Why Chasing Short-Term ROI is Costing You Long-Term Growth

There are two types of advertisers in the world. Those chasing short-term sales and those building long-term brands.

The trouble is, most advertisers today think they can do both at once. They believe short-term wins automatically lead to long-term success.

They don't.

This is the central message of Les Binet and Peter Field's landmark study The Long and the Short of It, based on over 900 IPA case studies.

And if you’re an emerging or mid-sized global advertiser spending $10M to $250M per year on media, it’s probably the most important effectiveness report you’ve never read.

Why? Because it shows how our obsession with short-term performance is quietly eroding long-term brand value. And most marketers don’t even realise it’s happening.

In this article, I will break down what the report reveals, why it matters, and what practical steps you can take to protect your brand from short-termism.

The Seduction of Short-Term Wins

Let’s start with the obvious: short-term ROI is addictive.

Run a price promotion. Launch a new ad with a big CTA. Push performance media. Watch the numbers jump.

Executives smile. Dashboards light up. Targets get ticked.

The problem? These quick wins rarely compound into long-term brand growth. In fact, they often do the opposite.

Binet and Field found that short-term campaigns (typically 6–12 months long) are good at driving volume. But they almost never impact pricing power, loyalty, or profit margin.

And over time, they make consumers more price-sensitive, not less.

So while your sales graph might be heading north, your brand equity is quietly heading south.

The Long-Term Effects Work Differently

One of the biggest myths in marketing is the idea that long-term success comes from piling up short-term results.

It doesn’t.

Short-term campaigns rely on behavioural triggers: price discounts, urgency, new features, flash sales. These can drive immediate action, especially among existing customers.

Long-term campaigns work differently. They build mental availability. They make the brand famous. They reduce price sensitivity and increase emotional connection. And they do it slowly, over years, not weeks.

The key finding: Long-term success always produces some short-term effects. But the reverse is not true. Chasing short-term sales does not build brands. It just creates dependency on short-term tactics.

Brand Building vs. Activation: The 60:40 Rule

So what’s the right balance?

According to the IPA data, the sweet spot is around 60% of your budget on long-term brand building, and 40% on short-term activation.

This ratio varies slightly by category. But the underlying principle holds: you need both. Not one or the other.

Brand building campaigns focus on reach, emotion, storytelling, and fame. Think TV, video, display, OOH.

Activation campaigns focus on conversion, response, and performance. Think paid search, paid social, display and video.

They serve different goals, run on different timescales, and require different KPIs. And yet, most advertisers today skew the split heavily towards activation, often 80:20 or worse.

This isn’t just unbalanced. It’s damaging. Because if your brand-building activity dries up, your activation ROI will eventually fall too.

The Funnel Has a Time Dimension

Another insight from the report is how different campaign types affect different levels of the funnel over time.

• Top of funnel (new prospects): needs emotional brand building. Big reach. Fame. Mental availability.

• Mid-funnel (warm leads): needs persuasive messaging. Trust. Credibility. Familiarity.

• Bottom of funnel (existing customers): needs activation. Promotions. Retargeting. Offers.

The issue is this: short-term activity only hits the bottom. And most advertisers are spending far too much of their budget at the bottom.

You can’t convert people who don’t know or care about you. And if your brand disappears from culture, your performance media will eventually hit a wall.

The Problem With Loyalty Campaigns

Many advertisers justify short-term focus by saying, "We’re targeting existing customers. It’s efficient."

But the data says otherwise.

Campaigns targeting only existing customers perform significantly worse over time than those targeting new customers or the whole market.

They drive quick volume. But they don’t build margin or reduce price sensitivity. They rarely deliver sustainable profit growth.

The most effective campaigns are those that reach broadly, build fame, and generate emotional salience. These campaigns improve mental availability, which affects all customer segments, not just loyalists.

Brand Response: The Best of Both Worlds

The smartest advertisers don’t choose between short and long-term. They design campaigns that do both.

This is what Binet and Field call 'brand response'.

Think of it as a brand idea that is flexible enough to support long-term fame and short-term activation. You build salience and trust while also giving people a reason to act today.

Sainsbury’s “Try Something New Today” campaign is a classic example. It used Jamie Oliver to emotionally connect with audiences, while also driving short-term basket size through specific suggestions and recipes.

Brand response campaigns are slightly less effective than pure brand campaigns at building share. And slightly less effective than pure response campaigns at driving short-term sales. But they outperform both when it comes to long-term profit.

What Advertisers Should Do Now

If you’re an emerging or mid-sized global advertiser, here’s how to apply these findings:

1. Reassess Your Media Mix. Are you investing enough in brand building? Is your activation spending doing all the heavy lifting?
2. Broaden Your Reach. Stop hyper-targeting. Fame requires reach. You can’t build mental availability if your audience is too narrow.
3. Measure Long-Term Effects. Don’t just look at weekly ROAS. Track brand preference, salience, price sensitivity, and loyalty over time.
4. Build Campaigns Around Ideas, Not Offers. Lead with emotion and storytelling. Layer in activation later. Make your campaign elastic.
5. Challenge Short-Term KPIs. Don’t let performance metrics define success in isolation. Align incentives to long-term brand growth.

Final Thought: Beware of the Illusion of ROI

Short-term ROI is easy to track, quick to celebrate, and dangerously misleading.

It gives you the illusion of progress while quietly sabotaging your long-term brand health.

If your media plan is skewed too far towards performance, you’re not building a brand. You’re running a series of sales promotions.

Long-term effectiveness comes from balance. From patience. From understanding that the biggest wins often take the longest to realise.

Your brand is too important to be optimised for next week.

If you want to know whether your media investments are truly balancing short and long-term growth, contact us today or schedule a call with our team.