We need to talk about the word “performance.”
Somewhere along the line, we let it get hijacked. Stripped of its flair, drained of its drama, and shackled to a dashboard. Now when someone says “performance marketing,” they mean sales activation. BOF tactics. Real-time data. CTRs and ROIs and pixel-powered conversion funnels.
Which is fine. Necessary, even.
But here’s the real issue: “performance” wasn’t that.
The Stage We Forgot We Were On
Marketing has always been a performance. Not just in the metrics, but in the meaning. Not just in the numbers, but in the show.
The way a brand walks, talks, looks, lives. The way it tells stories, plays characters, and leaves a lasting impression. The way it makes people feel something they didn’t know they needed. That’s performance.
That’s performance in a showmanship sense. But somehow, we let it get reduced to click-through rates.
BOF Hijacked the Word
What frustrates me isn’t sales activation. It’s that we started calling it performance.
Performance should be how the brand performs in culture, not just how an ad performs in a funnel.
The tactical took over the theatrical. Now, unless a campaign delivers immediate returns, it’s seen as fluff. Soft. Indulgent.
Yes, all this, despite the efforts of the big Less Binets, Mark Ritsons or Byron Sharps of the world.
But marketing wasn’t built to be rational. It was built to perform.
Brand Has Always Been Performance
When Les Binet and Peter Field dropped their 60/40 wisdom, it wasn’t just a call to balance short and long. It was a plea to remember the craft. The emotional. The long-term brand magic that performs invisibly, until suddenly it performs undeniably.
System1 gave it a name: showmanship. Because the best marketing doesn’t sell—it seduces. It entertains. It stays in your head like a song you didn’t ask for but now can’t forget.
And Mark Ritson? He nailed it. It’s not the long. It’s the lasting. The brand effects that don’t just move units—they move minds.
What We Lost in the Funnel
When digital exploded, we gained tools but lost our sense of theatre.
We started optimising headlines instead of writing them. Testing emotions instead of evoking them. Measuring attention instead of earning it.
Performance marketing became performance metrics, not marketing that actually performs.
But the audience never changed. They still want to be moved, entertained, understood. They still want a show. Not a spreadsheet.
The Real Performance Marketer
The best marketers have always been performers. Not fakers—performers.
They know how to hold attention. How to make a product feel bigger than it is. How to create a moment, a myth, a meaning. That’s not fluff. That’s the main event.
And yes, BOF has its place. Sales activation should convert. But it should follow the performance, not replace it.
A Good Product Is Common. A Great Performance Isn’t.
Most products are functionally identical. But a brand with presence, with charisma, with narrative? That’s what wins.
That’s what lasts. That’s what performs.
We Don’t Need “Performance Marketing.”
We need marketing that performs.
We need to stop using the word “performance” as a synonym for conversion. It’s a disservice to the craft. It erases the emotion, the risk, the theatre.
Let BOF do its job. But let marketing reclaim its stage.
Because in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to call it “performance marketing.”
All marketing would be performance.
Not about sales.
About the show.
And the best marketers? They’re not just analysts. They’re performers. They know that brand is the act. And sales are the applause.
So yes—let the dashboards dash. Let the BOF boys optimize.
But me? I’ll be in the wings, adjusting the spotlight. Rehearsing the lines. Making sure the brand knows how to own the stage.
Because I am The Average Adman.
I’ve built funnels that went nowhere.
Sold strategy with no soul.
And clapped for metrics I didn’t understand.
But I’ve also remembered something most of us forgot:
Marketing is not about being efficient.
It’s about being unforgettable.
Not about closing the sale.
But opening the show.
Bold. Brave. Undifferent.
averageadman.com
Now cue the music.
And let the brand perform.
