The Long and the Short of It

Origin

Les Binet and Peter Field published The Long and the Short of It through the IPA in 2013, funded by Thinkbox, the UK commercial television body [1, p7]. Their 2007 report Marketing in the Era of Accountability had noticed that campaigns scoring best on profit and share scored worst on short-term response, but lacked the data to pursue it [1, p18][2]. By 2013 the IPA Effectiveness Databank held 996 campaigns entered into the awards between 1980 and 2010, covering more than 700 brands in over 80 categories, and since 2008 entrants had been asked how long their campaign ran [1, p10-11].

The problem was quarterly reporting and instant online metrics pushing marketers to judge everything on a short window that, the authors argued, hid most of the value [1, p7, p9]. The headline claim is stated with care: “the optimum balance of brand and activation expenditure is on average around 60:40” [1, p9]. The same sentence adds that this “may vary by category”.

What the evidence shows

Every number comes from IPA award entries (a confidential questionnaire since 1998, coded from the written cases before that), scored on a three-point scale, with only top-box (“very large”) effects counted [1, p10-12]. Of the 996 cases, 760 had a coded duration, 690 reported business effects and 171 had the data for the efficiency metric [1, Table 2, p11].

Volume is fast, pricing is slow. The share of cases reporting very large sales growth is 23 percent at three months and 36 percent at three years or more. The share reporting very large pricing effects is zero at three months and 3.1 percent at three years. Profit sits between: 4 percent at three months, 15 percent at three years [1, Figs 11-13, p19].

Very large sales growthVery large profit growthVery large price effects

Sales effects are almost fully present by six months; profit doubles between one year and two, and pricing effects are still climbing at three years.

Source: Binet and Field, 2013, IPA Effectiveness Databank 1980 to 2010, Figures 11 to 13, p19, n=996 cases (760 with coded duration). Redrawn by Brave New Media.

Unit: % of cases

Show the data

Campaign duration	Very large sales growth	Very large profit growth	Very large price effects
3 months	23	4	0
6 months	28	8	1.7
1 year	33	9	1.8
2 years	34	14	2.9
3 years+	36	15	3.1

The 60:40 finding. The authors sorted UK media into brand channels and activation channels and found UK spend divided 61:39 between them in 2011 [1, Fig 34, p37]. They then grouped cases by activation share of budget. Annualised efficiency (share growth per year per 10 points of extra share of voice) was 0.5 below 30 percent activation, 1.3 in the 30 to 50 percent band, and 0.5 above 50 percent [1, Fig 37, p39]. The count of very large effects peaked near 40 percent activation [1, Fig 38, p39]. Footnote 13 reads: “The volume of data for this analysis is limited, so the finding is somewhat tentative and it is not possible to explore how this varies by category” [1, p39].

Under 30%0.5

30 to 50%1.3

Over 50%0.5

The whole 60:40 rule rests on three bars from a small subset; the middle bar is the finding, and the footnote is the caveat.

Source: Binet and Field, 2013, IPA Effectiveness Databank 1980 to 2010, Figure 37, p39, n=171 cases with efficiency data at most; the budget-split subset is smaller and the authors call the finding "somewhat tentative" (footnote 13). Redrawn by Brave New Media.

Unit: Share points per year per 10 points of extra share of voice

Show the data

Activation share of budget	Annualised ESOV efficiency
Under 30%	0.5
30 to 50%	1.3
Over 50%	0.5

Emotional work compounds. Among rational campaigns, 10 percent reported very large profit growth at one year, 20 at two, 23 at three or more. Among emotional campaigns: 13, 30 and 43 percent [1, Fig 52, p53]. The curves cross at roughly six months; judged on a shorter window, rational work looks more profitable [1, p53].

The follow-ups narrowed the claim. Media in Focus (2017) reran the media analysis on 497 for-profit cases from 1998 onwards, restated 60:40 as “typically optimal”, and documented the drift: cases evaluated over less than six months rose from a long-run 8 percent to about 25 percent, and cases with activation objectives went from 47 percent before the financial crisis to 72 percent in the four years to 2016 [4, Fig 51]. Effectiveness in Context put the all-case optimum at 62:38, footnoted as “unlikely to be statistically significant from 60:40”, then broke it by context [5, p7]. The optimum brand share runs from 55 percent (low online-research categories, offline brands) to 74 (high-research categories, online and subscription brands) [5, Figs 16, 19, 26, 32]. The B2B analysis, on fewer than 50 cases, found 46:54 [6].

Outside the databank, two findings support the two-clock model without supporting any ratio. Lodish and colleagues tracked 55 in-market TV weight tests for two years after the test year: where year one showed a significant effect, the next two years added roughly double that effect again; where it showed nothing, nothing followed [9]. Thinkbox’s Profit Ability 2 (2024), an econometric meta-analysis of £1.8 billion of UK media spend across 141 brands, put profit return at £1.87 per pound within 13 weeks and £4.11 over 24 months, with 58 percent of profit arriving after week 13 [10, p4, Fig 16 p41]. The same report shows why the evaluation window decides the argument: on 13 weeks, generic search returns £2.29 per pound and linear TV £1.82; on 24 months, search reaches £3.52 and linear TV £5.94 [10, Figs 10-11, p29-31].

