The yin and yang of brand growth: Is there a better way to think about brand and sales marketing?
Too often marketers are forced to choose between brand and performance-driven marketing. Involved Media’s Dan Hojnik argues there’s a better way to view things.
In my 15 years of working with marketing leaders across Australia and globally, one consistent theme has emerged: the tension between brand and sales. It’s a tension that shapes budgets, strategies, agency relationships and ultimately, growth outcomes.
But only one CMO I’ve worked with has ever articulated this tension in a way that truly stuck with me. Frustrated by an agency planner trying to bend Binet and Fields, “The Long and the Short of It” to argue for more brand (at the expense of immediate sales focus), the CMO paused and said simply: “Everything must support the brand, but everything must sell.”
Although the statement was as black and white as the Yin and Yang itself that line has stayed with me. Because at the heart of this comment is a deeper truth: brand, sales are the Yin and Yang of growth. They are complementary forces. One doesn’t work to its full potential without the other.
