Is Long-Range Thinking No Longer an Option for Brands?

Before branding was a discipline and the world of marketing was inchoate, Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker famously said:

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half”

That was certainly true when he said it in 1919, for most of the 20^th century, and perhaps some of the 21st. But as Sedgwick CMO Emily Fink (previously of Liberty Mutual marketing fame) recently observed in a Forbes interview, this is no longer a problem.

“Organizations aren’t handing over millions or billions of dollars without being able to assess whether they are driving growth… media analytics have expanded… (making it) easier to tie dollars spent directly to purchases… Being able to track from digital advertising all the way through purchasing is a game changer in determining how to spend and optimize marketing dollars.”

Still, I wonder. Are there no more intangibles in branding? If we can’t measure something, does that mean it doesn’t exist?

Do we embrace the short-term approach of digital marketing at the expense of longer-range goals? Is short-term ROI always the best measure of success?

Or is it that brands shun the long view because short-term tactics are far easier to control and measure? Run a TikTok campaign and you’ll know exactly how you’re doing in real time. But the long-term effect of a new, image-based campaign might not be felt for months or years, and that’s a marketing killer these days.

Are we out of patience? Is long-term thinking simply off the table these days? Judging by the rising share of short-term marketing tools over more traditional long-range tools (advertising, packaging, cause related marketing, etc.) the answer would seem to be “yes.”

Take a look at this chart, compliments of ChatGPT:

Summary of Changes in Marketing Mix Share

Where Advertising was 70%-80% of the marketing mix in the 1970’s, it’s down to 15%-20% today. Not all of that 1970’s advertising spend can be attributed to “image campaigns,” but there was broad agreement in the marketing world that brand-building over time and image-related advertising were critical, forming the foundation from which all marketing efforts emanated. While marketing efforts now are generally “integrated” and “agnostic,” the television campaign was always the foundation for the rest of the marketing mix in pre-digital times.

At present, digital marketing accounts for the majority of marketing spend, and it’s clear that its growth comes directly at the expense of traditional media.

For all that digital offers us as marketers, might we be sacrificing brand health and longevity for a quick(er) bang for the buck? Some things just can’t be measured, but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored or taken for granted. That’s not to say that marketers should all be rushing back to network television.  Certainly, new media can be exploited to impart the less-tangible but critically important elements of brand choice: Values, attitudes, perceptions, emotions and more.

We all need not become Nutter Butter, reducing our efforts to attention-getting stunts and promotions on Instagram and Tiktok to get into the conversation?

It’s not just marketing. Short-termism is endemic of the greed and instant gratification that now characterizes our culture, from government and business to our personal lives.

The United States had great ambitions after WWII and throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. We were committed to education, investing locally in public schools and nationally with the GI Bill. We conceived and built the interstate highway system. We sent a man to the moon

No one expected these challenges to be solved in days or weeks or even a year or two. The costs could make your eyes pop out of your head, but we managed to pay for them. We seem to forget that through all those years of greatness the top marginal tax rate was 90%. It wasn’t until we felt “recovered” from the huge cost of WWII and rebuilding the world in its aftermath JFK lowered it to 50%.

Ronald Reagan lowered the top rate to 28% after being elected, based on the false promises of the Laffer Curve and Supply Side Economics. That might have been the beginning of the end for the U.S., the beginnings of current failures that include the sad state of education in the US and an inability to create and fund truly aspirational endeavors.

Taxes were eventually raised out of necessity, (even by Reagan, who would be considered much too liberal to be elected as a Republican today), with the top rated currently at 37%. But that still puts the U.S. solidly in last place, the lowest marginal tax rate of the world’s ten leading economies. We’re lagging behind those awful communists like Japan (56%), Canada (54%), South Korea (50%), Germany (45%, and The UK (45%).

Short-termism is also affected by our lower than low attention spans. Last week I linked to an article from the Atlantic that described the reading crisis we face in the U.S.

Students can’t read entire books anymore! Most of my students don’t read at all, save for what they see on. TikTok and Instagram. They are taught in snippets now, denying them the wonderful, mind-expanding and possibly life-changing experience of being immersed in the worlds, cultures and humanity through literature.

Fortunately, some brands and marketers get this. I loved a recent essay from The Drum, written by UK creative Livvy Moore, titled: Gen Z’s fav heritage fashion brands don’t pander, they play hard to get.

Moore argues that it would be out-of-character for legacy fashion brands to chase after consumers as it would be for a “senior citizen that we love and respect (who) is desperately chasing the heart of someone in their late teens.” Not so attractive, is it?

Rather, she recommends that “instead of identifying trends, identify what that exact emotional quality is that gives you your iconic status and build all of your brand marketing around it.”

It’s not to say that your brand has to fossilize. Brands must evolve, progress must be made, societal changes need to be considered. But the idea is not to chase, not to pander, but to understand that “there’s an element of your brand DNA that is truly timeless, something not linked to a certain era, or even a certain product. It’s an emotional trigger or hook that expands age, gender, ethnicity and geography. It’s the thing that’s made you special across the many decades you’ve spanned. So instead of identifying trends, identify what that exact emotional quality is that gives you your iconic status and build all of your brand marketing around it.

In other words, play the long game.