Why brand building trumps performance marketing in the age of AI
For the last decade, performance marketing has felt like the hero of the story. Clicks, conversions, ROAS dashboards and real-time tweaks have made it look like the smartest, most efficient way to grow. But as AI changes how people search, shop and discover brands, a simple truth is becoming harder to ignore: you can’t “perform” your way out of not having a brand.
In the age of AI, brand building is not a “nice to have” sitting behind performance. It’s the thing that makes all of your activity – including performance marketing – work harder. For FMCG and retail brands, this is where PR come back into the foreground.
Performance marketing is brilliant – but only at one thing
Performance marketing is brilliant at reaching people who are already in the market, nudging them towards a specific action and showing short-term results quickly. If someone is already searching for your category, a well-targeted ad can win the click.
The problem is that performance can’t easily create new demand. It struggles to reach the people who aren’t searching yet, and it works best when people already recognise, trust or at least have heard of your brand. In other words, performance is great at harvesting demand; brand building is what creates it.
AI changes the game again
AI and LLMs are changing how people discover new products, plan diets and meals, find inspiration for recipes and occasions, and decide what to buy in the first place. Instead of browsing endless pages, people ask AI questions like “What are good high-protein snacks in the UK?”, “Suggest some healthier breakfast cereals for kids” or “What are the best ethical chocolate brands?”.
The AI then gives them a short list of options. In that moment, there is less space for generic performance ads and more importance on which brands are already known, trusted and well-described across the web. AI needs a kind of mental shortlist – and that shortlist is built from brand-building activity over time: consistent storytelling, presence in trusted media and retail channels, and clear, repeated associations (“this brand = this role in my life”). That’s brand work, and it’s exactly where PR excels.
Brand building makes AI and performance work harder
Strong brands have memory, meaning and difference. People recognise them quickly, know roughly what they stand for and feel they are distinct from the crowd. In the age of AI, those three things matter because AIs are more likely to surface brands that are consistently talked about in similar ways, people are more likely to choose brands they already feel something about even when presented with multiple “rational” options, and performance activity – ads, promos, in-app placements – works better when it lands on familiar ground.
PR helps create that memory, meaning and difference by telling clear, human stories about what your brand stands for, showing up in trusted places – media, retailer environments, social – and connecting your brand to real shopper missions, not just one-off campaigns.
Why PR is a brand builder, not just a megaphone
PR has always been about more than coverage for coverage’s sake. Done well, it builds distinctive stories that people can remember and repeat, gives brands a point of view on real topics such as health, value, sustainability and culture, and puts founders, experts and advocates into the conversation.
In a world where AI tools scan and summarise the web, PR becomes the craft that decides which stories and phrases about your brand actually exist online, and the route to ensuring your brand is consistently described in ways that match your strategy and reality, not just your last ad. For smaller FMCG brands, PR is often a more cost-effective way to build brand than trying to out-spend bigger players in paid media.
Why shopper PR is the bridge between brand and sales
Brand building can sound “high up in the clouds” to teams under pressure to drive short-term numbers. This is where shopper PR is especially useful for FMCG. PR starts from real shopping moments – the top-up trip, the food-to-go run, the what’s for dinner panic – and asks: what does this brand stand for in this moment, in this store, for this mission? It then builds ideas and activations that carry the brand story all the way to the shelf.
Shopper PR keeps brand building tied to shopper behaviour and retail reality, not just brand decks; it shows retailers how brand work can drive category growth, basket spend, trial and loyalty; and it gives performance marketing stronger creative platforms to plug into. In the age of AI, where discovery can happen in a chat window and purchase might happen in-store, brand building and shopper activation aren’t separate. Shopper PR connects the two.
What this means practically for FMCG brands
If you’re an FMCG or retail marketer, especially with limited budget, this doesn’t mean switching off performance. It means balancing the mix and protecting a portion of spend and time for brand-building PR, not just last-click activity. Use PR to create clear, repeatable stories about what your brand stands for, who it’s for and what job it does in people’s lives.
Use PR to apply those stories to real missions – breakfast, lunchbox, post-gym, treat, midweek dinner, top-up shop – so your brand shows up consistently in the moments that matter. Make sure those stories appear in media and category conversations, in retailer environments and in your own channels, structured in ways humans and AIs can easily read. You’re building a brand footprint that both people and machines can recognise.
Where Joe Public fits
At Joe Public, we exist because shoppers are not generic and brands can’t afford to be either. Our focus on shopper PR and retail communications for FMCG brands is all about building brands that mean something in real people’s lives, connecting that meaning to retail and shopper reality, and making sure short-term activity and long-term brand building work together, not against each other.
In the age of AI, the brands that win won’t just be the ones who spend the most on performance. They’ll be the ones that know what they stand for, show up consistently across channels and missions, and invest in brand building that gives every click, search and AI answer something solid to land on. If you’re rethinking the balance between brand, performance and AI in your plans, and want shopper-led thinking in the mix, we’d love to talk.
