Perspective 4 – Awareness vs. performance

Perspective 4 – Awareness vs. performanceOn 12 June 2025, at the Royal Savoy in Lausanne, more than 85 professionals from marketing, data and media gathered at bright’s invitation for a new edition of Perspective. The theme of this fourth evening — “Awareness vs. performance” — let us explore a tension communicators know well: must you choose between building a brand over time and generating immediate results? And above all, how do you reconcile those two objectives within a coherent, measurable and effective strategy?

From the introduction onwards, Damien Fournier and Stéphane Benoit-Godet laid the groundwork for the debate: in an environment where measurement is becoming more complex, where third-party cookies are disappearing, and where consumers’ expectations keep shifting, it is becoming urgent to rethink how we design and steer marketing campaigns.

First came Vincent Prou, Director of Adnatus, and Baptiste Constantin, Director of Nendaz Tourisme, who put forward a wholly new approach for maximising the impact of awareness investment. Their conviction? The traditional indicators are no longer enough. What counts from now on is audiences’ real engagement, measured without cookies, in real time, and fed into the delivery algorithms. A method already tested successfully by Nendaz Tourisme, with concrete results on attention, loyalty and user actions.

Then Nicole Samuel Manzo, head of communication at Retraites Populaires, joined by Andréa Escribano, programme lead at bright, shared a singular experience: that of a brand which managed to make awareness and performance converge into one and the same momentum. Through a Business Design Marketing approach structured around a central tool — the Cube — Retraites Populaires aligned its content, its data and its media levers so as to build a smooth, measurable and responsive conversion funnel. The result: a spectacular rise in spontaneous awareness, a fall in cost per lead, and a strategy steered through the year with agility.

Finally, Darko Macoritto, data analyst at bright, and Laurent Garet, CEO of La Redoute Suisse, took up the decisive role of marketing mix modeling. Through this decision-support tool, La Redoute was able to move beyond the classic attribution models and finely readjust its media strategy on the basis of solid data. Budget allocation, channel diversification, the balance between performance and branding: everything was put under the microscope, with concrete lessons to carry forward for investing better in the future.

A rich, well-paced evening, where every talk illustrated an essential facet of contemporary marketing. And as always, the evening carried on in a convivial atmosphere around a first-rate standing dinner — because performance also comes through the quality of the encounters. A year later, the fifth edition took over, devoted to agentic marketing, creativity and hyper-personalisation.

How do you reconcile awareness and performance?

Guests talk standing during the reception.

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A speaker in front of the line “Awareness is measured with 3 unfit metrics!”.

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A speaker in front of the slide “The different attribution methods”.

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Nendaz Tourisme

Nendaz Tourisme – How do you maximise the impact of your awareness investment?

Too often, awareness campaigns are judged on misleading indicators: impressions, click-through rates, reach — metrics that say little about audiences’ real interest. In this talk, Vincent Prou (Director, Adnatus) and Baptiste Constantin (Director, Nendaz Tourisme) presented a radically new approach: refocusing campaign assessment on real user engagement, measured without cookies and usable in real time.

That method rests on a data architecture capable of capturing genuine attention — through time spent on the site, the number of repeat visits, or key interactions. Fed directly into the media delivery algorithms through the solution developed by Adnatus, this strategy makes it possible to optimise campaign performance continuously.

Deployed over the 2024–2025 winter season for Nendaz Tourisme, the approach brought a 34.4% rise in average time spent on the site, an 11% rise in returning visitors and a 14.2% rise in major actions per user. These results confirm one thing: when it comes to awareness, attention is becoming strategic data. In a world without third-party cookies, the brands that bet on this approach gain in relevance, in effectiveness — and in lead time.

Retraites Populaires

Retraites Populaires – The dilemma between performance & awareness: how do you reconcile these two pillars?

For a long time, Retraites Populaires worked like many other brands: by separating awareness effort from performance effort. Two logics coexisted, but in silos. That produced fragmented customer journeys, a partial view of the data and limited overall effectiveness.

Reconciling awareness and performance: the Retraites Populaires case, with Nicole Manzo (head of communication, Retraites Populaires) and Andréa Escribano (programme lead, bright).

In collaboration with bright, the institution took a strategic turn by adopting a
Business Design Marketing approach, enriched by the lessons of marketing mix modeling. That transformation was built around a central tool, the Cube, which gathers every strategic dimension — media, CRM, editorial, sales, production — into a single document. This arrangement centralises the data, feeds the campaigns and allows continuous steering through a connected data warehouse.

Applied to the “Bien vivre sa retraite” programme, this method made it possible to build a smooth, unbroken marketing funnel: from awareness carried by television, the press and premium out-of-home, through to conversion via educational content, simulators and targeted SEA campaigns. In 2024, spontaneous awareness rose by 230% (M.I.S Trend study), while the cost per lead fell by 15% despite a 13% reduction in the media budget. We are responsible there for the media budget, offline as well as online, as part of our Media practice.

Proof that a well-orchestrated strategy makes it possible to bring brand logic and performance imperatives together — without compromise, and effectively.

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La Redoute Suisse

La Redoute – The MMM, or how to ground your media decisions in solid data.

In a post-COVID landscape where buying behaviour is shifting and markets are growing more volatile, La Redoute Suisse wanted to break out of habit and understand better the real impact of its media investment. For that, the retailer turned to marketing mix modeling (MMM), an analytical approach for identifying the channels that perform best — and those that perform less well.

The MMM: grounding your media decisions in solid data, with Darko Macoritto (data analyst, bright) and Laurent Garet (CEO, La Redoute Suisse).

Two MMM exercises were carried out in partnership with bright, revealing decisive lessons. First, budget was reallocated in favour of the Home category, judged more profitable than Fashion. Next, the strategy brought in a deeper diversification of channels, with CRM activity strengthened as a lever complementary to paid advertising. Finally, the split of investment was redefined taking into account the seasonality specific to each segment.

Beyond the figures, this work made it possible to question the status quo in earnest. With a clear, quantified view, La Redoute was able to adjust its strategy with agility, for a more precise steering of its campaigns and better resilience in a shifting economic context.

In conclusion – awareness and performance, a winning pair on three conditions.

These two pillars have to coexist within one integrated strategy, provided three essential rules are respected.

Measure awareness with indicators of real attention: engagement, not mere delivery metrics.

Build a 360° plan that touches every stage of the customer journey, with content, levers and arrangements fitted to each moment.

Lean on solid decision-support tools such as the MMM, to arbitrate investment and optimise it continuously.

This triptych — attention, orchestration, attribution — is the foundation of a modern, durable marketing that performs. It is also the philosophy that drives every project we run at bright.