How to make the business case for brand investment to your CEO and board

How do you convince a CEO and board to keep investing in brand?

Treat brand as an asset that earns money over time, and present it in the financial terms the board already uses. Ask for a protected budget and report evidence every quarter. Leadership rarely rejects brand outright. It rejects spending it cannot see paying back before the next earnings call.

The gap is measurable. In NielsenIQ's CMO Outlook survey, 44 per cent of marketing leaders agreed very strongly that their CEO and CFO believe in investing in the brand for the long term, up from 41 per cent in 2023. Only 31 per cent felt they had the right balance between short-term return and long-term brand building (NielsenIQ, 2024). The board believes in brand. It just doesn't fund it.

At IW Agency, we think the case for brand is usually lost on language, not on evidence. We build it in three parts: translate, protect, prove. Translate brand into the outcomes the board owns. Protect a share of spend from quarterly cuts. Prove progress with numbers that move before revenue does.

What do you need before you build the case?

Before you build the case, you need a clear strategy, a baseline and an ally in finance. Without them, the case reads as a request for faith. Gather these first:

1. A brand strategy on one page. It says what the brand stands for, who it is for and how it differs. If that is still unclear, start with the brand platform.

2. A baseline. Record current awareness, consideration, price position and market share, so that later gains have something to be measured against.

3. An ally in finance. A CFO or controller who helps choose the metrics also shares ownership of the case.

4. An honest view of risk. If the early signs of a brand losing relevance are already showing, say so. Risk moves a board faster than opportunity.

Conclusion: Without a baseline, every brand result is an opinion.

How do you translate brand into the board's language?

Link every brand investment to a driver the board already tracks: growth, margin, share or cost of acquisition. Brand Finance makes the same point: a compelling case connects brand investment to drivers such as customer acquisition, revenue growth, market share or operational efficiency (Brand Finance, 2026).

1. Start with the board's goal, not marketing's. If the strategy is margin, lead with price premium. If it is growth, lead with reaching new buyers.

2. Explain how brand turns into sales. Brand works by being remembered when people buy. Map the category entry points you want to own and show how each one links to revenue.

3. Quote CEOs, not marketers. Nike's CEO Elliot Hill has said the company is "shifting dollars from performance marketing to brand marketing". Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden has reduced the company's dependence on short-term performance campaigns to safeguard brand equity (Brand Finance, 2026).

4. Show what strong brands return. Kantar's BrandZ research finds that strong brands consistently deliver superior shareholder returns and recover faster from crises. Its 2025 data shows that 71 per cent of the value added to the BrandZ Top 100 since 2006 came from brands that disrupted their categories or themselves (Kantar, 2026).

"Brand awareness" sounds like a cost to a board. "Cheaper growth" sounds like a strategy.

How do you show that brand building and short-term sales work together?

Show the board that brand makes short-term activity cheaper and more effective, so the decision is about balance rather than either-or. Performance marketing harvests demand. Brand creates the demand to harvest.

We think the strongest proof is a company that shifted towards brand and saw its results improve. According to Brand Finance, Airbnb drastically reduced its marketing spend during the pandemic and pivoted from performance-focused strategies to brand marketing. The "Made Possible by Hosts" campaign followed in 2021. Brand Finance says the shift allowed Airbnb to achieve record financial performance while improving marketing efficiency. It estimates Airbnb's brand value at USD 5.9 billion in 2026, up from USD 2.4 billion in 2016 (Brand Finance, 2026).

1. Present one plan with two horizons. Brand and activation sit in the same plan, with separate goals and separate timelines.

2. Track brand's effect on performance metrics. Watch whether conversion rates, cost per acquisition and price premium improve where the brand is stronger.

3. Defend the emotional work. Brands that make people feel something get chosen again. That is why emotional branding belongs in a financial argument.

Conclusion: Performance harvests demand. Brand plants it.

How do you agree a budget split the board will sign off?

Propose a fixed split based on evidence, and protect it as a policy instead of renegotiating it every quarter. For consumer brands, Binet & Field's analysis for the IPA found the best long-term results came from roughly 60 per cent of spend on brand building and 40 per cent on activation (Binet & Field, IPA, 2013). Treat that as a starting point, not a law. Our guide to splitting brand and performance budgets covers how to adjust it.

1. Make the split a rule. Agree the ratio once, at board level, for at least the full planning cycle.

2. Set a floor. Name the minimum brand spend that survives a weak quarter, and what it protects.

3. Agree the time horizon. Brand work compounds over years. IW has worked with Arla since 2007 to evolve its product portfolio and help shape a clear ambition for the brand.

4. Present cuts as spending capital. A brand like Lurpak, built on 120 years of craft heritage, shows what decades of consistency add up to. Every cut to brand spend draws on stock like that.

How do you report so the case survives the next quarter?

Report leading brand indicators every quarter, next to sales, so the board sees progress before revenue follows. A brand dashboard that only appears once a year will lose to a sales report that appears every week.

These are signs that the case is working:

1. Brand memory is rising. Prompted and spontaneous awareness grow in the buying situations you chose to own.

2. Your price holds. You keep your price premium during promotions by competitors.

3. Acquisition gets cheaper. Cost per acquisition falls in markets where brand spend is stable.

4. AI assistants describe you correctly. Assistants name and describe the brand the way you intend. Our guide on how your brand shows up in ChatGPT explains how to check.

5. Leaders use the language. The CEO talks about the brand in strategy meetings without being prompted.

What does this mean for your brand?

• Lead with the board's numbers. Open every brand discussion with growth, margin or cost of acquisition, not with awareness.

• Write the split down. Have the board approve a brand-to-activation ratio and a floor as policy.

• Borrow CEO voices. Quotes from CEOs like Nike's carry more weight with a board than marketing theory.

• Report brand quarterly. Put brand indicators on the same page as sales, every time.

• Show the work. Real cases make the argument concrete. Browse our work for examples across categories.

Frequently asked questions

How long does brand investment take to pay back?

Brand investment pays back over years, not weeks. Binet & Field's analysis found that sales activation effects fade quickly, while brand effects build over the long term (Binet & Field, IPA, 2013). Agree the time horizon with the board before the first quarterly review.

What metrics should we show the CEO and board?

Show a short set of leading indicators next to financial results. Useful measures are awareness in key buying situations, consideration, price premium and cost per acquisition. Pick four or five and keep them stable over time.

What if leadership still wants to cut brand spend?

If leadership still wants to cut, propose a protected floor and a defined test period. Agree in advance what result would justify keeping or raising the spend. A board is more willing to commit when the decision has an end date.

Is brand investment only for consumer brands?

No, B2B brands also need brand investment. The balance between brand and activation differs by category and buying cycle. Our guide to brand vs performance budgets covers the differences.

From cost line to company asset

Boards keep investing in brand when it is presented as an asset with returns they can follow. Translate, protect, prove, and the conversation shifts from defending a cost to building something the company owns. If you want to talk through your own case, write to us at hello@iwagency.com.

Sources

• Communicating Brand Value: Marketing's Business Case for Investment — NielsenIQ, 2024

• Bridging the gap between marketing and finance: Making the case for brand investment — Brand Finance, 2026

• Navigating a new era: brand leadership at the crossroads of opportunity — Kantar, 2026