Mark Ritson’s 5 Steps to Proper Advertising

Professor Ritson lays out his five-level ascension plan to advertising effectiveness 

In his latest MiniMBA webinar, Mark Ritson clears up some common misunderstandings (and bugbears) in the world of advertising.

Across five hierarchal stages, Mark dishes out practical advice for building ad campaigns that actually work. The 50-minute session also sees him dig into case studies and illuminating data from the likes of System1, Peter Field and WARC.

Afterwards, Mark stuck around for a no-holds-barred Q&A with live attendees, getting into the trenches with how his five steps apply – no matter the business size or sector.

We’ve summarised his key lessons below, but you can watch Proper Advertising: The Five Steps in full now for a free crash course in effective advertising from the man himself.

Level 1: The Differences Between Brand and Performance

At level one, Mark lays out the key differences between brand advertising and performance advertising.

There are the more obvious distinctions: targeted/mass, rational/emotional, TOFU/BOFU. But also some murkier waters such as whether brand building ads can show product (we know brand ads can shift product very well, in fact).

Mark demonstrates how these distinctions are relatively unyielding – regardless of sector or end customer, including a brilliant B2B example from Workday. It might sound simple but getting this right is a critical starting point in making sure ads are doing what they’re meant to do.

This isn’t Brand vs Performance in a gladiatorial showdown. Each has their place, but getting them muddled, too much performance at the expense of brand, or cramming both together leads to ineffective ads – as you’ll see the evidence show.

Level 2: Campaign Level – And not Versus

Making the case for brand-building is a frustrating pastime of properly-trained marketers the world over. The Multiplier Effect, a recently published paper from WARC, might be about to change all of that…

Combining data from an effectiveness dream team that includes Analytic Partners, BERA.ai, Prophet, System1 and WARC; the report shows that stronger brand equity acts as a multiplier – driving greater impact and efficiency from performance advertising. In other words, strong brands reap more reward from their performance advertising.

Mark takes us through his biggest take-homes from the report: the “Brand Advantage” and “Performance Penalty”. The WARC paper found that when brands move from a performance strategy to a mixed approach, the median revenue ROI increase is an astounding 90%. Inversely, brands who move from a balanced strategy to a performance approach will suffer a 40% ROI decrease.

In other words, strong brands reap more reward from their performance advertising

“It was never about performance versus brand or long versus short,” says Mark. At a campaign level, brands must do both. “It’s And, not Versus”.

As Mark points out, the benefits of an integrated approach are not necessarily anything new. Bothism is a persistent theme throughout MiniMBA courses.

The Multiplier Effect reminds us what Don Shultz taught us about Integrated Marketing Communications 30 years ago. It’s what Les Binet and Peter Field have been shouting about for more than a decade: The Long AND the Short of It. It’s Dawes’ 95/5 rule.

But getting businesses to find and maintain that equilibrium has proven a greater challenge than it should. Maybe, until now.

Level 3: Ad Level – Either is better than both

Next, Mark takes us from campaign level to ad level – and why it’s a bad idea to mix performance and brand inside the same ad.

Put simply, they do different things. It’s not about showing product and building brand in the same ad, it’s all the other important differences that can make a performance-brand or “double duty” approach messy.

Taking a look back at our Level 1 distinctions, is it targeted or mass market? Rational or emotional? Do you want to shift product and get $10 back on your dollar investment? Or are you trying to maintain salience, build awareness and keep reminding consumers of the things you want them to think about you?

Mark digs into some data from Peter Field, who found that brand ads are more likely miss the mark when they try and do everything at once.

He admits that the double duty approach can work. But even when it does, the results are underwhelming when you compare it to data from campaigns that split performance and brand stuff up.

At a campaign level, brand and performance together is the winning format. At an ad level, “it’s not the best approach.”

Level 4: It’s not 60/40

As we approach the upper levels advertising effectiveness, we come back to Peter Field and Les Binet.

Mark Ritson is a straight-up super fan. The Long and the Short of It “is a much more seismic, important contribution to marketing than even fans realise,” he says. “The more you look into the work of Field and Binet, the more you realise they’ve been ahead of the game and are still ahead of the game 15 odd years later.”

That doesn’t mean he has no criticisms of the work. The Long and the Short has become synonymous with the 60/40 rule, which arose out their original report as the catch-all optimal budget split for brand/performance advertising.

Mark sets us straight that it is not (or is rarely) 60/40. Like the 95:5 rule, it works well as a mental model. The idea is that you must reach the majority of consumers who aren’t in-market now with brand-building advertising, so that they are pre-disposed to your brand once they are ready to buy.

60/40 is the overall sweet spot for FMCG, but Field and Binet have updated their work in subsequent reports to show just how much this can vary by sector. Their findings range from 80/20 for financial services to roughly 50/50 in B2B.

But again, this can change with the age of your brand. Young brands need to spend more on performance, for example.

you have to dig into your own data

Mark’s point is that you have to dig into your own data to find the best budget split for your brand. He points to the free Tracksuit calculator, which will tell you an optimal brand/performance split based on a range of additional factors, such as brand size, innovation style and distribution.

Even then, Mark says, it probably won’t be 60/40 or whatever ratio Tracksuit spits out. Chances are you’ll have to come down from the ideal split to a more realistic number, depending on how much budget you can ringfence from the business.

So, find out how much you should spend, get as close to that number as possible, and divide your campaign accordingly to drive long term growth and bigger business impact with the multiplier effect.

Level 5: It’s Enduring not Long

Mark’s second and more significant gripe with Field and Binet’s work is that it needs a rebrand. He shares a tale of pub-based revelation three years ago in London, when he discovered “it isn’t long and short, it’s long-short together versus short.”

Mark highlights some sobering data from System1, who analysed nearly 30,000 UK TV ads. They found that the best brand building ads are also the best at selling product in the short term. Long drives short.

Field and Binet’s omnipotent line graph has misled us

For years, Field and Binet’s omnipotent line graph has misled many of us – Mark included – to wrongly infer that “long” means long to impact. Data now shows that long isn’t necessarily long. Good brand-building ads work fast and then will keep working after the performance stuff is done. Mark suggests, therefore, we rethink long as “enduring.”

Importantly and somewhat predictably, the System1 data also shows that the reverse isn’t true. Short does not deliver long. That’s no bad thing, Mark says. Short is meant to be short – and it’s very good at delivering ROI.

“Embrace the differences,” says Mark, “and use them across a campaign that does both.”

Mark Ritson’s Proper Advertising: The Five Steps is available now on-demand. Watch the full webinar here.