Nike Shifts More Performance Dollars To Brand Building As Part Of Reset

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Bing Rolls Out Ai Citation Share In Webmaster Tools

Most qualified marketing agencies have access to specialized software that makes it easier to collect and review KPI-related data for both brand and performance marketing strategies. Plus, a marketing professional’s training and experience can allow them to explain this data in layman’s terms and help you adjust your marketing strategies to increase your chances of success. In CPG, the biggest waste of budget is disconnected brand positioning and paid ad creative.

• Google’s 2025 measurement updates—such as attributed branded searches and Meridian’s scenario modeling—point toward a more integrated view of how channels influence each other.
• If the brand campaign and the conversion campaign feel like they come from different companies, the system is weaker than it should be.
• The Futurecraft.Loop project pushed the idea of a fully recyclable running shoe, and the company made recycled polyester a core material across product lines.
• By incorporating both approaches, businesses can augment their overall marketing efforts and increase their chances of sustained success.
• We once did a little breakdown of these two types of marketers in our Tortoise vs. Hare Comparison article.

A brand strategy agency delivers positioning frameworks and audience definitions. The strongest fit for CPG in 2026 is an agency that does both — because the translation between strategy and execution is where most CPG creative breaks down. DTC performance creative and retail-supportive creative are not the same asset. A retail-facing creative still needs to reinforce brand recognition at shelf — color blocking, logo lockup, category cues.

We’re all ears and happy to consult on your content needs. Get sustainable ROI with a conversion-focused, AI-enabled, thoroughly measured SEO / AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) program. Distribute perspectives that attract the right audience and deliver pipeline. Pair us with your experts or leave the research to us.

Retail Media Trends 2025

The country with the second-largest number of military personnel was Turkey, at around 481,000 active personnel. Additionally, the U.S. has by far the most armored vehicles in NATO, as well as the largest Navy and Air Force. NATO in brief NATO, which was formed in 1949, is the most powerful military alliance in the world. At its formation, NATO began with 12 member countries, which by 2024 had increased to 32. NATO was originally formed to deter Soviet expansion into Europe, with member countries expected to come to each other’s defense in case of an attack. Member countries are also obliged to commit to spending two percent of their respective GDPs on defense, although many states have recently fallen far short of this target.

It means the easier something is to measure, the easier it is to overvalue. IAB found that among buyers planning 2025 media investments, 24% were increasing performance advertising, 22% were increasing brand advertising, and 54% expected no change. Combining brand and performance marketing enables businesses to drive both immediate sales and long-term success. Even though content marketers think a lot about performance, content is really about brand building. It builds awareness and trust with an audience that is not yet in-marketing. Performance marketing may get quick results, but they’re often short lived.

Both brands spend heavily on shoe development, but they are chasing slightly different outcomes. Nike pushes harder on top-end athletic performance, especially in running and basketball. Adidas tends to balance performance with comfort, wearability, and a broader user base. Choosing between Nike and Adidas comes down to what matters most to you. Nike stands out for race-day performance, basketball culture, and a tighter athletic fit.

An agency that only produces DTC creative will produce assets that drift from your retail brand presentation over time. How is a CPG creative agency different from a standard digital agency? A standard digital agency optimizes for platform metrics. A CPG-focused creative agency also accounts for category dynamics, retailer expectations, and brand equity — metrics that matter when you sell in grocery or mass retail, not just online.

At Jan Kelley, we call this perspective Humanology — the art and science of putting human insights at the centre of marketing strategy, supported by data, technology, and AI-enabled performance. It’s about recognizing that brand and performance are not competing forces, but complementary ones that, when integrated, unlock scalable, sustainable growth. Jonathan Levitt joins the pod today to dig into the difference between brand marketing and performance marketing – and the impact that they make on both sides of the industry.

The best brands combine brand marketing with performance marketing. In a balanced framework, each makes the other more efficient and effective. A reputable marketing agency can help you choose which marketing channels to use and what tactics to rely on to give your advertising efforts the best chance of success. An example of brand marketing would be an ice cream company emphasizing its passion for raising healthy cows and reforming the dairy industry.

Learn their differences, benefits and how to use them for business growth. This is why the brand vs performance marketing argument so often becomes unhelpful. Demand capture without demand creation becomes more expensive. Demand creation without demand capture can become too diffuse. Sustainable growth depends on both mechanisms working together.

Nike has invested in lower-waste manufacturing, renewable energy targets, and reduced emissions in owned or operated spaces. It has also pushed recycled content into major product lines and used factory efficiency programs to trim waste. Adidas has put more public emphasis on recycled and alternative materials. Boost remains a central material story too, giving the brand a durable cushioning system with wide appeal. Both brands now treat sustainability as part of product development, but the difference is in how visible and consistent that effort feels. The brand’s history in football is deep, and that shows in its product lines, club partnerships, and global presence.

