How to integrate branding and performance: insights from the Cubo Open Day panel

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How can companies effectively unite branding and performance? This was the central theme of the panel held at Cubo Open Day, which brought together Daniel Alencar, CEO of Pupila, and Renan Ramos Cardoso, Head of Growth & Marketing at Conta Simples, for a candid discussion about the challenges and opportunities of this integration.

"It's common for startups to focus primarily on achieving quick results," highlighted Manuela Barreiros in the event's opening. The moderator presented a crucial insight from Google: 90% of B2B clients already have their suppliers in mind at the beginning of the buying journey. This number set the tone for the debate about the importance of branding even in environments focused on immediate results.
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Let's explore the key insights shared during the event.

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The difference (and complementarity) between branding and performance

"Branding is the marketing discipline that seeks intentionality in building brand perception," explained Daniel Alencar during the panel. While branding works with premises of meticulous execution and experience control, performance marketing prioritizes volume, results, and agility.

This fundamental difference in execution premises traditionally created an antagonism between the two disciplines. On one side, branding demanding time and investment to ensure consistency. On the other, performance requiring speed and low cost to enable testing and optimization.

However, as Daniel pointed out, "there's no gain in this duality. In fact, there's only a loss in overall business efficiency." The key lies in finding ways to unify these universes.

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From theory to practice

Renan shared how Conta Simples overcame this challenge: "The first thing we did was sit everyone in a room and say: from now on, we are a single marketing area, with joint objectives."

This unification translated into complementary goals - the acquisition team gained brand quality metrics, while the branding team received performance objectives. "The main thing was to transform this into a single team, it's a marketing team that has challenges in both brand ownership and customer acquisition," explained Renan.

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The three most common integration mistakes

Daniel Alencar pointed out three pitfalls companies often fall into when trying to align branding and performance:

1. Exclusive focus on short-term: Directing all investment to immediate performance, neglecting brand building.
2. Strategy fragmentation: Treating branding and performance as separate silos, creating disconnected customer experiences.
3. Inconsistent execution: Compromising communication quality and consistency due to speed pressure.

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How to measure branding success?

One of the most challenging questions in the branding world is results measurement. As Renan shared, Conta Simples incorporated brand awareness metrics into financial results meetings: "We start our meetings by discussing awareness, reach, how people are consuming our brand, before getting into conversion numbers."

Daniel added that while having an exact metric is difficult, there are several proxies that can indicate brand building success:

• Organic traffic volume
• Content engagement time
• Recommendation index
• Positive spontaneous mentions

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Questions that moved the panel
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• How to establish performance goals for traditionally branding-focused channels, like PR?Renan explained that Conta Simples establishes acquisition goals for all channels, including PR, albeit less aggressive ones. The secret lies in tracking customer origin and measuring the organic impact of PR actions.

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• What is the founder's role in brand building?Daniel emphasized that while a founder can delegate execution, the brand's essence must come from them: "The brand comes greatly from them. They can delegate execution, but the essence needs to be part of the values, the beliefs."

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• How to handle unpredictable results in PR and press relations channels?According to Renan, the key is to establish realistic goals and implement an efficient tracking system. At Conta Simples, they added touchpoints in the account opening process to identify customer origin, allowing them to measure these channels' real impact.

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• How to ensure brand consistency when producing content at high speed?A: Daniel highlighted that technology is fundamental in this process. With adequate tools, it's possible to automate aspects of creative production while maintaining brand consistency, even at scale and with high delivery speed.

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• Should an early-stage startup invest in branding or focus solely on performance?A: The panelists' recommendation was clear: invest in both from the start. As Daniel explained, "thinking intentionally about the brand from the beginning" is crucial, as it defines the path the company will follow and facilitates all future marketing decisions.

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• How to align branding and performance teams that historically work separately?A: Renan shared Conta Simples' experience: start by establishing shared objectives, create metrics that interest both teams, and promote a collaborative culture where each team understands and values the other's work.

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• What are the first steps for a company wanting to start integrating branding and performance?‍

Daniel and Renan recommended starting with:

• Clearly defining brand values and positioning
• Establishing metrics that contemplate both branding and performance
• Investing in tools that enable scale without losing consistency
• Training teams to think in an integrated way

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From duality to synergy

In a scenario where 56% of marketers struggle to meet content demands and budgets shrink 15% year over year, the integration between branding and performance has ceased to be an option and become a strategic imperative.

Technology emerges as an enabler of this transformation, allowing brands to maintain their essence even when they need to operate at high speed and scale.

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Success in this integration journey depends on four fundamental pillars:

• Building a solid brand foundation that guides all actions
• Implementing tools that ensure consistency even at scale
• Establishing metrics that connect immediate results and brand value
• Cultivating a culture where teams collaborate around shared objectives

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In the end, it's about understanding that branding and performance are not opposing forces, but complementary ones. When intelligently integrated, they create a virtuous cycle where each performance action strengthens the brand, and a stronger brand enhances performance results.

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This article is a summary of the panel held at Cubo Open Day on 02/18/25. Keep exploring this topic: follow Pupila on LinkedIn for more insights about the future of marketing or contact us to discover how our technology can transform your brand strategy.

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