Marketing's two strongest evidence bases disagree with each other
Les Binet and Peter Field's 60/40 split is the most cited budget guidance in advertising.
Byron Sharp — whose Ehrenberg-Bass laws are the best-replicated findings in marketing science — has publicly dismissed it. His objection is specific: if you read the original report, they analysed a very unusual dataset, namely award submissions.
He is describing the IPA Databank accurately. And the conclusion is still worth acting on.
This article covers what Binet and Field found, why the critique lands, and what survives it — because the honest position on a contested finding is more useful than picking a side.
What they found
The Long and the Short of It, published for the IPA in 2013, analysed approximately 996 case studies from the IPA Effectiveness Databank — campaigns submitted to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising effectiveness awards, accumulated over three decades.
The headline finding: consumer brands allocating roughly 60% of budget to long-term brand building and 40% to short-term sales activation produced the strongest business effects over time.
The mechanism is the important part.
Activation converts demand that already exists. Price promotions, paid search, retargeting, direct response. Effects are immediate, measurable, and decay quickly.
Brand building creates the demand that activation later converts. Effects accumulate slowly, persist, and are difficult to attribute to any individual campaign.
The two do different jobs on different timescales. They are not alternatives, and the optimal split is not a compromise between camps — it is a description of how the two effects compound.
Why short-term measurement systematically punishes brand
This is the practically useful part, and it explains why budgets drift toward activation regardless of what anyone believes.
Measured over a quarter, activation always looks more efficient. Its effects fall inside the measurement window. Brand effects mostly do not.
So every quarterly review presents evidence that activation works and brand does not, and every quarterly review is measuring a period too short to detect the thing it is dismissing. Budgets shift accordingly, year after year, each shift supported by data that was structurally incapable of showing otherwise.
Binet and Field's later work found the pull of share of voice on growth is strengthening rather than weakening: the proportion of growth explained by share of voice rose from around 6% for campaigns between 1998 and 2006 to around 12% for campaigns between 2008 and 2016.
The ratio moves by context
60/40 is an average, and Binet has been explicit that it is a guideline rather than an iron rule.
B2B sits nearer 46/54 — brand slightly under half — according to the 2019 work with the LinkedIn B2B Institute, reflecting longer purchase cycles and more people involved in decisions.
Online-native markets shift toward 50/50 in the later Effectiveness in Context analysis.
Category maturity, purchase cycle, and brand size all move it.
One finding survives every cut, and it is the one to remember: in no sector analysed did activation exceed brand building as the optimal allocation. The ratio varies. The direction does not.
The critique, taken seriously
Sharp's objection is not a quibble, and this series has applied the same scrutiny to frameworks it agrees with.
The dataset is award submissions. Campaigns entered into an effectiveness competition are not a random sample of campaigns. They are chosen by agencies and clients who believe they worked, documented to win, and judged on the persuasiveness of the case as well as the result.
It skews large. The databank is weighted toward established B2C brands with substantial budgets and multi-year data — the kind of advertiser that enters effectiveness awards.
Success is self-defined. Entrants choose which outcomes to report.
Selection favours brand campaigns structurally. Long-term brand cases make more compelling award narratives than a well-run search account. If the entry pool over-represents brand-led work, an analysis of that pool will too.
That is a serious set of objections and they should temper the confidence attached to the specific number.
What survives it
Three things, and they are enough.
The mechanism is independently supported. That advertising has both immediate and delayed effects, and that delayed effects are larger and longer-lived, is confirmed by econometric and marketing-mix work outside the IPA data entirely. The split exists whether or not 60/40 is the right figure.
Sharp's own position implies the same direction. He argues for broad reach against future buyers, citing the finding that only around 5% of B2B buyers are in market at any time — that activation-style tactics catch people as they fall, and people not in market never see them. That is an argument for spending against future demand. It is the same conclusion reached from different data.
The measurement asymmetry is undeniable. Short-window measurement cannot detect long-window effects. That is arithmetic, and it means the observed efficiency advantage of activation is partly an artefact regardless of what the correct ratio is.
The honest reading: treat 60/40 as a directional prior rather than a target. The specific number rests on a flawed dataset. The direction — that most businesses under-invest in demand creation because their measurement cannot see it — rests on more than that.