Profit ROI within 13 weeks (£ per £1)Profit ROI over 24 months (£ per £1)

Generic PPC£2.29£3.52

Online display£1.5£2.34

Paid social£1.62£3.2

Audio£2.47£4.98

Cinema£1.19£2.56

Online video£1.76£3.86

Out of home£1.19£2.78

Print£2.74£6.36

BVOD£1.66£4.25

Linear TV£1.82£5.94

All advertising£1.87£4.11

On a 13-week window generic search (£2.29) out-earns linear TV (£1.82). Over 24 months the order reverses, £3.52 against £5.94. Across all media 58 percent of profit arrives after week 13 (Figure 16, p41). The window picks the winner.

Source: Thinkbox, Profit Ability 2: The New Business Case for Advertising, 2024, econometrics by Ebiquity, EssenceMediacom, Gain Theory, Mindshare and Wavemaker UK, n=141 brands and £1.8bn of UK media spend across 10 media and 14 categories, Figure 10 data summary p29 and Figure 11 data summary p31. Redrawn by Brave New Media.

Unit: £ profit per £1 spent

Show the data

Channel	Profit ROI within 13 weeks (£ per £1)	Profit ROI over 24 months (£ per £1)	Multiplier
Generic PPC	2.29	3.52	1.5
Online display	1.5	2.34	1.6
Paid social	1.62	3.2	2.0
Audio	2.47	4.98	2.0
Cinema	1.19	2.56	2.2
Online video	1.76	3.86	2.2
Out of home	1.19	2.78	2.3
Print	2.74	6.36	2.3
BVOD	1.66	4.25	2.6
Linear TV	1.82	5.94	3.3
All advertising	1.87	4.11	2.2

The challenge

Three lines of attack, and they land differently.

Selection. The databank is built from award entries. In 2018 Binet wrote that “these are not run-of-the-mill campaigns”, that the team added cases judges had rejected as ineffective, and that even so “our sample would still be somewhat biased. All we could do was look at the differences between the good, the better and the best” [12]. Effectiveness in Context concedes “a biased sample of campaigns that tend to be successful” and adds that comparisons “with non-biased samples from other studies” suggest the results “are not greatly different” [5, footnote 2, p6]. The B2B report calls the bias “modest” [6]. That comparison has not been published. So: the bias is acknowledged, its size is asserted, and its effect on the ratio is unknown.

The average. Sixty-forty was read off how UK media spend happened to split in 2011, then found to coincide with peak efficiency in a small sub-sample [1, p37-39]. The authors’ own rule is not “spend 60:40”; it is “set brand SOV equal to activation SOV or (equivalently) to match their competitors’ brand/activation split” [1, p39]. The number survived because, as Sharp put it, “people wanted a number” [11].

The Ehrenberg-Bass position. Byron Sharp’s most direct statement, at a summit in August 2022, reported by Mi3 and republished on the Institute’s site: “they analysed a very weird data set, which is award submissions. If you wanted to solve this issue, you would never use that data” [11]. He also questioned the category itself: “people have no idea what activations really are” [11]. His own rules, in the same talk: brands need both, advertising builds the memory structures that make activation work, reach everybody, stay on air [11]. The root is Ehrenberg’s 1974 argument that advertising is a weak force whose main job is “to reinforce feelings of satisfaction with brands already bought” [7]. That is not a rejection of the long effect. It is a rejection of the split as a spend category.

We found no peer-reviewed Ehrenberg-Bass paper testing 60:40, and no replication of the ratio on non-award data. The rebuttal came from practitioners noting that the Institute’s own 95:5 heuristic rests on a thought exercise, not a dataset [13]. Fair, and it does not rescue the ratio.

Settled: advertising produces effects well beyond the campaign window, comparable to or larger than the immediate effect [9][10]; short-window metrics favour activation work and understate brand work [1, p53][4]. Not settled: whether any single ratio is optimal, whether 60:40 would emerge from a random sample of campaigns, and whether “brand” and “activation” are separable lines of spend or two effects of one exposure. Sharp’s objection and Binet and Field’s own “brand response” campaigns are closer than the noise suggests: both say the best work does both jobs at once [1, p9].

Keller’s 1993 definition of customer-based brand equity, “the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand”, is the clearest statement of what the long is meant to build [8]. Aaker’s 1991 framing of equity as an asset attached to a name is the same idea. Kotler and Keller treat brand investment as a long-run asset in Marketing Management. Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion (2016) concerns the moment before a message lands and does not address how to divide a budget across time; we do not stretch it here.

