Ken Lam, general manager, iProspect VIC.
For years, media planning has been framed as an exercise in allocation. Budgets are divided, channels are stacked, and performance is optimised within silos.
Agencies are often defined by the channels they execute, rather than the outcomes they drive.
Many marketers still adhere to the Les Binet and Peter Field school of a 60/40 split between Brand and Performance to deliver long-term growth, but according to a more recent McKinsey article, less than 20% of marketers say they have a strong understanding of how their brand building activity performs, which drives overinvestment into bottom funnel, “easier to measure” performance tactics.
It’s a good reason why there are many agencies who positions themselves as “digital performance specialist”; brilliant at conversion, efficiency, and optimisation, but brought in downstream, once the bigger growth decisions have already been made.
But as the media landscape fragments, every touchpoint becomes a media channel and everything becomes measurable, that way of thinking is no longer just outdated, it’s actively constraining growth.
Because brands don’t grow through channels or agency labels.
They grow through outcomes: attention, consideration, trust, conversion and loyalty, delivered across an interconnected ecosystem where the line between brand and performance has all but disappeared.
Which means there shouldn’t be a brand vs performance divide, yet many marketing plans and many agency briefs, still separate “brand” and “performance” as if they exist in different worlds.
Different budgets. Different KPIs. Different teams. Sometimes even different agencies.
In this model performance channels are expected to deliver results without shaping meaning. Brand channels are expected to build memory without accountability.
The outcome is short-term efficiency at the expense of long-term effectiveness. But in reality, every touchpoint performs, and every performance signal contributes to brand meaning.
The brands winning today aren’t asking which channel deserves more budget, or which agency owns which part of the funnel.
They’re asking what role each channel plays in the ecosystem, how it contributes to the outcome, and how it will be measured and optimised over time.
- Search isn't just harvesting demand; it’s shaping intent
- Social isn’t just upper funnel reach; it’s performance storytelling at scale
- Retail media isn’t just conversion; it’s brand presence at the moment of truth
- Data isn’t just optimisation fuel; it’s a feedback loop for relevance, experience and meaning.
The real challenge
When planning works in this elevated this way, performance stops being about squeezing marginal gains out of last click metrics and starts becoming a growth engine for the brand itself.
This shift doesn’t sit with clients alone, and it doesn’t sit with agencies in isolation either.
While it’s true that change is influenced by how clients define the problem, there is a clear onus on agencies to actively challenge, reframe, and ask better questions.
When briefs and thinking are still framed around brand vs performance channels, historic splits, and isolated KPIs, the outputs will be the same.
Teams optimise locally rather than grow holistically. Activity increases, but outcomes don’t. The modern choice that brands need to make about their agency partner, is understanding whether they have the full capability to support them from ideation, through to measurement.
Agencies can’t simply respond to briefs at face value if those briefs are anchored in outdated thinking.
They need to consider the business impact across both brand and performance. The brands making real progress are briefing differently.
They’re starting with the business outcome they want to unlock, not the budget they have to spend or the channels they want to see on a media plan.
They’re clear on the behaviours they want to change, the demand they want to shape or generate, and the role marketing must play in driving business growth in both the short and long term.
According to a recent research conducted by Analytics Partner in collaboration with WARC2 , advertisers over prioritising performance at the expense of brand creates a “performance penalty”, with revenue returns declining 20–50% over time.
That means briefs that answer questions like:
- What business outcome are we trying to unlock?
- Where are we winning or losing attention, trust and consideration?
- How should this investment change what people think, feel or do?
- How will this deliver against short term KPIs vs longer term impact?
- How will we measure success beyond a single metric or moment in time?
When clients think and brief this way, agencies can operate as an orchestrator, not an allocator.
They can design connected systems where channels work together, where brand and performance compound impact rather than compete for budget, and where measurement reflects contribution to growth, not just activity.
Yes, we still need to know what channels are on the plan to build the right creative, manage investment and optimise delivery.
But in a world where everything is measurable and every touchpoint matters, the competitive advantage doesn’t come from choosing brand or performance. It comes from abandoning the false choice altogether and asking your agency what business outcomes they can help you achieve.
Because in today’s media landscape, performance isn’t the opposite of brand. It’s the underpinning mechanism that connects brand meaning to business outcomes at every touchpoint.