Beyond 60:40: putting effectiveness in context

Brian Carruthers

The work of Les Binet and Peter Field has established that the most effective advertising is split 60:40 between brand building and activation; their latest research looks in more detail at how this works in the context of different categories and purchase behaviours.

Back in 2013, Les Binet and Peter Field published The Long and the Short of It, a seminal piece of research that drew on the IPA Databank of case studies to argue that the most effective advertising strategies are geared 60% towards long-term brand building and 40% towards short-term activation.

The intervening period, however, has seen the meteoric rise of social media and brands being pulled towards short-term activations that are easily measureable. At IPA Effweek (London, October 2018), Peter Field re-affirmed that “brand building is the primary driver of long-term growth”. That starts to happen about about...

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