Mastering the 60/40 Marketing Mix: How Peter Field & Les Binet’s Framework Maximises ROI

Les Binet and Peter Field are the architects of what’s often called “The Long and the Short of It”- a data‑driven framework that shows how to balance immediate sales activation with longer‑term brand building:

Evidence from the IPA Databank

By analysing thousands of effectiveness case studies submitted to the IPA, they discovered that the sweet spot for most consumer brands is roughly 60 % of spend on brand (emotion‑led, broad‑reach work) and 40 % on activation (direct‑response, performance tactics) Tracksuit.

Why 60 / 40?‍‍

Brand building creates the mental availability and emotional bonds that sustain market share over time, while activation drives the pull‑through and measurable short‑term ROI. Too much activation in isolation often delivers a quick spike in sales but leaves a brand vulnerable once the campaign ends; too much brand work without activation can build awareness but starve the funnel.

Contextual Flexing

Binet & Field stress that 60 / 40 is a baseline, not a rule written in stone. The ideal split flexes based on:

• Industry sector (e.g. financial services often skew toward 70–80 % brand)
• Purchase model (subscription vs one‑off)
• Product innovation (rapidly evolving categories need more brand support)
• Category life‑stage (new entrants vs mature markets)
• Brand size (established giants vs emerging challengers) growthmethod.com.
• Creativity + Measurement
  Peter Field’s work emphasizes that emotionally rich, creatively awarded campaigns deliver outsized business effects—provided they’re balanced with enough activation spend to capture immediate demand. Les Binet takes a “physics‑of‑growth” approach, rigorously linking share‑of‑voice to share‑of‑market and using econometric models to quantify the long‑term returns of brand investment IPA.

The takeaway:

Instead of chasing only instant conversions or only long‑term brand fame, smart marketers allocate resources to both—using a flexible, evidence‑based 60/40 framework that they tweak by sector, lifecycle, innovation and brand maturity. This dual focus maximizes both immediate ROI and sustainable growth.

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Read next: why D2C brands are rebalancing acquisition and retention and how to allocate your D2C media budget