How Scale-Ups Win: Rethinking Advertising Effectiveness in a Data-Drenched World

Scale-up advertising effectiveness - it’s not brand versus performance. It’s brand powering performance.

There has never been more data, more dashboards, more targeting options and more “optimisation”.

And yet, across boardrooms and investor updates, the same conversation crops up:

“Our advertising just isn’t moving like it used to.”

Leaders find themselves in performance marketing plateaus where CAC creeps up. The usual response is to ask agencies to change the creative and tweak the audience targeting. The numbers wobble but don’t fundamentally shift.

So what’s actually going on?

In our recent OSER webinar, I sat down with Diego Chicharro - former Head of Effectiveness at Publicis, IPA speaker and multiple Effie winner - to unpack why advertising effectiveness appears to be stalling for scale-ups.

The answer isn’t “the algorithm changed.” It’s structural.

Why Advertising Effectiveness Feels Stuck

1 > Data without strategic discrimination:

Scale-ups have access to extraordinary volumes of information, but having access is not a direct advantage.

The IPA’s long-running effectiveness studies show that businesses that balance brand and activation outperform those that chase short-term efficiency alone. Yet many scale-ups drown in performance dashboards and forget to ask the bigger question: “What memory are we cementing in people's heads for our brand?”

2 > Fragmented attention

Consumers don’t sit still. They scroll, swipe, half-watch, and skip, making consistency more important than ever.

Byron Sharp’s research, conducted through the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and IPA effectiveness case studies, consistently shows that mental availability drives growth. That means being easy to remember in buying situations. If your brand looks and sounds different every quarter because you’re “testing”, you’re not optimising - you’re resetting memory.

3 > Rising costs, flattening returns

Media costs have risen sharply across major digital platforms over the past five years. Scale-ups are now competing not only with peers but also with brands deploying significant budgets and creative. Without distinctive assets and a clear brand signal, you’re just bidding higher for attention you haven’t earned.

4 > The short-term trap

This is the big one. Performance marketing rewards immediacy, boards reward quarterly growth. Investors reward visible traction. But the IPA’s “Long and the Short of It” findings remain clear: brands that invest in long-term brand building achieve stronger profit growth and pricing power over time.

When scale-ups shift too heavily toward activation, they become efficient but forgettable. And forgettable is expensive.

The Three Growth Imperatives We See Repeatedly

From agency boardrooms to scale-up advisory roles, Diego and I keep seeing the same pattern: the brands that break through get three things right.

Clarity

What category entry points do you want to own?

When should buyers think of you?

What problem are you burning into memory?

Consistency

Growth brands don’t reinvent themselves every campaign; they compound through distinctive colours, recognisable codes and clear message territories.

The IPA’s research on distinctive brand assets shows that recognisable, consistently deployed assets increase effectiveness and reduce media wastage.

Memorability

If no one remembers you tomorrow, yesterday’s spend was essentially rent.

Memorability is about being distinctive. That might be creative bravery, it might be category reframing, or it might be owning a buying moment that competitors ignore.

What Big Agencies Understand That Scale-Ups Sometimes Miss

Having spent years in global agencies and now working directly with scale-ups and investors, I find the contrast fascinating.

Large agency strategy departments obsess over three things:

1. Audience depth, not surface targeting

2. Creative that encodes memory

3. Campaign systems, not isolated ads

Whereas scale-ups, under pressure, often focus on audience reach, weekly optimisation, and cost per acquisition.

One builds brand equity; the other builds spreadsheets. The opportunity is to combine both.

That’s where Diego’s background in effectiveness becomes powerful. At Publicis, effectiveness wasn’t an afterthought. It was engineered into the creative and media architecture from day one.

From a scale-up perspective, testing should be about validating strategic territories before scaling them.

A Smarter Way to Measure Communication Effectiveness

If you only measure clicks, you’ll optimise for clicks. Instead, we advocate a broader communications effectiveness lens:

Awareness

Are we becoming easier to notice?

Meaning

Do people understand what we stand for?

Distinctiveness

Can buyers recognise us instantly?

Action

Does that memory convert when it matters?

Loyalty

Do customers come back, and bring others?

This aligns with IPA frameworks, brand lift studies and commercial performance metrics.

The question isn’t “did this ad work?” It’s “are we compounding brand advantage?” and that’s a very different conversation in a boardroom.

The Real Competitive Advantage

Most scale-ups don’t lose because they lack data; they lose because they lack focus, and they oscillate between tactics. They tend to optimise without anchoring, and they chase efficiency without building fame.

The brands that win combine strategic discipline, creative distinctiveness, long-term memory building and short-term commercial rigour.

That’s the model we explored in depth in the OSER webinar - bringing together agency-grade effectiveness thinking with scale-up growth realities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does our advertising performance plateau even when we increase spend?

Because media efficiency compounds only when memory compounds. If you scale spend without strengthening distinctive brand assets and clear category ownership, you simply buy more short-term conversions from the same pool. IPA effectiveness research consistently shows that long-term brand investment improves profit growth and pricing power. Without it, performance marketing becomes increasingly expensive. If your CAC is rising while awareness isn’t strengthening, the issue isn’t just media - it’s brand.

Should scale-ups prioritise brand building or performance marketing?

It’s not either/or. The IPA’s “long and short” effectiveness studies demonstrate that the strongest commercial results come from balancing long-term brand building with short-term activation. Performance captures existing demand. Brand building creates future demand. Scale-ups that over-index on activation often become efficient but forgettable. The real advantage comes when brand drives performance - lowering acquisition costs over time.

How can we tell if our brand is actually memorable?

Look beyond clicks. Can buyers recognise your brand instantly without a logo? Do you own specific buying moments in your category? Are your distinctive assets (colour, tone, message codes) used consistently? Brand lift studies, prompted and unprompted recall, and share-of-search trends are stronger indicators of memorability than engagement rates alone. If you constantly change creative direction, you’re likely resetting memory rather than building it.

What are “distinctive brand assets” and why do they matter?

Distinctive brand assets are recognisable elements - visual, verbal or behavioural - that allow buyers to identify you quickly. This could be colour, typography, tone of voice, sonic branding, taglines or recurring creative devices. IPA and Ehrenberg-Bass research shows that brands with strong, consistently deployed distinctive assets waste less media spend because recognition happens faster. In simple terms, if people recognise you quicker, you pay less to persuade them.

How should scale-ups measure advertising effectiveness properly?

Move beyond channel metrics. We recommend assessing communication across five layers: Awareness -> Meaning -> Distinctiveness -> Action -> Loyalty. This ensures you’re not just measuring activity but compounding advantage. The right question isn’t “did this campaign generate leads?”It’s “did this campaign strengthen our long-term growth engine?”

When should a scale-up rethink its advertising strategy?

There are three common trigger points: 1 > CAC rising consistently despite optimisation, 2 > Strong short-term sales but weak brand recall, 3 > Entering a new growth phase (new market, funding round, repositioning). At this point, incremental tweaks won’t resolve the issue. You need to reassess strategic clarity, creative system and investment balance. That’s typically where an external, effectiveness-led perspective makes a difference.