Brand media instead of advertising: when it pays off
Translated from Russian. Prices are in Kazakhstani tenge (₸).
In short
You don't have to choose between advertising and brand media: they're different tools that solve different problems. But all else being equal, today the winner is whoever invests in brandformance, and that can't be done without meaning — that is, without content and media. Judge web media no sooner than three months in, when SEO starts working. The simpler the product, the less it needs media. And to connect media with sales you need the full cycle, not “we post pictures, what sales?”.
Advertising or brand media? The wrong question
I don't see a dichotomy here, like “display advertising or brand media”. They're tools, and each solves its own important problems.
I'll say just one thing: all else being equal, today the winner is whoever invests in brandformance, a combination of working on the brand and on sales. That's impossible without meaning. And meaning is content, and content is media in the broad sense of the word.
This is consistent with the well-known research by Les Binet and Peter Field for the UK's Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA): the best results come from balancing long-term brand building with short-term sales activation, not from one or the other.
What brand media is
Media is a broad concept. It can be a website with a magazine, a Telegram channel, a newsletter. Our Instagram accounts for Bayer are media too.
Brand media differs from a company blog in focus. A blog talks about the company and the product. Media answers the audience's questions about their lives, problems and interests, and the product appears within that conversation natively.
Which brands don't need media
The rule is simple: the simpler your product, the less you need media. If a buyer doesn't need anything explained and decides in a second at the shelf, you can skip spending on media.
Conversely, complex and regulated categories especially need media: pharma, fintech, telecom, B2B. There, people have lots of questions, and direct advertising can't answer them.
When to expect results
It depends on what you measure. Media has different metrics:
- reach;
- depth of viewing and read-through;
- citations;
- growth in search demand and positions in search results.
For web media, it's worth measuring results no earlier than when SEO starts working. And that's no earlier than three months.
After that comes the effect I write about in almost every article: at the start metrics are expensive, because you're paying for production and promotion at the same time. But if the media answers the audience's information needs well, organic growth eventually picks it up, and each contact costs less.
How to connect media with sales
The clearest way is the client's analytics during a period when the brand has no media activity other than the media project. Then sales growth can be attributed to your project specifically.
Pharma has more precise tools. You can run a sales lift: see who was shown what, and which of them then went and bought. That's already performance marketing.
That's why it's important to run the full cycle: strategy, content, promotion, analytics. Not “we post pictures, what sales?”.
Case studies
Life on Ultra (Bayer). An Instagram media about sport for non-athletes with a joint-health product built in natively. In the first two months: +90% pharmacy sales, +1.6% brand share in the category and +51.6% reviews on Kaspi.
→ · Case on the TELLER website
Pain Navigator. Kazakhstan's first media about pain, with two lines: for patients and for doctors. The brand got the role of an expert, not just a drug maker.
→ · Case on the TELLER website
Elevit (Bayer). The Instagram of a vitamin brand for pregnant and breastfeeding women, where lifestyle bloggers, doctors and UGC from mothers work together. About 3M reach with an average ER of 2%, and the approach worked so well that the project was expanded to Mongolia.
→
How much it costs to run media
From a hundred thousand to a hundred million tenge a month. Honestly, it's impossible to answer without calculating: it all depends on the channel, content volume, production and promotion. That's why we start with a strategy and media plan, where we calculate both the budget and the expected results.
→
Key points
- Advertising and brand media aren't alternatives, they're tools for different tasks.
- The winner is whoever invests in brandformance, and that's impossible without meaning and content.
- The simpler the product, the less it needs media.
- Judge web media no earlier than three months in, when SEO starts working.
- The client's analytics and sales lift show the link to sales — and that requires the full cycle.
- Calculate the cost of media for the task: the range is from a hundred thousand to a hundred million tenge a month.
Thinking about media for your brand? Message me on Telegram at @maximfetisov: we'll work out whether you need it and what it will cost. How strategy work is organised and what it costs is on the Services page.
