By Kathy Lubner, Senior Director of Market Research at Suzy

The Moment It Clicked

Earlier in my career, I worked with a major global tech brand launching a new flagship device. The team was laser-focused on product marketing - every campaign was performance-driven, designed to push specs, speed, and features. Sales were strong at first, but over time, something unexpected happened.

Our brand tracking revealed declines in relevance and differentiation. Consumers still recognized the brand, but they no longer felt connected to it. They viewed it as functional, not inspiring. The brand had traded emotional resonance for product efficiency.

The underlying implication was clear - a brand’s ability to convert depends on its ability to connect.

Brand vs. performance: The false divide

Every month, I read research briefs from enterprise brands navigating complex campaigns and shifting consumer behaviors. Yet one question still shows up far too often:  “Should we invest in brand or performance?”

Consumers don’t see two strategies. They see one brand, one experience. And the brands that integrate long-term brand equity with short-term performance are the ones pulling ahead.

To explore this tension, I ran a quick Suzy Speaks survey to gather fresh input directly from U.S. consumers. In under 24 hours. It reinforced that the lines between brand and performance aren’t just blurry, they’re invisible to consumers.

• 45% of consumers said the ads most likely to capture their attention are a mix of emotionally resonant storytelling and clear product or price messaging — not one or the other.
• 63% said their purchase decision is influenced more by how a brand makes them feel than by discounts or deals.

Emotion and relevance drive choice, not just awareness.

Consumers expect cohesion, not tradeoffs

When people interact with your brand, they don’t mentally sort your messaging into “brand” vs. “performance.” They simply ask:

• Does this brand understand me?
• Is this relevant right now?
• Can I trust it?

That’s why siloed campaigns underperform. A 60-second brand video that builds equity is only as strong as the experiences that follow. A promotion-driven ad might drive clicks, but if it feels off-brand, it erodes trust.

Smart marketing today means every activation is a brand activation, and every brand story must create paths to act.

Emotion powers conversion

It’s tempting to assume price wins every time, but that’s not how people think. Research from the IPA’s “The Long and the Short of It” shows that campaigns combining emotional and rational messaging drive nearly 2x higher profit growth than performance-only campaigns.

Emotional connection isn’t just upper-funnel fluff, it’s a multiplier. It shapes preference, pricing power, and loyalty. Our own Suzy Speaks data echoes this:

72% of consumers said they’re willing to pay more for a brand that “understands their needs” than one that only offers discounts.

You can’t earn that kind of value perception through promotions alone. It comes from trust, clarity, and consistency.

Generational lens: One message, different triggers

Different generations blend emotion and utility in distinct ways; understanding that mix is key to optimizing brand and performance strategies.

Gen Z (18-26):

• How they respond: Value authenticity and cause alignment. Expect fast-moving creative that ties brand purpose to tangible action.: 
• What it means for brands: Combine storytelling with immediacy. TikTok-first activations that connect emotion to behavior work best.

Millennials (27-43)

• How they respond: Seek balance between brand identity and personal relevance. They respond to functional storytelling tied to life stages (career, family, financial goals).
• What it means for brands: Use brand tone to humanize performance — show how your product enhances their everyday routines.

Gen X (44-59)

• How they respond: Pragmatic but loyal. They appreciate transparency and consistent voice across channels.
• What it means for brands: Reinforce trust with clear value messaging, but anchor in brand credibility.

Boomers (60+)

• How they respond: Respond strongly to heritage and reliability. Performance claims resonate when rooted in proven trust.
• What it means for brands: Leverage emotional storytelling around brand legacy while highlighting functional reliability.

One insight transcends age: across generations, consumers don’t separate how they feel about a brand from how they act.

Category spotlight: Integration in action

Integration plays out differently depending on the category — but the core principle holds: every message should move both the heart and the hand.

