Double duty dilemma: Can a search or social ad build brand and drive sales now? Media execs, reformed growth hackers and ad effectiveness maestros duke it out – as ESOV critics have their say

Debate on whether brand campaigns can drive short term sales performance and vice versa – aka ‘double duty’ – is running as hot as the budget knives pressed to the CFO’s whetstone. News Corp’s Pippa Leary says market-wide short-termism is fuelling demand for performance ads to drive immediate results but double duty works – results for Moet has LVMH marketers popping their corks. Brand strategist James Hurman says brand campaigns can drive short-term sales, but that trying to make one ad to do both is “way harder” than just making two ads, so why try? Either way, using the same metrics for brand building and short-term sales “is like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree,” per Hurman, “it’s always going to be a shit fish”. Rob Brittain says marketers only have themselves to blame: Few can articulate the difference between the two – nor why long and short need to work together – to CFOs under pressure for short-term sales. Meanwhile, he says marketers are getting the basics of ESOV wrong, ending up closer to double jeopardy than “difficult” to achieve double duty by wasting money on low attention channels. But partially reformed growth hacker turned growth advisor to companies up to $100m in revenues, John James, thinks ESOV is a flawed concept based on touting the benefits of being “the loudest person in the room” by those who “want to sell more advertising media to clients”. He also throws a jab or two at Ehrenberg-Bass ‘how brands grow’ thinking. Brittain can’t let either go unanswered. This one gets politely punchy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.