Stuck on performance mode? There’s a better way
There’s a huge difference between the people you can reach and the people who are actually ready to buy.
John Dawes from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that in many categories, only 5% of buyers are in-market at any given time. The rest are not making a decision yet, and no ad will suddenly change that.
If you focus on performance alone, you’re fighting over the same small pool of ready-now buyers, and ignoring everyone who could buy from you later.
It works… but only while demand already exists. You’re not creating growth, you’re just harvesting it.
And the result is always the same:
- Rising costs
- Harder leads
- Shrinking returns
Because performance can’t create new demand. It only captures what’s already there.
So how do you influence the other 95%?
That’s where brand comes in.
Brand awareness marketing builds the memory structures that make you the obvious choice when buyers eventually enter the category. Those associations fire at the moment of need — what Ehrenberg Bass call category entry points.
Think about Bunnings.
The moment someone thinks “weekend project”, “I need a tool now”, or “time to fix that half-finished project”, Bunnings is the first brand that comes to mind. Not because of one perfect ad, but because they have spent years attaching themselves to those everyday buying moments.
That’s brand at work. It grows the future demand that performance converts.
If you want your performance to go further, invest in the brand that makes it work harder.
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This is taken from the weekly email written by one of our directors, Roberto Boi. Every Thursday he shares observations, ideas and perspectives from the work we’re doing day to day at Dilate. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up here.
