Marketing keeps speeding up, but the fundamentals remain: earn attention, create real value, build brands that last.
At IVALO, we help clients do just that – turning strategy into cultural and commercial momentum.
In this issue of IVALO Insights: why every business is in show business, how to build brands that create value, and what the 0.2% trap reveals about real growth.
INSIGHT 1
Every Business Is Show Business: Pop Culture as a Brand Growth System
When we first read Forbes’ line that “every business is now in show business,” it stuck with us – because it’s true. Whether you’re selling sneakers, software, or policy, you’re competing for attention on the same stage. Just ask Snoop Dogg changing perception at the Olympics. Or closer to home, look at Finland’s Verohallinto – the tax authority that’s been nailing social media for years. They’re playing by the same rules of show business as any brand that wants to be noticed.
WARC‘s latest podcast on pop culture and soft power makes the same point: culture shapes what people desire, how they identify, and where they spend. The brands that understand this don’t just get seen, they get remembered.
What works?
- Think like a producer, staffed for culture – Build repeatable formats, not one-offs, and empower a team that lives the scene. Treat launches like seasons and drops, not campaigns.
- Follow your cultural north star and design for fandom – Don’t chase every trend. Pick the fandoms that fit your brand truth and build rituals, lore, and communities that keep people coming back.
- Borrow fame, build equity – Collaborate with creators and IPs, but make sure your brand stays the star.
- Start small, scale smart – Niche is mass in the making. Prove it locally, then expand with intent.
- Plan the comedown – Culture spikes fade. Keep momentum with ownable assets, always-on stories, and products that sustain the buzz.
The takeaway for marketers
Show business isn’t about stunts for their own sake. It’s a system for earning attention, building memory, and converting it into demand. Choose your stage, commit to the bit, and make your brand the thing people remember when the credits roll.
Read More
Forbes: 14 Mega-Trends In Marketing Right Now (2024)
WARC Podcast: Labubu what? How pop culture drives soft power
INSIGHT 2
Reinventing Brand Strategy: The Wheel Still Turns
Every now and then, someone reinvents the wheel – or brand strategy as a wheel. Sometimes the wheel even turns into a square or a diamond. In this case, it’s still a wheel, and quite a thoughtful one.
Erich Joachimsthaler of Vivaldi revisits decades of branding theory and argues that the models guiding marketers since Aaker and Keller’s era no longer keep pace with the exponential speed of business and technology. His Holistic Brand Model reframes brand strategy not as storytelling or perception management but as a system of value creation across entire ecosystems. The brand is no longer a signal or asset, but an engine.
What works
- Identity with depth – Go beyond image or positioning. The brand’s essence must be lived through culture, values and behavior, not just communicated.
- Resonance through interaction – Engagement isn’t a pyramid; it’s a two-way system of shared participation and learning. Every meaningful interaction compounds value.
- Value as the core metric – Brand investments should be measured like capital investments: by contribution to growth, pricing power and economic profit, not just awareness.
- Brands as systems, not symbols – Strong brands embed into people’s routines and workflows. They interact, adapt and learn – powered by data, AI and networks.
- A living operating system – Brand strategy becomes a dynamic architecture of sensing, responding and co-creating – a BrandOS where marketing, product, data and finance align.
The takeaway for marketers
The Holistic Brand Model doesn’t replace what came before; it expands it. Branding today is about how value is created, shared and multiplied across every part of the business, not just how it’s perceived.
Read more
WARC: Reinventing brand strategy: The holistic brand model
INSIGHT 3
The 0.2% Trap: Why Most Marketing Misses the Real Opportunity
5% × 16% × 25% = 0.2%.
That’s the harsh math of modern marketing, as Peter Buckley from Meta puts it. Only 5% of people are in-market, 16% will switch brands, and 25% ever click an ad. Most marketing, then, fights for just 0.2% of potential buyers – the tiny overlap of people ready to buy, open to influence, and likely to engage.
The 16% figure comes from a new WPP Media and Oxford Universitystudy of 1.1 million purchase journeys across 47 markets. Even in high-switch categories like travel, most people still choose the brand they already preferred. The point isn’t that performance marketing fails – it’s that too many brands chase what’s easy to measure instead of what actually builds growth. The 0.2% live in dashboards; the 99.8% build the future.
What works?
- Shift focus from the few to the many – Build brand bias before buyers enter the market. Familiarity beats last-click tactics.
- Track long-term signals – Grow direct sales, branded search and non-paid referrals. Expand the base of your marketing mix models.
- Reduce elasticity – Aim for lower sensitivity to media and price changes – a sign your brand is doing the heavy lifting.
- Invest where data is slow – Most of the 99.8% can’t be seen in dashboards yet, but they’re the ones who’ll sustain future sales.
The takeaway for marketers
Chasing the same 0.2% is efficient, but it’s not growth. The real advantage comes from shaping preference long before the purchase moment – because once buyers are in-market, it’s already too late.