Observed Signal · Apr 13, 2026 · Market Research · Source: Digiday · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Playbook: How Growing Brands Outperform Stagnant Ones
Keen Decision Systems (author Bradley Keefer) analyzed 455 brand models covering $42 billion in media spend and surveyed 125 marketing leaders to identify why some brands grow while others stall. Winners are defined as brands achieving ≥5% growth in both sales and net present value over 12 months. High-growth brands commit earlier, stay in-market longer, and diversify channel investments intentionally: they increase budgets (average +30% YoY), allocate roughly 40% to digital, anchor on search, then layer streaming, audio and retail media after hitting performance thresholds. Winners prioritize incrementality over platform-reported ROAS, build learning systems (weekly reviews, benchmarks, prior-knowledge forecasting) and act on probability ranges rather than point-precise forecasts. The piece highlights measurement and execution practices that boost marginal returns and long-term compounding growth.
Provides data-driven evidence on budget allocation, incrementality and measurement practices that inform media planning and ROI, but is not a platform, policy or major technical change.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Keen Decision Systems analyzed 455 brand models representing $42 billion in media spend and interviewed 125 marketing leaders.
- Winners are defined as brands achieving at least 5% growth in both sales and net present value over a 12-month period.
- High-growth brands increased marketing budgets by an average of 30% year-over-year; 62% raised spend by ≥20% while only 17% of lagging brands grew budgets and 27% cut spend.
- During active campaign weeks winners improved returns by 5.4% year-over-year, whereas non-winners saw returns decline by 2.1%.
- Winners allocate nearly 40% of budgets to digital channels versus ~20% for lagging brands, and they prioritize incrementality metrics over platform-reported ROAS.
Connected Companies & Entities
1 Entity mappedRelated Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Brandformance Returns: Brand Health Metrics Resurge
A Digiday Podcast episode and accompanying coverage highlight a renewed industry focus on brand health metrics as marketers seek to blend brand and performance approaches ('brandformance'). Advances in measurement tools, wider access to media-mix modeling, and pressure from large language models (LLMs) to manage brand presence have driven interest in metrics like brand lift alongside ROAS and CPA. Speakers include Tim Peterson (Digiday), Kevin Goodwin (New Engen) and Kelly Ballou (Designer Brands Inc), who described DSW/DBI’s biannual brand-health tracker. Publishers also report retraining sales teams to sell brand awareness again after a performance-heavy period following the e-commerce boom.
Balancing Short-Term Sales and Long-Term Growth
An ADWEEK House panel co-hosted with Fetch at Cannes Lions explored how brands can balance immediate sales activation with sustainable customer growth. Panelists including Fetch, Keurig Dr Pepper, Sephora, Bain & Company, WPP Media, Georgia‑Pacific and Haleon discussed strategies such as shifting from campaign-centric work to 'customer optimization,' using incremental ROAS frameworks to prove short-term impact, layering loyalty and gamification into discount events to drive lifetime value, and expanding measurement capabilities (marketing-mix modeling, holistic and predictive analytics). Speakers emphasized aligning teams and data, bringing marketing and sales together, and making measurement more frequent and AI-enabled to predict future outcomes. The session highlighted research that rewards-based introductions increase repeat purchases and recommended using different data approaches for new versus loyal customers.
Balancing Brand Tension for Lasting Growth: Insights from Kantar
In an Adspeak interview with Adweek, Jeff Greenspoon, CEO of the Americas at Kantar, discusses Kantar’s ‘Meaningful and Different’ framework for predicting brand success and how brand tension (meaningfulness vs. differentiation; short‑term performance vs. long‑term investment) fuels growth. Greenspoon argues sustained brand investment yields stronger ROI, resilience and enterprise value, cites a four‑to‑one ROI association with brand salience, and warns that cutting brand spend can sacrifice three to five years of growth. He uses examples including Nespresso and Barbie, and touches on translating brand metrics into CFO language for B2B organizations. Will Lee hosts the episode.
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