How does brand building work?
And how do the models hold up to data?
A familiar model is Les Binet & Peter Field's "Long and Short of It." Based on a review of ~1,000 IPA case studies, it says that sales activations give you short-term lift and brand-building stuff accrues more slowly to give you long-term growth.
Dr. Grace Kite and Tom Roach see this pattern when reviewing 20 years of econometric analyses for companies. So a different data source yields a similar result. Check.
But they also see another pattern: a long ramp-up of sustained growth via sales activations, then brand-building kicks in when the sales stuff plateaus. (I've dubiously dubbed this "ramp & bump". Luckily, Grace approves of the name.)
Kite & Roach also see a third pile of brands which don't follow either pattern. They try stuff. They fail. They learn. They muddle. They succeed. But not in these two patterns.
So keep these models in your pocket. See if they apply to your brand. If not — well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
(Caveats of course about the data sources, survivorship bias, market coverage, etc.)
Read the whole thing at Marketing Week.