Advertising Effectiveness for Scaleups: Bridging the Gap Between Measurement and Impact

Advertising today offers scaleups more tools, data, and channels than ever before. Yet, many founders and CEOs face a frustrating truth: advertising effectiveness has not improved over the last decade. Despite investing heavily in performance marketing, brand campaigns, and digital media, return on investment remains flat, customer acquisition costs rise, and teams struggle to find clear direction amid overwhelming data.

This post explores why advertising effectiveness has stalled for scaleups and what they can do to close the gap between what is measured and what truly drives growth. It draws on proven frameworks used by big brands and practical steps scaleups can take to build stronger, more memorable brands that deliver commercial impact.

Why Advertising Effectiveness Has Stalled for Scaleups

Scaleups excel at speed and iteration. They rapidly test campaigns, optimise performance, and chase immediate results. This agility is both a strength and a weakness when it comes to advertising effectiveness.

The core issue is a mismatch between short-term activation and long-term brand building. When every marketing pound focuses on immediate returns, the balance between brand and activation, creativity and consistency, testing and learning becomes skewed. This imbalance creates what can be called the effectiveness gap - the difference between what scaleups measure (clicks, conversions, short-term sales) and what truly matters (brand strength, customer loyalty, sustainable growth).

Big brands continue to grow because they invest in frameworks that connect creative ideas to commercial outcomes over time. They understand their audience deeply, know what they want customers to remember, and build distinctive mental shortcuts that make their brands easy to buy and hard to ignore.

The Three Growth Imperatives Every Scaleup Brand Should Build Around

To close the effectiveness gap, scaleups need to focus on three core imperatives that balance short-term activation with long-term brand growth:

1. Understand Your Audience Beyond Demographics

Knowing who your audience is goes beyond age, location, or job title. It means understanding their motivations, pain points, and decision-making triggers. This clarity enables you to craft messages that resonate deeply and stick in people's minds.

2. Define What You Want Customers to Remember

Every brand needs a clear, simple idea that customers recall easily. This could be a unique product benefit, a brand personality trait, or a promise that sets you apart.

3. Build Distinctive and Repeatable Brand Elements

Distinctiveness helps your brand stand out in crowded markets. This includes visual identity, tone of voice, and creative style that customers associate uniquely with your brand.

Repeatability means using these elements consistently across campaigns and touchpoints. Consistency reinforces memory and builds brand equity over time.

What Big-Agency Frameworks Teach About Targeting, Creativity, and Growth

Big agencies have developed frameworks that connect creative ideas to commercial impact. Scaleups can adopt these approaches to improve advertising effectiveness without needing huge budgets.

Clarity on Audience and Message

Frameworks begin with in-depth audience insights and a clear brand idea. This clarity guides targeting and creative development, ensuring campaigns speak directly to the right people with the right message.

Balancing Brand and Activation

Effective advertising strikes a balance between brand building (long-term growth) and activation (short-term sales). Big brands allocate budgets to both, understanding that brand strength lowers acquisition costs and improves ROI over time.

Testing with Purpose

Testing is essential, but must be strategic. Instead of random experiments, tests should validate hypotheses about audience, message, or creative elements that support the brand idea. This approach accelerates learning and reduces wasted spend.

Practical Steps Scaleups Can Take Today

Scaleups can start closing the effectiveness gap by applying these practical steps:

• Audit your current advertising to identify if campaigns focus too heavily on short-term activation at the expense of brand building.

  
  

• Develop a clear brand idea that defines what you want customers to remember and guides all creative work.

  
  

• Invest in audience research that uncovers motivations and decision triggers, not just demographics.

  
  

• Create Distinctive Brand Assets (DBAs) such as logos, colours, icon, and a tone of voice that are consistent across all channels.

  
  

• Balance your marketing budget to include both brand-building and activation activities.

  
  

• Use testing to validate brand hypotheses rather than just optimising for immediate clicks or conversions.

  
  

Advertising effectiveness has stalled because scaleups often measure what is easy to track rather than what drives lasting growth. By focusing on clarity around audience, message, and brand distinctiveness, scaleups can build stronger brands that reduce acquisition costs and improve profitability over time.

The OSER Effectiveness Webinar: Big-Agency Thinking for Scaleup Growth

Join Laura Derbyshire (Founder, OSER) and Diego Chicharro (Cannes Lions & Effie-winning Effectiveness Consultant, ex-Publicis) for a free 45-minute live webinar revealing proven frameworks from the world’s leading agencies, translated for fast-growing scaleups.

This is a rare opportunity to get inside access to global effectiveness principles that have powered the world’s biggest brands, adapted for the realities of lean teams, growth pressures, and investor expectations.

View Webinar