Brand Awareness Campaigns

So you want to do brand advertising to increase awareness and consideration... what's the best way? Turns out 81% of B2B video ads are burning your budget. Zero brand recall. That's what happened when researchers tracked 770 professionals watching 109 real LinkedIn video ads in a lab setting. The reality? Your ad stays in feed for 12.3 seconds, but gets looked at for only 3.7 seconds — in short micro-bursts, not continuous attention. Here's what actually works (backed by 350 hours of eye-tracking and neurometric data): • Brand in the FIRST SECOND. The first 4 seconds determine everything, but cognitive load peaks immediately. After that window closes, the brain checks out. • Keep logo on screen at all times. Let there be no confusion who the advertiser it. • Repeat your brand name 3+ times. This lifted correct brand ID from 32% to 48% with NO drop in likeability. • Keep videos under 10 seconds. Shorter spots generated higher recognition than 18+ second ones. Extra seconds dilute rather than deepen. • Your brand color isn't enough. Dell's signature blue triggered Microsoft recall twice as often as Dell. Cloudflare's orange cued Amazon more than Cloudflare. • Sound matters more than you think. Only 8% of sessions were sound-on, yet those moments produced the sharpest spikes in neurometric engagement. The most counterintuitive finding? "Over-branding" doesn't exist. More branding actually RAISED likeability scores (5.5 vs 4.9) while cementing brand recall. Don't overthink this. Brand early. Brand often. Keep it short. Add a sonic cue.

If people can’t spot your brand without your logo, you don’t have a brand. You have a label. British Airways just proved how powerful silence can be. No tagline. No “book now.” Just a quiet reflection of their logo caught in a plane window mid-flight. They didn’t tell you who they were. They let you remember. That’s not advertising. That’s confidence built over decades. Every travel memory you’ve ever had just got stitched into one visual. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱  1. Recognition, not repetition. British Airways trained people to know its tone, visuals, and emotion, not just its name.  2. Craft, not clutter. Real flights. Real light. Real photographers. No AI fakes or overproduced drama.  3. Storytelling, not shouting. The ad doesn’t sell travel. It sells what travel feels like.  4. Continuity, not chaos. It extends their “A British Original” world, keeping the same truth and deepening the emotion. 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 Strong brands don’t announce themselves. They walk in and you just know. Next time you design a campaign, try removing the logo. If it still works, you’re building memory. If it doesn’t, you’re just decorating space. #BrandStrategy #MarketingInsights #CreativeDirection #Advertising #CampaignAnalysis

𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗦𝗘𝗢 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀! The most important search engine is not Google...it's your own memories. 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯? 𝗔𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿: You search your own memories! If that fails to yield a solution, you then turn to other sources of information like Google, friends, or trusted colleagues. 🔴 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗘𝗢 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀. It's about getting your brand to show up high in the "search results" of the memories of future buyers when they need a solution that looks like your product. -- And just like with Google, it's not enough to simply be "listed", you have to show up when the correct search terms are entered. This is the critical importance of Category Entry Points...those are the "search terms" being used we use when we search our memories for a solution. Category Entry Points are recall-triggered and tied to specific buying situations and are an integral part of ALL brand marketing. So "brand awareness" alone is like being indexed in Google but not for search terms used by people searching for solutions like yours. If we were talking about websites instead of brains, that would be called "not being SEO optimized." You're page might be indexed, but not under the correct search terms. -- 🔴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 "𝗦𝗘𝗢 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱" 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀' 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 (𝗮𝗸𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 🧠). That means your brand marketing has to implant THREE categories of information – 👉 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧 – The stuff they need to recall ➜ Your key branding elements tied to a product category association. 👉 𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛 𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗠𝗦 – Recall triggers tied to key buying situations ➜ The "category entry points" (CEPs) that are the "search terms" used to recover the memory of your brand. 👉 𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 – Relevant information that will put you high on the 1st page of "search results" ➜ Your core point of differentiation relevant to that buyer. -- Brand Marketing is not simply about awareness for the same reason that SEO isn't simply about indexing "Content"! That "content" (your branding elements and category associations) has to be tied to relevant "search terms" (Category Entry Points) and produce results that "rank high" (your key points of differentiation). And just like SEO, it's not enough to rank for just a single search term! You have to rank for a range of relevant search terms that different types of buyers will likely be searching for. That means your brand marketing needs to target a range of Category Entry Points to align with the range of different buying situations where a prospect needs to remember you. And you need to give them a reason to remember you first...your key points of differentiation!

