The Million-Dollar Question: Which Path to Choose?

Hey there 👋

Welcome back to the 4th edition of Brandish.

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand

I hope you're having a great weekend with your loved ones and have gotten some time away from the screen to let your creative juices flow.

In this week's newsletter, we'll talk about a topic that my co-founders and I have fought over A MILLION times.

… and that is: Brand marketing vs Performance Marketing

We won't be able to fit this entire topic into one newsletter, so let's just call this: Lesson 101

Before we jump into that, I just wanted to announce that the first episode of Roast My Landing Page is now live.

If you haven't checked it out yet, make sure to do so (it's only 5 min). If you want me to take a look at your LP and roast it, simply reply to this email.

Alright, enough chit-chat.

Kick your feet up, grab a Brez, and let's get going.

First things first…

It was wrong of me to use the term brand marketing vs performance marketing.

Because they're not mutually exclusive.

And one is not better than the other. In any way

In fact, they work to serve each other.

The tricky thing is just figuring out HOW to make them serve each other in the best way possible.

Here are my takes:

Direct Response Marketing is only bad for your brand if you lie.

Ever seen those landing pages that say, "Only 12 pieces left in stock."

… and then

A week later, they say: "Only ten pieces left in stock."

This is an example of direct response marketing gone wrong.

Why?

There are two reasons:

The customers who buy from you will eventually see your ad again.

But…

Next time, they'll know that you lied to them and that you always run "X pieces left" - only to get them to swipe their credit card.

… and what happens then?

They don't trust you and probably won't buy from you again.

The other reason is that customers have become more sophisticated in today's environment.

In plain English: They can see through (some) of your marketing BS.

So, what's the solution here?

I'll tell ya now…

Running "fake scarcity" direct response ads is NOT a bad thing per se.

BUT

If you say that you only have ten pieces left in stock.

Then you really must say "Sold out" once the ten pieces are sold.

In this way, you won't ruin your "brand trust" despite creating the scarcity artifically

Bury the ugly content

My co-founder Ash and a guy named Barry Hott went semi-viral with a #UglyAd that completely CRUSHED it for us at Obvi.

But…

Even though #UglyAds might perform well as ads, you should hide them far from your social profiles and website.

The reason why is that when potential customers, potential retail partners, and potential investors visit your brand page or website…

You don't want to show them your direct response, Ugly ads.In fact, you'd want to show them quite the opposite.

This is especially relevant for those of you looking to get into retail.

Because retail buyers typically buy for one of two reasons:

A) They believe they can make a ton of sales

B) They think your product will look good on their shelves and make THEM appear unique

But…

If you fill your social profiles with ugly content, then quite the opposite will happen…

Nobody will want to be associated with your brand.

That's why we have a rule at Obvi that all of our ugly, not-on-brand, direct-response ads and landing pages should never be available to find via. a simple google search

We run those as ads, and nothing else.

On the other hand, all of our polished and on-brand content should be on our organic social profiles and websites.

Time’s up; Gotta bounce

Alright, that was my 2 cents of the day…

As always, I want to keep this newsletter short, sweet, and to-the-point…

So I’ll stop myself here and continue the brand vs. performance debate some other time.

Till then, I wish you an amazingly productive week ahead.

Go crush it!

- Ankit

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