Brand & comms strategy

The case for brand equity, from inside performance.

Brands starve the corner that compounds. I watched it happen from the performance side of media. The Brand Trilemma is how I map it. Move the point yourself.

Account Director, WeDiscover. Performance media at Brainlabs and Mindshare before that, across pet care, fashion retail, homewares and travel.

compounds Equity harvest now Activation recognisable Identity

A balanced split. Rare, and usually a sign of a big budget or a very deliberate hand.

Equity 34% Activation 33% Identity 33%

 

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01

The model

Every brand splits a finite budget across three corners.

Equity

Equity is the top corner

What people think and feel about you before you spend a penny this quarter. The slowest corner to build, and the first one cut when the target gets tight.

Activation

Activation is the bottom right

Turning demand that already exists into a sale now. Measurable, fast, and where the budget drifts, because it is the only corner that shows up on Monday.

Identity

Identity is the bottom left corner

The distinctive way the brand looks, sounds and behaves. How equity gets stored.

Read the full argument →


02

Writing


03

Who

I am Gabriel Gruter. I come from the performance side of media, where I ran pitches and multi-market planning. Now I argue for the other half of the job: brand equity, the part performance budgets crowd out first.

More about me →