Praise be! It was with great delight that I read Mi3’s interview with Felipe Thomaz from Oxford University, who is openly challenging the work of Byron Sharp. Don't get me wrong, Sharp's ideas have been the bread and butter of media planning for years. But it's time we critically examine the blanket approach that has stemmed from this thinking.

The principles outlined in Sharp's ‘How Brands Grow’ have become ubiquitous in media planning strategies across the industry. Similarly, the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, particularly their 60/40 rule (suggesting a 60 per cent focus on brand building and 40 per cent on activation), has been widely adopted. Over the last few years, I've sat through countless meetings where both principles were quoted like gospel.

New research suggests these approaches, when applied without nuance, may have become blunt instruments, leading to a concerning lack of innovation and differentiation in marketing strategies.

Thomaz's recent study, analysing over 1,000 campaigns and a million customer journeys, challenges the notion that optimising for reach alone correlates with business outcomes. He found that only 1 per cent of campaigns achieved significant business lifts, with the average campaign delivering a mere 2 per cent ROI. This finding directly challenges the practice of optimising for reach alone. While it doesn't necessarily contradict Binet and Field's work, it strongly suggests that even well-established principles need to be applied with careful consideration of specific contexts.

The research reveals striking category-specific nuances in channel effectiveness. For instance, specifically for lower funnel performance, TV advertising has a 2 per cent chance of influencing an auto customer but a 50 per cent chance in personal care. These findings underscore the importance of tailored strategies over one-size-fits-all approaches, whether derived from Sharp or Binet and Field. Widespread adoption of these principles as a paint by numbers template has led to lazy planning and a lack of rigorous testing of new theories and strategies. As marketers and agencies universally apply these concepts, we're witnessing a sea of sameness in strategies, diminishing marketing's ability to cut through the noise.

In the last couple of months, we’ve worked with two clients, both in vastly different categories. Both have had their media activity mirror the 60/40 brand to activation mix. Neither agency supported this with any evidence relevant to the category. In one instance, the client’s own analysis proved that this approach – that had been in use for two whole years – was not actually working. There was no correlation between brand activity and brand outcomes. Sure, there were other contributing factors, but the core problem seems to be a blanket assumption that every category behaves the same way.

In fact, Binet and Field’s suggested ratios actually vary for different brands in different categories at different growth stages and price points.

The key question marketers and agencies should be asking is not just "How can we apply Sharp's principles?" or "Are we adhering to the 60/40 rule?" but rather "What principles should apply to our specific product and category?" There's a pressing need to innovate within categories and test new theories rather than assuming a single approach will work universally.

As budgets largely remain flat the challenge for marketers is to deliver greater effectiveness and better outcomes with the same money, making it crucial for marketers and agencies to challenge the status quo, embrace category-specific insights, and drive continuous testing and innovation.