What brand building actually requires
The research is specific, which is useful, because "brand building" otherwise absorbs any spending nobody can justify.
Emotion over rational message. Emotional campaigns build stronger memory structures and broader appeal, particularly among light and new buyers — the group the buying laws identify as the source of growth.
Broad reach. Scale is the requirement. Narrow targeting is an activation technique applied to a brand objective.
Consistency. Across time and across executions. Rebuilding the campaign every year discards the accumulation the strategy depends on.
Creative quality multiplies the effect. Campaigns recognised for creative work show materially greater market share growth than those not, which means the ratio is not the only variable — the same money produces different results.
Applying this on a small budget
The common objection is that 60/40 is advice for advertisers who can afford both. It is a fair objection and it has a practical answer.
Brand building is not a media class. It is any activity that creates future demand rather than converting present demand. Content, distinctive packaging, category presence, and PR all qualify, and none requires television.
The split applies to total marketing cost, not media spend. Agency fees, internal salaries, production, and content all count. Businesses running the calculation on media alone routinely find they were already closer to the ratio than they thought.
Zero brand investment has a compounding cost. Every negotiation starts from nothing, every proposal competes on price, and acquisition cost stays high permanently. Spending entirely on activation is a decision to rent demand forever rather than build any.
Diagnostic: is the split deliberate?
Six tests.
The current brand and activation split is known as a number, calculated on total marketing cost.
That number was decided rather than arrived at.
Brand activity is measured on a horizon longer than a quarter.
Brand work is consistent across executions and years, not rebuilt annually.
Reach objectives are broad rather than narrowly targeted.
Someone can state what proportion of the target audience is not currently in market.
Test one fails in most businesses. The split cannot be evaluated until it is calculated, and calculating it on media spend alone understates brand investment.
What this produces
A budget allocated by job rather than by measurability.
That is the contribution. The default is to allocate toward whatever reports well inside the review period, which is a rational response to bad information and produces a predictable outcome — steadily rising acquisition costs and a brand nobody thinks of unprompted.
The specific ratio is contested and the argument between its authors and its critics is worth following. The underlying instruction is not seriously disputed by either side: spend meaningfully against people who are not ready to buy, because most of your future customers are currently among them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 60/40 rule in marketing?
Binet and Field's finding, from around 996 IPA Databank case studies, that consumer brands allocating roughly 60% of budget to long-term brand building and 40% to short-term activation produce the strongest business effects over time.
Is the 60/40 rule reliable?
It is contested. Byron Sharp has criticised the underlying dataset as award submissions rather than a representative sample, which is accurate. The specific number should be treated as a directional prior; the underlying mechanism is supported by evidence outside that dataset.
What is the right split for B2B?
Binet and Field's 2019 work with the LinkedIn B2B Institute puts it nearer 46% brand and 54% activation, reflecting longer purchase cycles and larger buying groups. Notably, no sector they analysed had activation exceeding brand as the optimal allocation.
Why do marketing budgets drift toward performance?
Because activation effects fall inside a quarterly measurement window and brand effects do not. Every short-term review produces evidence favouring activation, using a period too short to detect what it is dismissing.
Does the split apply to media spend or total marketing cost?
Total marketing cost, including agency fees, salaries, production, and content. Businesses calculating on media alone usually understate their brand investment.
Can a small business apply the 60/40 rule?
Yes, because brand building is not a media class. Any activity creating future demand rather than converting present demand counts — content, packaging, category presence, PR. None of it requires television budgets.
What makes brand building work?
Emotion rather than rational argument, broad reach rather than narrow targeting, and consistency across years. Creative quality multiplies the effect, so the same budget produces materially different outcomes.
Sources
Binet, L. and Field, P., The Long and the Short of It, IPA (2013), based on approximately 996 IPA Databank case studies; Effectiveness in Context; Media in Focus
Binet, L. and Field, P., with the LinkedIn B2B Institute (2019), on the B2B ratio
IPA Effectiveness Databank, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
Sharp, B., published criticism of the 60/40 ratio and the award-submission dataset; Dawes, J., on the 95:5 rule
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