WARC spots barriers to blending brand & performance

WARC has published a report identifying eight barriers preventing chief marketing officers from integrating brand and performance advertising. The study draws on a survey of more than 200 senior marketers in the US.

Produced with Analytic Partners, BERA.ai, Prophet and System1, the report argues that many marketers understand the principles behind effective advertising but struggle to apply them within their organisations. It identifies cultural, procedural and structural obstacles, from weak alignment with senior executives to fragmented team structures and creative decisions that prioritise short-term measures.

One of its sharpest findings is a gap between marketing teams and the wider leadership group. While about two-thirds of marketers said their chief executive believes brand matters, only 19% said the C-suite routinely links changes in brand equity to business outcomes. WARC also found that 60% of respondents believed the C-suite does not fully understand advertising's role, and only 21% strongly agreed that advertising objectives were aligned with wider corporate goals.

Leadership gap

This disconnect can lead companies to treat advertising chiefly as a sales cost rather than a broader investment. A focus on efficiency metrics such as return on ad spend at platform or channel level, the report argues, has narrowed how many businesses judge marketing activity.

That approach sits uneasily with evidence WARC cites from earlier Analytic Partners research. Its ROI Genome data found that brands shifting from a performance-only model to a mix of brand and performance advertising achieved a median 90% uplift in revenue return on investment.

David Tiltman, Chief Content Officer at WARC and SVP Content at LIONS Intelligence, said the issue was less a lack of awareness than an inability to act on what marketers already know.

"Since the launch of The Multiplier Effect study last year, it has become clear that the challenges facing marketers are not about knowing the theory. Most CMOs cannot simply change their strategic and investment approach wholesale without overcoming a number of hurdles. What is needed is a playbook: a combination of data, frameworks and real-world examples that helps marketers recognise the key blockers they might face and gives them some plays to help them take action and make progress. The Multiplier Playbook does just that," Tiltman said.

Team silos

The research also points to internal organisation as a major problem. Nearly half of respondents, 49%, said their companies have separate brand and performance teams, while 25% said those teams are fully integrated. A larger share, 65%, said brand and performance budgets are split.

Alignment was weaker in other areas too. Only 44% of respondents said the two sides of the marketing function shared a common language, and the same proportion said they agreed on which audiences were most likely to drive growth.

The report argues that specialist functions will remain necessary, but says marketing leaders should create more opportunities for collaboration around shared commercial goals and customer behaviour. It cites major campaigns or key calendar moments as one way to force coordination between teams that might otherwise work separately.

One example comes from Instacart. Chief Marketing Officer Laura Jones described the need to build internal alignment around larger campaigns.

"We have to make our own weather. We have to create events and campaigns that are big, where we can all row in that same direction and get more return out of all of our effort when it's united," Jones said.

Creative pressure

The study also examines how marketing choices carry through into campaigns. It says creativity remains strongly linked to brand-building, but also affects immediate sales outcomes, particularly when companies develop broader creative platforms that connect long-term brand work with short-term performance activity.

Yet many marketers still view that approach as risky. WARC cites data from a System1 and Effie Worldwide survey showing that 41% of marketers see creative strategies as a risk, while 52% report a lack of confidence in advertising effectiveness. Separate data from Analytic Partners' ROI Genome suggests that 90% of advertisements are not left in market long enough to "wear in".

The report recommends a "fewer, bigger, longer" approach to campaigns, alongside closer links between media, creative development and measurement. It also sets out what it calls a four-level creativity stack: consistency, showmanship, distinctiveness and emotion.

WARC includes comments from Liquid Death founder and CEO Mike Cessario as an example of how smaller brands can think about creative risk.

"If you're a small company, it's literally reckless to be safe. Trying to mimic a big company as a small company is reckless ... because we can't afford to buy the eyeballs like the big guys do," Cessario said.