The biggest miss we're seeing with upper funnel execution is FREQUENCY. We just audited a business running awareness media on paid social: - Spending about 16% of budget on awareness (Ad recall optimized) - Running on automatic placements on Meta - 15 unique ads per ad set - Targeting Broad audiences (18+, US, Women) - Average weekly frequency across their awareness efforts was 0.90. We fortunately have a lot of research quantifying how frequency impacts effectiveness (example research shared below). Reach of course still matters a lot, with the first impression having the largest marginal impact. But proper frequency is a key driver of impact: - 0-1.5 weekly frequency is too low - particularly for lesser known brands or more complex products - 1.5 - 2 weekly frequency is optimal - especially when looking at purchase intent - 2+ weekly frequency is most critical for shorter term campaigns, like BTS, but the marginal return per impression is approaching 0 at this point. This is why I have previously harped on broad targeting for "new to awareness" advertisers on Meta. Broad audiences are not inherently bad, and in fact broad reach is important. But broad audiences at the expense of frequency is not a worthwhile tradeoff for most brands moving up funnel. Over emphasis on diverse creative only exacerbates this frequency problem. Performance-oriented teams are conditioned to needing a LOT of ads to "feed the algo" and keep performance up (ASC campaigns often feature 25+ ads). But excessive-creative proliferation dilutes your message and branding even further. So how can you tackle this problem? - Construct your audience size to allow for proper frequency at your budget - broad but not too broad - Test optimizing to reach with a target frequency - this will allow you to maintain a broader audience, but focus delivery on proper frequency - Filter out unproductive reach/impressions with placement exclusions - focus on feed, reels and stories, or just feed and reels. - Limit creative to 2-4 concepts - avoid running with an ASC 20+ creative strategy - Monitor & report on weekly frequency - it's ok to adapt mid flight if you are seeing too high or too low frequency And for those looking to go the extra mile, setup a lift experiment testing across different frequency levels (3-cell, 1, 2 and 3 weekly frequency - or something similar). The above are just guardrails - the best solution for you is to test for yourself. New Engen

Most marketing doesn’t fail because it’s bad. It fails because no one sees it. We keep optimizing for conversions instead of attention. But here’s the truth: You can’t convert buyers who don’t even know you exist. ------------------ 🧩 1. Awareness isn't a fluff goal. It's the foundation. Somewhere along the way, we started treating awareness like a vanity metric. But go back to any textbook on marketing — “Promotion” has always been a pillar. You have to make buyers aware: ➜ That their problem exists ➜ That your category exists ➜ That you exist ➜And that life could be better with your solution Without that? Good luck getting them to click, book, or buy. ------------------ 🙈 2. What I thought was demand gen...was really great brand marketing. For the past few years, I thought I was building modern demand gen strategies. But in hindsight, I was doing something else: I was investing 60–80% of my budget into reach, awareness, and creative distribution. And it worked — but not because it was traditional demand gen. It worked because it was brand done well. (It was just bucketed under an over-inflated demand gen definition at the time.) One enterprise client saw YoY: ✔ 46% increase in hand-raisers ✔ 59% YoY growth in qualified pipeline The results didn’t come overnight. It can be painful during the "waiting time." But when it hits, it hits hard. ------------------ 🤔 3. Buyers remember before they convert. Last night, I saw an ad in my feed that didn’t follow the rules. ➜ It was long-form. ➜ Video. ➜ No CTA. ➜ I didn’t even realize it was an ad. But now? I can’t stop thinking about the brand. They’ll be the first one I search for when I’m ready. Think about your own scroll right now: ➜ How many posts or ads did you skim right past? ➜ How many actually stuck? ➜ That’s the job. ➜ Not just performance. Not just clicks. ➜ Marketing that’s memorable. ------------------ So here’s the mindset shift: ➜ Stop trying to convert strangers. ➜ Start trying to make your brand unforgettable. Before launching your next campaign, ask: ➜ “Would my buyer even remember this tomorrow?” A core part of marketing is about standing out, reaching your audience, and getting them to remember you. 🧠 Want to know what kind of creative actually works for this? ➜ The kind that educates, entertains, or resonates deeply with your ICP. ➜ Not what looks good in a report — what gets remembered.

If people like your ad but can’t name your brand afterward, you didn’t run a "brand ad." You ran an ad for your category. On the latest episode of The Marketing Architects Podcast, we cover the study: “Brand Recognition in Television Advertising: The Influence of Brand Presence and Brand Introduction” by Charlene Gerber, Marlize Terblanche-Smit, and Tracey Crommelin. The researchers analyzed responses to 25 TV ads across more than 50,000 viewers to answer: what actually makes people remember a brand after the ad ends? Here's what they found: - The more time a brand is present on screen, the more likely it is to be remembered. - The longer a brand waits to appear, the worse recognition becomes. - Together, brand presence and brand introduction explain more than half of the variance in brand recognition. There’s even a tipping point. Brands should be visible for roughly two-thirds of the ad to maximize recognition. *Other research suggests that sustained branding works best when it’s "pulsed" throughout the ad, rather than shown continuously, helping reduce avoidance while still building memory. It's no surprise this research focused on TV. Kantar’s CrossMedia database shows Total TV delivers more than 2.5× the brand impact of the next best channel for top-of-funnel awareness. But that only works if your brand is actually visible! On the episode, we talk about why “saving the logo for the end” is a dangerous creative habit, how early brand cues create memory, and why repetition is so important. Great advertising isn’t just about storytelling. It’s about making sure the story sticks to the right brand. Link to the episode (and the study) in the comments. 👇

