There´s a lot of discussions and concerns being raised in the era of big data in regards to worries about increased short term activation.
It´s crucial for growth to balance short term activation and long term branding activities. What we also see is that there´s a need to better align short vs long when it comes to increasing both conversion and penetration. This is not only a strategy choice when it comes to balancing these but also a need to balance the choice of channels for the marketing activities.
Short term shows best effect towards local customer base - and this means it ignores penetration. Which is crucial for growth. Penetration results in bigger payback. It´s more important to increase penetration than to improve the efficiency of the marketing activities. Short term becomes much more efficient if the brand has strong long term branding activities. Due to priming. Thats what really increases efficiency. Emotional priming is key for growth!
When it comes to communication goals - mental availability is key to measure. Fame = becoming part of culture. (Social amplifications, herd effects etc) The bigger growth in this KPI - the bigger the return of the investment in the marketing activities.
Long term branding done well increases most constructive performance metrics in the long run 6 months - 3 years. While Short therm activation marketing activities is focused on behavioral conversions and performs better in the... short term than long term branding activities when measured. But they MUST co-exisit in the right balance when it comes to investment in marketing for the brand to grow - from day one.
Read more about it from P. Field and L. Binets excellent researched: http://www.ipa.co.uk/Framework/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=9225