The Long and the Short of it is a book written by Les Binet and Peter Field, both famous in the marketing industry. It is based on the findings of research carried out on the winning awards over a number of years and 700 brands in the IPA Effectiveness Awards (the Effies).
The book basically says that we would be far more successful if we carried out long term (brand building) marketing and short term (tactical, sales-driven) marketing at the same time.
Three Take-homes from this Seminal Marketing Book
- Long-term (3+ years) investment in advertising delivers double the profit of a short-term approach (less than 1 year), but investing in both delivers even higher returns
- Emotional advertising is twice as efficient as rational, and delivers twice the profit
- Short and long term effects work differently which means that short term metrics, especially direct response rates, may not be a good guide to long term success
If you would like to read more on this, you can buy the book from Amazon (sorry, tried to find an Irish seller to link to but couldn’t. If you know one, send me the link and I’ll change it) – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Short-Balancing-Long-Term-Strategies/dp/085294134X
If you want help with your marketing or brand strategy, contact me at paula@ronanmarketing.ie