Ban the Binary: Why Brand and Demand Must Be Built Together

We’ve built an entire operating system around this divide. Brand is long-term, strategic, and “soft.” Demand is short-term, tactical, and measurable. Brand builds awareness. Demand drives conversion. One is top-of-funnel. The other is bottom-of-funnel.

Brand gets the awards. Demand gets the budget.

Except it doesn’t really work that way anymore, if it ever did.

In truth, separating brand and demand may be one of the costliest habits in modern marketing. It’s not just a structural issue: it’s a logic problem. And it’s showing up in flatlining returns, rising acquisition costs, and campaigns that feel like they’re working harder for diminishing results.

We need a reset. Not just in language, but in our overall thinking.

It’s time to stop asking which matters more.
The real question is: How do we build them together - by design, not default?

Brand Is Demand Creation

One of the great marketing myths is that brand is about awareness. Visibility. Being seen.

But the truth is, brand is about being remembered. Brand builds memory structures, so that - when a person is ready to make a purchase decision - your name comes to mind first. It’s about mental availability, distinctiveness, trust. It’s what lets a customer choose you over the cheaper, faster, louder alternative.

It’s also what gives you pricing power, customer preference, loyalty and margin.

And when brand is working properly, it doesn’t just drive awareness; it drives growth.

Performance, by contrast, is a precision tool. It turns attention into action. It converts interest into clicks, carts, and purchases. But it can only do that if interest already exists. And when we stop investing in brand, we slowly erode the very pool that performance marketing depends on.

This Isn’t Opinion. It’s Data.

Multiple studies including - “The Multiplier Effect” by WARC, Analytic Partners, Prophet, BERA.ai and System1 - have validated what many of us have felt intuitively: brand and performance work better together.

When integrated, the results are exponential, as noted in the report:

• Campaigns are 57% more effective than those driven by performance alone. A Prophet survey found that 90 percent “of businesses that out-perform their competition stated they had either fully or mostly integrated their brand and performance advertising.”
• Median return on revenue improves by 90 percent.
• Customer acquisition costs drop. Loyalty rises.
• And perhaps most importantly, marketing becomes a compound asset, not a one-off expense.

These aren’t just marketing metrics - they’re business metrics.

We’ve Seen the Shift in Practice

If you’re looking for proof in action, look no further than Airbnb. In 2021, they made a bold move: reducing their reliance on performance marketing and reinvesting in brand storytelling.

They didn’t just survive. They grew.

The company saw an increase in direct traffic, a reduction in media spend, and a renewed understanding that when the brand does the heavy lifting, performance becomes more efficient – not less important.

Their CEO, Brian Chesky, put it perfectly, as noted in The Multiplier Effect report:

“Performance marketing is a laser. Brand marketing is the chandelier.”

This is exactly it. One highlights while the other illuminates. Only together do they light the room.

Or consider a B2B example. Global analytic software provider SAS hit a performance wall with its demand-first campaign efforts, which alone couldn’t solve for awareness and perception. They launched a multi-million LinkedIn campaign aimed at creating both future demand (for the 95% of prospects unlikely to be in the market at any given moment) and lifting in-market demand conversion efforts. With an optimized reach / frequency media strategy, SAS reached 9MM more LinkedIn members - representing a 200% increase in category audience reach. Brand lift rose by double digits, organic search increased by triple digits and lead gen form completions went up between 7% and 79% depending on offer and exposure recency.

So What Needs to Change?

This isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about fixing the system. Because the structure we’ve built around this false divide is the real barrier.

Too often, this results in:

• Brand and demand sit on different teams.
• They’re briefed separately, evaluated on different timelines, and judged against incompatible KPIs.
• Creative meant to inspire lives in one world, while creative meant to convert lives in another.

The result? Disjointed experiences for customers, missed efficiencies for marketers and underwhelming outcomes for businesses.

It’s not enough to talk about integration. We have to design for it.

That means creating:

• Shared goals across brand and demand teams.
• Unified briefs that demand both emotional resonance and commercial results.
• Cross-functional planning that puts the customer journey - not the org chart - at the center.
• And measurement models that account for both short-term impact and long-term equity.

Because when brand and performance operate as one system, the effect isn’t just better marketing. It’s better business.

Brand x Demand = Growth

At the ANA, we believe the future of marketing isn’t brand or performance. It’s brand x performance - a multiplier mindset that recognizes the interdependence of storytelling and selling.

One without the other is incomplete.
But together? They compound.

We’ll be exploring this topic across our brand practice, through new thought leadership, events, and resources aimed at helping marketers build more integrated, effective strategies.

The debate is over.
The opportunity lies in the integration.

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.

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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.org/MyersBizNet.