Want a marketing strategy that builds your brand and drives measurable results? MNTN’s platform brings the best of both worlds to CTV advertising, combining precise audience targeting with real-time performance tracking. You get premium ad placements that boost awareness, while AI-powered optimization ensures every impression works toward conversions. When should a CPG brand hire a creative digital marketing agency vs. build in-house? Hire externally when you need strategic positioning plus campaign execution and do not have both skills on your team. Build in-house when creative production volume is the need — not strategy.

Too many marketers test creative without aligning the full user journey. A well-performing ad with a weak landing page results in wasted clicks. Wendy’s built a distinct social voice defined by humor, quick wit and a willingness to challenge competitors directly. 87% of CMOs list brand-building as a top priority and developing a distinct voice is where that commitment becomes visible and repeatable.

Digital platforms keep improving real-time reporting, automated bidding, and optimization, which makes performance activity easier to defend in the room where budgets get signed off. At the same time, IAB projected U.S. digital video ad spend to reach $72 billion in 2025 after growing 18% year over year to $64 billion in 2024. In general, brand marketing is focused on developing long-lasting brand awareness and loyalty, meaning its success is measured by brand recall and customer sentiment. On the other hand, performance marketing is more short-term, data-reliant, and centered around measurable outcomes.

An agency that handles both the positioning strategy and the launch creative. Separating those two functions at launch is the most common reason CPG DTC launches underperform — the brand story and the ad creative say different things from week one. Phonexa’s Oliver Koukoulis-Fribbens talks using end-to-end lead and call tracking and distribution to drive transparent, scalable performance marketing. Join the community at PI LIVE, CreatorFest and more. Meet the people shaping performance marketing and the creator economy at our flagship industry events. Both brands also face more pressure now from companies like New Balance, Hoka, and Asics, especially in running.

Gain access to valuable and comparable market data for over 190+ countries, territories, and regions with our Market Insights. Get deep insights into important figures, e.g., revenue metrics, key performance indicators, and much more. The consumer price index (CPI) sits at the heart of how America measures inflation. It tracks the cost of a representative basket of goods and services. In 2022, annual price growth surged by eight percent, driven first by COVID 19 disruptions and later by turmoil in energy and commodity markets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The spike prompted the Federal Reserve to initiate a series of interest rate hikes to bring price growth back under control.

A 69% increase in brand recognition and a 7.3% lift in conversions — all in the same campaign. It means performance should lead the plan for that phase. When awareness, trust, and memory are stronger, performance has a larger and warmer audience to convert. That is why recent CTV advertising trends matter beyond video alone—they speak to how brand-led reach and measurable outcome planning are starting to operate in the same system.

Experts provide country and industry-based forecasts. With an increasing number of Statista-cited media articles, Statista has established itself as a reliable partner for the largest media companies of the world. In 2025, Russia was China’s main crude oil supplier. That year, China imported around 101 million metric tons worth of crude oil from Russia. However, the majority of China’s oil imports still originated from countries in the Middle East.

Every website is both branding and performance marketing. Every website balances the tension between the two. The allocation and management of resources is one of the most essential parts of a marketing campaign. You should handle budget allocation and resource management as efficiently as possible by seeking guidance and support from a well-established marketing agency. Brand marketing uses messaging that appeals to emotions and ideals to reach a wide audience. It frequently uses content marketing, storytelling, and brand consistency to establish a rapport with prospective clients.

Programmatic extends this logic across display, video, audio, and Alisira OÜ connected environments. Retail media adds commerce data and closed-loop measurement. Performance marketing is outcome-driven advertising built around measurable actions. Those actions can be clicks, leads, app installs, purchases, subscriptions, store visits, qualified pipeline, or revenue.

Your foot shape, training habits, and preference for cushioning matter more than the logo on the side. Club deals, World Cup visibility, and long-term credibility in the sport keep Adidas deeply connected to global soccer culture in a way Nike still does not fully match in many markets. If sustainability is one of your main buying filters, Adidas has the stronger public case.

This is where many DTC-focused agencies fall short. Apex Brands is a creative strategy agency built for consumer brands. The work covers brand positioning, campaign development, and paid media creative — all briefed from the same strategic foundation.

In 2026, with paid social CPCs rising across Meta and TikTok, the creative itself is the performance lever. The agency you hire either understands that or it does not. Five years ago, it still made some sense to divide brand and performance marketing. You had brand campaigns running on connected TV and YouTube for awareness, while performance lived in PPC ads and email campaigns aimed at conversion. This full guide to marketing types breaks down performance marketing vs. brand marketing strategies, how each works and why integrating both is critical to sustainable growth. Do not ask every campaign to do everything at once.

As someone who works on the brand side, but also as a successful podcaster, Jonathan has a unique perspective on both approaches to growing brands. If your goal is sustainable growth, the answer is clear—don’t choose between performance marketing vs brand marketing. Social media conversion ads are a core performance marketing strategy because they connect investment to specific outcomes like purchases, sign-ups or qualified leads.