Page 9 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle

9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING THE MESSY MIDDLE

Marketing in the messy middle

Access to media and information has led to the growth of important

influences that don’t necessarily fit into traditional brand marketing or
performance marketing buckets. This has some big implications for
marketers from brands both large and small. If you don’t truly understand
why consumers make the purchase decisions that they do, you may not
achieve the full return on your brand investments, and could find yourself
vulnerable to nimble competitors.

It seems then that “messy middle” might also be a good way to describe how
marketing has evolved over the past decade or two, with the polarisation

between branding and direct response creating a gap into which all sorts
of valuable consumer behaviour goes unrecognised and underserved.
Getting comfortable with the messy middle could ultimately help bridge
organisational divides that our research suggests mean more to marketing
departments than they do to consumers.

Of course, figuring out what consumers think and how they behave is not a
new idea. It’s an aspiration that’s always been at the very heart of marketing.

But, as we’re about to find out, the context within which marketers are trying
to achieve this goal has changed dramatically.

Getting comfortable with the messy

middle could ultimately help bridge

organisational divides that our research

suggests mean more to marketing

departments than they do to consumers.