Often seen as two distinct marketing disciplines. Branding is long term. Immeasurable and slow. Direct response is short term, measurable and fast.
Seek to disprove this theory.
What if direct response was a deliver mechanism for brand marketing? A seed for the virus to spread?
When doing direct response marketing, there is waste. Even with great profits, you’re still getting in front of lots of people who don’t buy.
You could still aim to delight and surprise them. You could still try to create lasting change.
If you do, and you still make a profit on your direct response, you’ve gone ahead and grown yourself a scalable delivery method for brand marketing, that pays for itself.
Congrats.