What are marketers still afraid of?

Why are marketers still obsessed with engagement rates while their brands fade into irrelevance? Because it’s easier to count clicks than to build enduring value.

The marketing industry is full of clever-looking metrics, Excel sheets, and data-heavy presentations. But when it comes down to the essence – how to build strong brands for the long run while still delivering short-term results – most marketers freeze. They don’t know how to confidently navigate between the two.

This lack of confidence usually comes down to a lack of proper training. Too many so-called “digital experts” feel like marketing gurus after a few online courses, but in reality they have no solid knowledge of strategy, no understanding of market laws, and a deep fear of creativity. So when decisions need to be made, they jump on the supposedly safe short-term numbers.

That’s what separates confident marketers from insecure colleagues. A confident professional thinks in business outcomes. They don’t care how many likes a post gets if the cash register is ringing. They understand that brand building is a long game and know how to connect short-term campaigns to long-term value creation. Insecure marketers, on the other hand, chase clicks, reach, and conversions – instead of building genuine business growth.

Creativity, in the eyes of many, is a risk. “What if my stakeholders don’t like it?” “What if the market doesn’t understand?” “Will it be too complicated?” This attitude is not only cowardly but also a sign of a complete lack of market orientation. Yet creativity is exactly what makes a brand stand out, what makes it stick in people’s minds. Without strategy and market understanding, every creative idea feels like gambling – which is why many don’t dare to touch it at all.

In recent years, the number of marketers who measure their “success” with short-term campaign metrics has grown sharply: social media engagement, impressions, traffic, conversion, purchase frequency. A nice Excel rainbow – but when did these ever translate into brand value? When did they ever deliver lasting market share? The answer: never. At best, these numbers show that a campaign is breathing – not that a brand is alive and growing.

The essence of real marketing is not to force ourselves onto consumers, but to earn their attention. The goal of brand building is not only to reach current core buyers but also to capture future, light buyers. And that only works if we connect emotionally, entertain, and earn attention – not if we try to persuade already frequent buyers with boring ads.

As System 1 points out well-structured brand strategy is therefore capable of delivering immediate business results and building long-term brand effects. This dual impact is what separates real growth from mere short-term campaign “successes.” Those who chase only short-term clicks run campaigns. Those who think long-term build brands. And the difference between the two is night and day.

But what does the solution actually look like?

It starts with understanding the laws of growth: brands grow not by squeezing more from a narrow core, but by reaching all potential category buyers and driving penetration across the broadest possible segment. This means identifying the category entry points—the real-world situations, needs, and contexts in which buying decisions are made—and ensuring the brand shows up consistently at those moments.

To do this, marketers must ruthlessly leverage and reinforce their distinctive brand assets—visuals, sounds, words, experiences—that anchor the brand in memory and make it impossible to miss. And they must commit to long-term, consistent communication that uses emotion not as decoration, but as the driver of distinctiveness and differentiation. Because rational persuasion rarely builds brands—but emotion does.

As long as most of the profession is chasing clicks rather than business outcomes, everything we call “marketing” remains mere symptom treatment. Confident marketers know that growth comes from combining the short and the long, the rational and the emotional, the tactical and the strategic. That’s how you create a system where campaigns deliver sales today and brand value tomorrow.

Those who lack courage count clicks. Those who have courage win markets.

The article was originally written by László Aczél, as Managing Faculty and Head of Marketing and Partnerships at SEED Executive School for the SEEDea plaform.