Brand & comms strategy
The case for brand equity, from inside performance.
Brands starve the corner that compounds. I watched it happen from the performance side of media. The Brand Trilemma is how I map it. Move the point yourself.
A balanced split. Rare, and usually a sign of a big budget or a very deliberate hand.
Drag the point, tap inside the triangle, or pick a preset. Arrow keys nudge it.
Account Director, WeDiscover. Performance media at Brainlabs and Mindshare before that, across pet care, fashion retail, homewares and travel.
The model
Every brand splits a finite budget across three corners.
Equity
The compounding one
What people think and feel about you before you spend a penny this quarter. The only corner that compounds, and the first one cut when the target gets tight.
Activation
The immediate one
Turning demand that already exists into a sale now. Measurable, fast, and where the budget drifts, because it is the only corner that shows up on Monday.
Identity
The hook
The distinctive way the brand looks, sounds and behaves. How equity gets stored. It usually gets treated as decoration.
Writing
Who
I am Gabriel Gruter. I come from the performance side of media, where I ran pitches and multi-market planning, and I was good at it. Now I argue for the other half of the job: brand equity, the part performance budgets crowd out first.
More about me →