Latest / The CMO Podcast with Fexingo: Marketing Leadership, Budgets, and Executive Strategy / How CMOs Are Killing The Brand Awareness Campaign
Transcript
- Lucas: If these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used, maybe a new workflow tool or a better way to structure your team's output, then consider supporting the show directly. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going, so if you've gotten something out of them, check out buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — that's F. E. X. I. N. G. O. Luna: Right, and thanks for keeping the signal to noise ratio high for us. Now, let's get back to the boardroom because I think we need to talk about the single most dangerous phrase left in the modern CMO's playbook. Lucas: Which is? You're not going to say it's attribution again, because we did that in episode two zero nine. Luna: No, it's worse. It's brand awareness. And I mean that literally. The idea that spending millions to make people familiar with a logo is a valid business strategy in twenty twenty six. Lucas: Okay, but hold on. There is a difference between vanity metrics and actual equity building. Coca-Cola doesn't run direct response ads for every single SKU because some of their money is just buying shelf space in the consumer's mind. That has always been the justification. Luna: That was true when media was cheap and attention was abundant. Today, with ad costs up and privacy laws stripping tracking pixels, that 'mindshare' argument is evaporating faster than Q3 projections. Lucas: I see where you're coming from, but let's look at the data. Even in this quarter, major consumer goods companies are still allocating thirty percent of their budgets to upper-funnel awareness. They aren't banning it; they're just trying to measure it better with incrementality tests. Luna: Incrementality tests are expensive and slow. Most mid-market CMOs don't have the budget for rigorous geo-testing. So what do they do? They keep spending on awareness because it feels safer than admitting they don't know how to acquire customers profitably. Lucas: So you're arguing that it's a coward's metric. That CMOs use brand awareness as a shield against performance accountability. That's a strong claim. Have you seen actual internal memos where executives explicitly state they are killing these campaigns? Luna: I have. At a few SaaS conferences last month, three different CMOs told me off-record that they cut their brand divisions by half. They moved everyone into demand gen and creative testing. One said, 'If it doesn't touch the pipeline, it doesn't exist.' Lucas: That is a dramatic shift. But does cutting the brand division actually hurt the bottom line long term? Or are they just burning cash on low-efficiency lead gen ads while ignoring the fact that their product might be unrecognizable to new buyers? Luna: They argue that content itself is the new brand. If you publish great case studies, white papers, and video tutorials that solve specific problems, you build trust without needing a super bowl spot. It's cheaper, measurable, and directly tied to revenue. Lucas: So the strategy is essentially: stop trying to be famous and start trying to be useful. That sounds like a pragmatic pivot, but I worry about the talent drain. Creative directors hate being turned into copywriters for landing pages. Where does the artistic innovation go if we only reward conversion? Luna: Innovation goes into the format, not the message. You see more interactive tools, personalized video, and dynamic creative optimization. The creativity is in the mechanism, not the slogan. It's a different kind of art, but it's still art. Lucas: Let's dig into that mechanism part. Because if you're a B2B company, say, selling enterprise software, how do you handle the long sales cycle? You can't just run a conversion ad and expect a million-dollar contract on the same day. There's a nurture phase that feels suspiciously like brand building. Luna: Exactly. And that's where the nuance lies. They aren't killing education. They're killing passive broadcasting. Nurture emails, webinars, and retargeting sequences are measurable. Traditional TV or billboard awareness is not. The distinction is data, not intent. Lucas: So the rule of thumb becomes: if you can't attribute it to a specific step in the funnel, you kill it. That simplifies the budget process significantly. No more fighting over whether the trade show booth contributed to leads. You either have a QR code or you don't. Luna: Or you have a trackable link. But yes, it forces discipline. And honestly, it forces CMOs to work closer with sales. When you're running awareness, you can blame the sales team for poor follow-up. When you're running performance, you own the lead quality. Lucas: That proximity to sales is probably the biggest cultural change here. I remember reading a case study about a fintech startup that reorganized its entire marketing department around sales alignment. They eliminated the 'brand manager' title entirely and replaced it with 'growth marketer.' It was controversial at the time, but their CAC dropped by forty percent. Luna: Forty percent is huge. But let's be careful. That worked for a growth-stage startup. Does it work for a legacy bank like JPMorgan or a retailer like Target? Their audiences are broader, and their products are commoditized. How do they differentiate without awareness? Lucas: They differentiate through