumer expectations: Today's consumers expect brands to stand for something. They want to connect with brands that share their values and have a positive impact on the world. Brandformance allows brands to showcase their purpose and personality, building deeper connections with their target audience.

Key Elements of a Brandformance Campaign

So, how do you create a brandformance marketing campaign? Here are the key elements:

1. Clearly define your brand goals. What do you hope to achieve with your campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales?
2. Develop a compelling brand story. What makes your brand unique? What values do you stand for? Craft a narrative that connects with your target audience on an emotional level.
   
   
3. Understand your audience. Your channel selection and content are formed based on where your core audience is spending its time online, so this understanding is crucial to providing a platform for growth and success.
   
   
4. Choose the right channels. Where does your target audience spend their time online? Consider utilising a mix of paid advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, and influencer marketing to reach them effectively.
   
   
5. Create high-quality, engaging content. Your content should be informative, visually appealing, and aligned with your brand story. Establish the content pillars that align with your audiences.

Brandformance in Action

Let's look at some practical examples of brandformance in action:

A sustainable clothing brand could launch a social media campaign that showcases its eco-friendly practices while promoting its latest clothing line. A tech company could create a thought leadership blog series that positions them as an industry expert, while also generating leads through gated content downloads.

By using brandformance principles, these brands are able to build brand awareness, generate interest, and ultimately drive sales.

The Future of Brandformance Marketing

Brandformance represents a significant shift in how brands approach marketing. It's a data-driven approach that prioritises building genuine connections with consumers.

As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, brandformance is likely to become an even more critical strategy for success. Here are some key trends to watch:

The rise of cookieless targeting solutions

As third-party cookies become obsolete, new solutions will emerge that allow for more contextual targeting. Brandformance marketing will be well-positioned to take advantage of these solutions.

The increasing importance of storytelling

In a world saturated with marketing messages, brands that can tell compelling stories will win.

The convergence of marketing channels

Brandformance campaigns will leverage a seamless integration of different marketing channels to create a cohesive brand experience.

By uniting brand and performance marketing, we can build stronger relationships with consumers, achieve their marketing goals, and thrive in the ever-changing digital landscape.