Where practitioners get it wrong

Treating 60:40 as a target for their own spend. The operational rule is share-of-voice parity with the category, not a fixed split [1, p39]. A brand in an 80:20 category that copies 60:40 is under-investing in brand, by the authors’ own formula.

Judging brand work on a six-month window. The profit curves cross at about six months [1, p53]. A dashboard at that horizon concludes, correctly for the window and wrongly for the business, that activation wins. Media in Focus shows the trap: 65 percent of short-term cases reported very large activation effects against 33 percent of three-year cases; for very large share effects the figures were 3 and 38 percent [4].

The pull toward the short window shows up in what marketers say they will do. Nielsen’s 2025 survey of 1,400 marketers found European respondents naming revenue growth as their top priority over brand awareness by 59 to 37 percent, while North America split almost evenly [15]; a year earlier, 70 percent of nearly 2,000 marketers told Nielsen they would prioritise performance marketing over brand building, in the same survey in which they named long-term ROI as their top KPI [16].

Brand awareness is the top priority (%)Revenue growth is the top priority (%)

North America48%47%

Asia-Pacific50%52%

Europe37%59%

Latin America41%46%

The year before, 70 percent of the nearly 2,000 marketers in Nielsen's 2024 report said they would prioritise performance marketing over brand building, while naming long-term ROI as their top KPI. The two clocks are known; the short one still gets wound first.

Source: Nielsen, 2025 Annual Marketing Report, 2025, n=1,400 global marketers at manager level or above with budgets of at least $1m, surveyed 25 February to 6 March 2025; figures from Nielsen's press release of 20 May 2025. Redrawn by Brave New Media.

Unit: % of marketers

Show the data

Region	Brand awareness is the top priority (%)	Revenue growth is the top priority (%)
North America	48	47
Asia-Pacific	50	52
Europe	37	59
Latin America	41	46

Cutting brand where it matters most. In high online-research categories (finance, cars, subscriptions) the databank optimum is 74 percent brand; actual allocation was about 55. In low-research categories the optimum was 55 and the actual 69 [5, p22]. Subscription brands put around 53 percent into brand against 63 for one-off purchase brands, when their optimum is higher [5, p35]. The authors call this the online fallacy [5, p22].

The budget lines follow the same drift. In the Spring 2026 CMO Survey of 308 US marketing leaders, brand-building budgets were expected to grow 5.9 percent over the next 12 months against 10.4 percent for digital marketing, and 70.6 percent of leaders said their answer to pressure to prove marketing’s value is to focus on short-term impact over long-run gains [17, p33, p41].

Digital marketing10.4%

Overall marketing7.6%

Brand building5.9%

New product introductions5.9%

Customer relationship management3.5%

New service introductions3.2%

Customer experience3.0%

Traditional advertising−1.5%

The median expected change for brand building is 1 percent against 10 for digital. In the same survey, 70.6 percent of leaders said they respond to pressure to prove marketing's value by focusing on short-term impact over long-run gains (Topline p33, n=153).

Source: The CMO Survey (Deloitte, Duke Fuqua School of Business, American Marketing Association), Spring 2026, 35th edition, n=308 US marketing leaders, 138 to 154 answering each line, Topline Report p41 and Highlights and Insights Report p56. Redrawn by Brave New Media.

Unit: Expected change (mean %)

Show the data

Budget area	Expected change next 12 months (mean %)
Digital marketing	10.4
Overall marketing	7.6
Brand building	5.9
New product introductions	5.9
Customer relationship management	3.5
New service introductions	3.2
Customer experience	3.0
Traditional advertising	-1.5

Our own observation. For the physician platform the obvious plan was activation: a warm list, a founding offer, deadlines and reminders. We wrote it, then threw it out, because squeezing a warm list works briefly and then stops, and nothing in it grows the number of physicians who know the category exists. The rebuilt plan ran two speeds at once, category building alongside conversion. Three months later adopters were growing around 50% a month with no paid acquisition, and the base had more than doubled. Three months is three data points. It is still the closest thing we have seen to the long and the short working inside one budget.

What to do with it

1. Estimate your category’s brand:activation media split from public spend data and set your brand share of voice equal to your activation share of voice. That is the report’s actual rule [1, p39].
2. Before the budget year starts, classify every line of spend as brand or activation and record the rule. If a line cannot be classified, it counts as activation.
3. Report brand and activation effects on separate lines. A blended ROI never stands alone.
4. Set the evaluation window for brand work at 12 months minimum and hold one three-year metric: price elasticity, or market share from a source you do not control.
5. If you sell in a category people research online, or by subscription, start from a brand share above 60 and test downward. The databank optimum for those contexts is 74:26 [5].
6. When pricing power is an objective, do not use price discounts as the activation mechanic. In the 2013 data, coupons and direct marketing reduced the chance of a pricing improvement; non-price consumer promotions increased it [1, Fig 14, p20].
7. Once a year, buy an independent read of the long effect: a geographic holdout, or econometrics with a lag structure. If you cannot afford one, you cannot afford to argue about the ratio.