community and loyalty programs. Look at Amazon Prime or Costco. Those aren't traditional brand campaigns; they're value propositions wrapped in membership structures. The marketing spend goes into member benefits, not jingles. It's a functional brand, not an emotional one. Luna: Functional brand. I like that term. It acknowledges that utility drives loyalty more than sentiment does in most categories. Except maybe luxury goods. But even there, Gucci and Louis Vuitton are doubling down on digital experiences and limited drops, which are highly trackable events, not vague awareness pushes. Lucas: Right. The drop model is pure performance marketing disguised as exclusivity. You create scarcity, you drive traffic to a site, you measure the sell-out time. It's all quantifiable. So the trend isn't really 'anti-brand.' It's 'pro-evidence.' Luna: Yes. People want proof. They want social proof, user-generated content, reviews. Those are all forms of brand equity, but they are earned, not bought. Buying awareness feels like bribery now. Earning it feels like integrity. Lucas: Integrity is a good word. But let's talk about the risk. If every company starts doing this, don't we end up with a homogenized market where everyone is just shouting about features and discounts? Where does the inspiration come from? Where does the category creation happen? Luna: Category creation happens in R&D and product development, not marketing. Marketing just amplifies what the product does. If the product is new, the marketing story is new. You don't need a billion-dollar campaign to launch a new category; you need a clear problem statement and a working solution. Lucas: That's a bold take. That marketing doesn't create categories, it just sells them. Historically, Apple created the smartphone category. Microsoft created the PC category. Were they just amplifying existing solutions, or were they defining the market? Luna: They defined the market through product design and ecosystem lock-in. Their marketing supported that. The iPhone didn't become popular because of a TV ad; it became popular because people tried it and loved the interface. The marketing caught up. Today, with shorter product cycles, you don't have time to wait for the ad to convince people. The product must convince them immediately. Lucas: So speed is the new currency. Fast feedback loops replace slow brand building. That makes sense in tech. But what about industries where the purchase decision takes months? Like commercial real estate or heavy machinery? Can you really kill awareness there? Luna: You can kill the vague stuff. You keep the educational content. You sponsor industry reports, you host summits with ticketed registration, you publish detailed engineering specs. Those are all trackable. They build authority, which is a form of brand, but it's a professional brand, not a consumer brand. Lucas: Professional brand. Okay, so the distinction is audience maturity. Consumer brands need emotion. Business brands need evidence. But both are moving away from pure awareness toward evidence-based engagement. Is that the universal truth here? Luna: I think it is. The era of 'just tell them we exist' is over. The era of 'show them why we matter' has begun. And that requires transparency, data, and results. Lucas: Transparency. That's the key word. Consumers and businesses alike are tired of being sold to. They want to be informed. Marketing is becoming journalism. It's less about persuasion and more about education. That's a much harder job for creatives, but a more honest one. Luna: Honesty sells. I believe that. And I think that's why the CMOs who are making this shift are feeling more confident. They're not hiding behind fuzzy metrics anymore. They're putting their money where their mouth is. Lucas: And their mouths are backed by spreadsheets. Which brings us to the final point. If you're a CMO listening to this, and you're still holding onto a big brand awareness bucket, what's your exit strategy? How do you migrate that budget without losing the safety net? Luna: You don't migrate it all at once. You test it. Take ten percent of the brand budget and put it into performance channels. Measure the result. If it works, take another ten percent. Over twelve months, you've shifted the needle without risking the whole ship. Lucas: A gradual migration based on data. That's the smart way to do it. It avoids the political backlash of cutting the brand team overnight. It lets the numbers speak for themselves. And if the numbers say brand still matters, you keep it. But most of the time, the numbers will say otherwise. Luna: Exactly. Let the data decide. It's the only unbiased voice in the room anyway. Lucas: Well, that's a compelling framework. Shift from fame to usefulness, from broadcast to conversation, from intuition to evidence. It's a cleaner, sharper way to run a marketing department. And it definitely puts more pressure on the product team to deliver something worth talking about. Luna: Which is exactly where it should be. Marketing shouldn't save a bad product. It should amplify a good one. And in twenty twenty six, 'good' means measurable, reliable, and useful. Lucas: Measurable, reliable, and useful. I'm writing that down. It might just be the new motto for the next decade of marketing leadership. Thanks for walking through this with me, Luna. Luna: My pleasure, Lucas. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a performance report to review.