Brand or Performance: If You Had to Choose, Which Gets the 70%? - CMO Inspired Summit Panel
Overview
In this opening panel from the CMO & CAIO Inspired Summit at Syon Park, London, in October 2026, Charlotte Emery of Inspired Business Media is joined by David Chadderton (Homes for Students), Jamal Qurban (Amazon), Jon Grail (loveholidays) and Tony Miller (Animal Friends) to tackle one of marketing's oldest debates. If you had to choose, does 70% of the budget go to brand or to performance?
The panellists come down on different sides, and that is the point. A fast-growing travel business, a global retailer, a student accommodation provider and a pet insurer each have very different customers, buying cycles and pressures. They explain how that context shapes the split, how they handle short-term pressure from the business, and how measurement is changing as AI reshapes the way people search and choose.
Key takeaways
- There is no universal split: the right balance between brand and performance depends on your category, your growth stage and how often customers buy from you.
- A business in a growth phase may put most of its budget into performance, but the mix needs to move up the funnel as retention and repeat purchases start to drive profit.
- In categories where products look alike, such as insurance, brand is what stops customers trading purely on price and switching at renewal.
- Running two parallel conversations helps: one on the marginal return and payback window of the next pound spent, and one on how brand brings acquisition costs down over time.
- Trust, not awareness alone, keeps customers coming back, and it has to be earned through a frictionless end-to-end experience as AI changes search and discovery.
Watch the full session on YouTube: Brand or Performance: If You Had to Choose, Which Gets the 70%?
