With performance channels under scrutiny, these marketers are testing out brand-first strategies

The solution? Expanding its appeal to a new class of customers by repositioning and launching its first-ever brand campaign in April utilizing a full battery of digital and programmatic channels, from CTV to digital display, audio and paid social, as well as creator activity. 

“We are no longer a secure card business. We are a credit-building business, and our mission is to be the most trusted credit building partner for every person in America,” said CMO JJ Kaye. He declined to disclose the campaign’s media spend.

Key to reaching new customers was a partnership with DSP Quantcast using lookalike modeling to target a broader audience base without violating the strict advertising regulations surrounding banking products. “That is allowing us to compete on a much larger level,” said Kaye.

So far it’s paid off. Customer acquisition for its secured card products rose 142%, while its conversion rate doubled.

Kaye’s approach at Opensky is one example of a broader trend taking hold among marketers. Formerly besotted with performance media’s supposed accountability relative to traditional media like linear TV, CMOs are rediscovering the importance of brand awareness. But it doesn’t mean they’re relinquishing any of their digital media spending. Recent IAB research found search advertising remains the industry’s largest segment, accounting for $102.9 billion of worldwide ad revenues, and digital display some $74.3 billion. 

Having a full funnel strategy is now ‘table stakes’

The Honey Pot, a premium menstrual care brand, has faced a similar challenge to Opensky. The company previously relied on mid-funnel and performance channels like retail media networks, paid search and social. But according to Anne Thompson, the brand’s CMO of one year, if it’s to find more growth it’ll need to expand the boundaries of its own category.

“Lower-funnel tactics just won’t work. If you’re not even aware that a whole class of products exists, you really need something that taps into your value system and engages you,” said Thompson. Guided by agency AKQA, its response has been to run a new campaign on streaming TV, YouTube, Spotify and digital out-of-home (DOOH).

“We’re not a big, established brand that’s trying to eke out a percentage point. We’re trying to double the size of the company in the next couple years,” she said. Thompson also declined to share the campaign’s budget.

The Honey Pot and Opensky aren’t the only brands building out digital upper-funnel channels to their media plans in recent months. “Advertisers know they can’t just be performance partners. You will run out of headroom, it will lack incrementality,” said Carly Carson, head of integrated media at agency PMG. “And so having a full-funnel strategy is [now] table stakes.”

To borrow a phrase from British politics, it’s a “cakeist” strategy: one that looks to satisfy marketers’ desire for reach, engagement and measurement, all at the same time. For another example, consider running shoes brand Hoka. After a period of rapid expansion, it’s locked in a close rivalry with competitor On for the loyalty and wallets of the world’s running enthusiasts.

In an attempt to emphasize its positioning as a friend to runners and running communities (as well as recruit younger consumers to the brand), Hoka has just launched a summer brand campaign playing on its usual digital suspects — Instagram, Tiktok, Strava, Meta, LinkedIn and X — while pumping the gas pedal on Netflix, YouTube Select, Fire TV, Amazon and Hulu Live Sports. 

“CTV continues to be a powerful growth driver for our brand storytelling, and we’re doubling down on this momentum with the launch of [the campaign],” said Erika Gabrielli, vp of global marketing at Hoka. “This is our biggest campaign investment to date,” she added, but also declined to provide specifics. Gabrielli said the company was also experimenting with YouTube’s “Peak Points” ad product, a feature that inserts ad units at the moment of a video judged to be the most engaging for users.

Experian’s marketers have been thinking in similar terms. The financial services company floated a new brand platform in June, its first major refresh in nine years. The intention was to better “lay the foundation around the Experian brand”, Steve Hartmann, head of integrated marketing for Experian Consumer Services, told Digiday upon the campaign’s launch.

Its campaign heavily focused on digital video channels, including Netflix, Roku, TikTok, Snapchat and Meta, as well as creator marketing. Experian’s strategy also includes a major live sports component that means it’s keeping one foot in linear for now; the company launched the campaign during ESPN and ABC’s coverage of the NBA playoffs and will be running ads against college football coverage come autumn.

But its media plan becomes more digital with each passing year. Hartmann estimated it currently spends 50% of its budget on streaming and CTV, versus linear. “We’re shifting into CTV pretty considerably,” he said (but declined to offer a dollar amount).

‘Advertisers are still keeping a focus on what is measurable’

There’s good reason for advertisers that previously relied on performance media to now turn toward upper-funnel media channels and brand-building campaigns. Powerful brands prove their worth for companies navigating an uncertain economy — U.S. consumer confidence fell in June — for firms fighting off competition from rivals or which are attempting to expand their consumer category. In recent years major brands like Airbnb and Nike have forsworn their former dependence on conversion tactics and signaled a return to brand-building work.

What’s telling is that marketers like Kaye and Thompson are following that path in a digital-first way, rather than carving out huge portions of their budget for linear TV.

Though CTV players are seeing some of that growth, agency sources shared with Digiday that they’re seeing more clients divert brand dollars into Meta’s social platforms and into YouTube, the latter spurred in part by Google’s own overtures to agency buyers and clients. Both tech giants have launched new ad products in recent months to address that demand, and to position themselves as accessible means of running upper-funnel or full-funnel campaigns.

“Advertisers are still keeping a focus on what is measurable,” said PMG’s Carson. “We’re still seeing those traditional activities play a role. But measurement is pretty key even when it’s brand-building activity.”