Why do some brands remain recognizable for decades while others fade away despite spending heavily on advertising? A major reason lies in how they balance brand building and short-term marketing activities.
Many businesses allocate most of their budget to performance marketing—paid ads, promotions, and campaigns designed to drive quick sales. While these tactics can drive immediate results, they often fail to create lasting brand recognition. Over time, this can increase customer acquisition costs and weaken customer loyalty.
The 60/40 rule for branding is a marketing principle that addresses this challenge. Companies allocate roughly 60% of their marketing efforts to brand building and 40% to sales activation, creating a balance between long-term brand growth and short-term business results.
Strong brand-building efforts often involve clearly defined brand types and positioning, which you can explore further in our guide, “What Are the 4 Types of Branding? A Complete Guide.”
Brand-building activities strengthen recognition, emotional connection, and mental availability, helping customers recall the brand when making purchasing decisions. Activation marketing focuses on converting existing demand into measurable actions such as purchases, sign-ups, or inquiries.
A strong brand foundation supports long-term marketing success, which is why many companies invest in structured Branding and Identity development to maintain consistent messaging, visuals, and positioning.
The idea comes from research on marketing effectiveness. It was popularized by marketing researchers Les Binet and Peter Field, who studied hundreds of advertising campaigns using data from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).
Their research showed that companies investing in both long-term brand building and short-term marketing campaigns often achieve better results. This finding later became known as the 60/40 rule in marketing strategy.
The 60/40 marketing rule explains how businesses can allocate their marketing budgets to balance long-term brand growth with short-term sales performance.
Under this framework:
The key difference lies in the time horizon of results. Brand building strengthens awareness and reputation over time, while activation marketing captures demand and generates measurable short-term outcomes.
Many organizations support these long-term brand initiatives through high-quality storytelling and visual media created through Creative Content Production, which helps communicate brand values and narratives more effectively.
Marketing activities usually serve two purposes: generating immediate sales and building brand reputation for future demand.
Balancing short-term performance with long-term brand development improves overall marketing effectiveness and supports sustainable growth.
To understand this concept better, it is helpful to look at the difference between brand development and activation marketing. While both are part of the same marketing strategy, they serve different objectives and operate on different timelines.
Brand building focuses on strengthening how people recognize, remember, and feel about a brand. Instead of encouraging immediate purchases, these activities aim to build familiarity and positive associations that influence future buying decisions.
Common brand-building activities include storytelling campaigns, brand awareness advertising, emotional marketing initiatives, and long-term content strategies.
These efforts help strengthen:
Although brand development produces results gradually, it plays a critical role in creating long-term demand and sustainable growth.
Activation marketing focuses on encouraging immediate customer actions such as purchasing a product, signing up for a service, or submitting contact information. Unlike brand-focused marketing, these campaigns prioritize measurable outcomes like conversions, revenue, and customer acquisition.
Common examples include:
Modern campaigns often combine performance marketing with visually engaging formats such as AI-Powered Ad Films, allowing brands to deliver impactful creative campaigns efficiently.
Activation marketing is designed to generate short-term results, but it often performs best when supported by strong brand awareness.
Brand building and activation marketing are most effective when used together. Focusing only on one side can create imbalances in marketing performance.
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Maintaining a balance between long-term brand development and short-term performance marketing is essential for sustainable growth. Instead of relying only on immediate sales campaigns, businesses benefit from investing in both brand visibility and conversion-focused marketing.
Together, these benefits help businesses create sustainable competitive advantage and stronger long-term marketing performance.
Many well-known companies apply a balance between brand development and performance marketing.
Although widely referenced, the rule is not applied the same way by every organization. The ideal balance between brand development and activation marketing can vary depending on industry, competition, and business stage.
For example:
As digital marketing has evolved, many experts now treat this principle as a strategic guideline rather than a strict formula, adjusting the balance based on business goals and market conditions.
Businesses can apply this principle by planning both long-term brand initiatives and short-term performance campaigns.
Clearly identify the brand’s target audience, identity, and value proposition to ensure all marketing activities communicate a consistent message.
Create initiatives that build awareness and emotional connection, such as storytelling campaigns, educational content, and brand awareness advertising.
Support brand efforts with performance campaigns like paid search ads, social media advertising, and promotional campaigns designed to drive measurable actions.
Track indicators such as brand awareness, customer acquisition cost, engagement levels, and revenue growth to evaluate results.
Monitoring these metrics helps businesses maintain the right balance between brand development and activation marketing, supporting both immediate results and long-term growth.
The 60/40 rule highlights the importance of balancing short-term sales activation with long-term brand development. While performance campaigns can generate quick results, sustainable growth comes from consistently investing in brand awareness, recognition, and customer trust.
Businesses that combine both approaches often achieve stronger and more stable outcomes. Short-term campaigns capture existing demand, while brand building ensures customers remember and prefer the brand over time. To understand the broader approaches businesses use to build strong brands, you can also explore “What Are the 7 Commonly Used Branding Strategies?”
As marketing continues to evolve with data-driven insights, AI-powered tools, and changing consumer behavior, maintaining the right balance between brand investment and performance marketing will remain a key strategy for long-term business success.
It suggests allocating roughly 60% of marketing investment to brand development and 40% to activation marketing.
The concept was popularized by marketing researchers Les Binet and Peter Field through studies on marketing effectiveness.
Yes. Startups can benefit from balancing brand awareness with performance marketing, although the exact ratio may vary depending on resources.
Brand storytelling, emotional advertising, brand awareness campaigns, and long-term content marketing.
Performance-focused tactics such as paid advertising, promotions, and lead generation campaigns.
Many marketers still consider it a useful framework for balancing long-term brand growth with short-term marketing performance.
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