Most marketers already know brand-building works. The harder question, and the one a new report from WARC and four research partners sets out to answer, is why so few of them are actually doing it.
The culprit, according to a survey of more than 200 senior marketers, isn’t skepticism about the evidence. It’s eight blockers spanning cultural, procedural, and structural misalignments that keep evidence-based principles from ever reaching actual practice, starting with a C-suite that says it believes in brand-building and then runs its business as if it doesn’t.
The Multiplier Playbook, released in partnership with Analytic Partners, BERA.ai, Prophet, and System1 and developed with the Association of National Advertisers, is a follow-up to last year’s Multiplier Effect study that identified a 90% median revenue ROI uplift for brands that shifted from performance-only to a mixed brand-and-performance advertising approach. The new report draws on survey data collected between December 2025 and March 2026 to diagnose why that shift remains the exception rather than the rule.
The C-suite disconnect runs through nearly every finding.
While 67% of marketers say their CEO recognizes the importance of brand building, only 19% say shifts in brand equity are routinely credited with driving business outcomes. Alignment on advertising objectives is even weaker: 60% of respondents said the C-suite does not fully understand the role of advertising, and just 21% reported strong alignment between advertising objectives and C-suite priorities.
A reliance on channel-specific return on ad spend addresses only short-term sales, one of the C-suite’s top five commercial priorities, while leaving profitability, long-term demand, market share, and enterprise value largely unserved. Brand-building, the report argues, explicitly serves all five, while also generating short-term sales lift and improving the efficiency of performance spending.
Structural issues compound the problem.
Nearly half of organizations maintain separate brand and performance teams, against only 25% with fully integrated teams. 65% carry separate brand and performance budgets. Only 44% report a common language between their brand and performance functions.
Creativity presents its own blocker. 41% of marketers cited creativity as a perceived risk, and more than half reported a lack of confidence in advertising effectiveness measurement. Analytic Partners ROI Genome data finds that 90% of ads are pulled before they have enough time to wear in and reach full impact; a dynamic the report attributes to short-term pressure and siloed measurement rather than creative failure.
The report recommends a “fewer, bigger, longer” approach to creative strategy and calls for tighter integration between media planning, creative development, and measurement.