• Retail:  Brands like Target combine purpose and product by embedding their value promise into both messaging and offering. For example, Target’s campaign “What We Value Most Shouldn’t Cost More” anchors a purpose-led positioning while their digital and promotional mechanics (loyalty program, exclusive brands, multichannel fulfilment) drive performance. 
• CPG: Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign built emotion through personalization while fueling measurable sales. Each name-labeled bottle became a direct-response mechanism wrapped in emotional context.
• Tech: Apple remains the masterclass in integration. Every product launch is framed as a creative emotional event (e.g., “Shot on iPhone”) paired with precise conversion pathways (pre-orders, ecosystem lock-in). The brand never abandons its ethos of creativity and connection, even in performance moments.
• Finance: Fintech disruptors like Chime and Ally blend brand trust (financial empowerment, transparency) with performance mechanics (refer-a-friend bonuses, instant approvals).
• Media & Entertainment: Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ combine brand-led storytelling (e.g., “Only on Netflix” exclusives) to create desire, and then the platforms deploy algorithm-driven acquisition and personalization to convert attention into subscribers.

The Playbook for Brand + Performance Integration

1. Audit & benchmark
   
   • Map your recent campaigns by primary intent: equity building or performance driving.
   • Identify “silent zones” where one side of the strategy was underweighted.
   • Use Suzy to test current brand familiarity, favorability, and willingness to pay.
2. Build a cohesive creative system
   
   • Test if your creative assets drive both recall and intent.
   • Keep brand voice and assets consistent, even in short-form or offer-driven ads.
   • Don’t let urgency overpower identity.
3. Iterate to test & learn
   
   • Launch mini-tests weekly to refine messaging.
   • Watch for misalignment: performance lift with falling brand favorability is a red flag.
   • Use qualitative tools like Suzy Speaks to understand why shifts occur.
4. Measure what matters
   
   • Go beyond CTR and CPA.
   • Track how messaging changes how people feel, what they intend to do, and what they’re willing to pay.
   • Integrate brand and performance KPIs into a single dashboard.

Suzy can power every step - from monadic creative tests to real-time emotional diagnostics and longitudinal brand tracking — so you don’t have to choose between speed and strategic depth.

What’s next: The future of full-funnel marketing

The most advanced marketing teams are fully shifting past the binary trade-off of “brand vs. performance.” They are building connected systems that learn, adapt and evolve in real time. Here’s how this is playing out and where it’s heading:

• AI-driven creative optimization: AI is evolving from automating media buys to shaping the creative itself. AI will increasingly be able to test and refine creative assets in-flight, learning which combinations of message, mood, and offer perform best for each key audience segment. The outcome will be a creative ecosystem where emotional cues are tracked, learned from, and optimized; turning storytelling and performance into one continuous cycle of improvement.
• Unified brand dashboards: Future analytics will blend brand health metrics (trust, differentiation) with acquisition metrics (CAC, LTV).
• Culture-responsive campaigning: Real-time consumer feedback, captured through agile tools like Suzy, will shape creative decisions before campaigns even launch.
• Personalized equity: The next phase of personalization isn’t just targeting; it’s ensuring every ad, regardless of format, builds consistent emotional equity across touchpoints.

How Suzy helps you balance both — fast

Suzy was built for marketers who refuse to pick sides. With one integrated platform, you can:

• Test creative, offers, and channels using monadic and max-diff designs
• Capture authentic qualitative feedback at scale through Suzy Speaks
• Measure both conversion intent and brand equity indicators — favorability, differentiation, pricing power
• Track shifts over time with on-demand brand health pulses

Suzy transforms insight into advantage. You get real-time evidence that helps you balance emotion and performance to build campaigns that resonate, convert, and endure.

Reclaiming the heart behind the brand

That tech brand I mentioned earlier eventually recalibrated. They reintroduced human storytelling - ads about creativity, not just technical specs. In a few months (no, it won’t happen overnight), brand relevance and emotional connection rebounded, and conversion rates followed.

It serves as a reminder to me that you don’t have to choose between building meaning and driving results. The strongest brands do both - because consumers expect both.

And with Suzy, you can get there faster, smarter, and with confidence built on what matters most: real consumer truth.

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