“Brand awareness is expensive.” That was the advice drilled into me at Google during the first Pixel and Google Home launch.  And sure — at that scale, it was true. The media budget alone could’ve funded a small country. But once I left Google for startups, I realized how wrong that advice really was.  Awareness doesn’t have to be broad, expensive, or TV-driven. It just has to be smart. 📺 At Tubi, we built awareness with a narrow but powerful audience — the four major advertising holding companies. We literally geo-fenced ads around their NYC offices and bought Times Square billboards facing their commutes. 🤰 At Willow, we couldn’t afford a celebrity spokesperson, so we found an unknown Teyana Taylor before she blew up (and later co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio) 👭 At Midi Health, we drive awareness through community and credibility — not cash. Our subreddit is as influential as any TV buy, and our expert-led content fuels word-of-mouth, now our second-largest channel. And sometimes, the smartest brand awareness move is a $100K match-market test, not a $20M TV flight. The truth: Brand isn’t about budget.  It’s about focus, creativity, and credibility. Because conventional marketing wisdom assumes the past will repeat itself when it rarely does. The playbooks are built for the companies that already won — not the ones trying to. The best marketers don’t rinse and repeat. They listen, test, and learn. They spot leverage that others often overlook:  A smaller audience that punches above its weight.  A cheaper test that proves a bigger idea.  A community that compounds faster than any GRP. 🔥 The best marketers aren’t rule followers — they’re restless learners. 

Brand building is going to be enormously tough for many companies if we can't change the mindset that all advertising spend needs to show attributable ROI. A critical requirement for market share growth comes from having as many category buyers knowing who you are, and being able to think of you when they're coming in-market to buy. What shows up in attribution tools are the conversion paths buyers take to act on that awareness, not the reasons they acted. Mental availability for the brand is a state that requires ongoing maintenance, or else it degrades as the brand falls farther from mind. So much of advertising is in the pursuit of keeping the brand closer to mind and easier to recall, with the performance efforts to activate on it being just a portion. A critical portion, but a portion all the same. When we press all budget to show the near-term ROI, we always end up over-indexing on performance marketing, and the whole program suffers as a result. Chatting with Dale W. Harrison yesterday, he put a powerful idea in my head. We know from buyer research data that 80-90% of buying selection comes from prior brand awareness in the form of a day-one consideration set. Which means a majority of the decision to buy comes not from the performance marketing but from the developed awareness that preceded it. If we attribute all credit to the performance marketing, and create programs that are made up only of performance marketing, then we neglect probably 70% of the necessary effort that brand awareness plays in the decision. We have to start treating the building of brand awareness as an objective with its own measurement and its own dedicated funding in balance with performance marketing. When it's unbalanced, quite simply, it's ineffective, and we're letting ROI and ROAS mislead us into thinking otherwise.

You are wasting your ad spend by doing this! If you’re currently running one ad for five totally different people, it’s time to pause and pivot. Lately, we’ve been breaking down every campaign by customer awareness level before we write a single hook. Not to overcomplicate things, just to make sure the message actually meets people where they are. Here’s the simple breakdown we work from: → Unaware They don’t even know they have a problem. Your ad should open a loop, spark curiosity, and start a conversation they weren’t expecting. → Problem Aware They know what’s wrong, but not how to fix it. Your job here is empathy. Mirror their frustration, then point to the next step. → Solution Aware They know solutions like yours exist. Now it’s about showing what makes yours better, faster, and easier. → Product Aware They’ve heard of your brand but haven’t bought yet. This is where proof, clarity, and urgency matter most. → Most Aware They’re warm. Maybe they’ve bought before. Maybe they’re on your list. This is where simple reminders and offers win. Don’t overthink it. Match the message to where the customer’s head is, not where your brand wants them to be. It’s simple, but it changes everything.

If you tell me you are planning to run ads for “awareness” I will get concerned. Because then, my next question is “How do you measure the profitability of these awareness campaigns? No, I’m not asking for a spreadsheet with exact numbers. But I do need something more meaningful than: “We got X impressions.” Because the hard truth is: if the value you’re creating through awareness doesn’t justify the money you’re spending, you’re generating a negative ROI. And that's not what you want when generating brand awareness. Which is why we follow a different playbook for ourselves at Spear Growth: 1. We create a curated list of companies in our target audience—the ones who actually need the problem we solve. 2. We create marketing messaging that speak directly to these companies’ pain points. Not benefits. Not features. Not anything else. 3. If someone's engaging with ads that talk about the pain points we solve over and over again, we can pretty safely assume it's striking a chord. Maybe it's even something they're ready to prioritize. So we set up a threshold-based ad report. 4. Whenever a company passes that threshold, we hand them over to the sales team to reach out and start a conversation. Because at the end of the day, awareness isn’t just about being seen. It’s about being seen by the right people, for the right reasons, and driving actions that move the needle for your business. Do you want our best-performing Linkedin message template for our reach out? – Ishaan “hates awareness for the sake of it” Shakunt. Ask: We implement this framework for our ads clients. Do you know anyone that may benefit from this?