The Multiplier Effect: How Brands Unleash Full-Funnel Growth

For more than a decade, performance marketing has claimed an outsized share of CMO attention—and budget. But new research from The Multiplier Effect: A CMO’s Guide to Brand Building in the Performance Era reveals a deeper truth: the most powerful results come not from performance or brand alone, but from a smart, integrated approach that connects the two. 

Developed in collaboration with WARC, Analytic Partners, BERA and System1, this landmark report offers one of the clearest cases yet for full-funnel marketing—Prophet is proud to have played a central role in bringing it to life. Through our work designing and executing brand and demand strategies that deliver measurable business impact for our clients, we know that when brand and performance work together, growth multiplies. 

The Myth of the Performance-Only Playbook 

The research confronts a long-standing myth: that brand marketing can’t deliver provable business results. The data tells a different story: 

• Brand marketing alone outperforms performance marketing in ROI. 
• When brand and performance efforts are combined, the return on investment increases by an extraordinary 90%. 
• High brand awareness makes performance campaigns more effective at the bottom of the funnel. 
• Stronger brands enjoy greater pricing power—improving profitability, not just reach. In fact, a 1% increase in brand differentiation and relevance drives a 0.6% lift in pricing power. 

These insights are particularly important in categories where consideration cycles are long. In B2B, for example, just 5% of buyers are in-market at any given time. Performance tactics focused only on in-market buyers will always miss the majority of the audience. Investing in brand ensures you’re influencing choice long before a prospect raises their hand. 

Why CMOs Need a New Approach 

The distinction between brand and performance marketing is increasingly outdated—and, as the report shows, costly. Over-prioritizing performance at the expense of brand leads to a “performance penalty,” where revenue returns can drop between 20% and 50%. The solution? A more balanced and integrated investment strategy: 

• CMOs should allocate at least 30% of marketing spend to equity-driving work, with 40–60% considered best practice. 
• Marketers need to shift from siloed brand and performance teams to integrated planning, aligning campaigns around full-funnel creative platforms. 
• Budgets should account for the “media multiplier”—the longer-term value of media investments—which can range from 1.1x to 2x, depending on the channel. 
•  Have patience—but not that much… while performance marketing might show an initial bump in sales, within 90 days, 50% of the brand impact will be realized 

Finally, marketers need the tools to measure what really matters. The report encourages building a “measurement stack” that tracks both short- and long-term impact—from immediate campaign returns to effects on pricing, preference, and brand equity. 

How to Win Across the Funnel 

At Prophet, we’ve long believed that sustainable, uncommon growth comes from integrating brand and demand. That’s why we help CMOs and marketing teams not only define their brand’s purpose and positioning—but also bring it to market through strategies that drive awareness, conversion, and loyalty. 

Our work with clients like PENN Entertainment, FM, Inspira Financial and Curative demonstrates how a full-funnel approach pays off: 

• For Inspira Financial, we led a full rebrand from Millennium Trust, delivering everything from strategic foundations to campaign creative and media execution. 
• For Curative, an innovative health insurance challenger, we partnered across two phases: building the brand and go-to-market story, then developing a high-performance ABM demand strategy. The result? Record-breaking mid- and lower-funnel engagement and rapid customer growth.