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Episode 180
Betting on the Long with Aaron Pelander, Chief Brand Officer, GOVX
The IPA analyzed nearly 1,000 campaigns and found a 60/40 split between brand and performance marketing drives the strongest long-term growth. GOVX tested that research and broke free of a plateau.
This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob talk with Aaron Pelander, Chief Brand Officer at GOVX, the largest online retailer serving the US military and first responder community. Aaron shares how GOVX moved from a performance-only mindset to a balanced brand strategy. He breaks down the leading indicators his team tracks, from share of search to direct traffic. Marketers on a plateau will get a real plan for building brand strength.
Topics Covered
• [04:00] GOVX marketing before the plateau hit
• [07:00] What clicked after reading The Long and the Short of It
• [09:00] Splitting budget into member and brand marketing
• [14:00] Leading indicators like share of search and direct traffic
• [21:00] Earning executive buy-in for TV and sponsorships
• [33:00] Aaron's advice for brands stuck on a plateau
• [34:00] Why precise attribution is overrated
Resources:
2013 IPA Report
GOVX Website
Aaron Pelander's LinkedIn
Today's Hosts
Elena Jasper
Chief Marketing Officer
Rob DeMars
Chief Misfit
Angela Voss
Chief Executive Officer
Aaron Pelander
Chief Brand Officer, GOVX
Transcript
Elena: I'm Elena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co-host, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the chief misfit at Misfits & Machines.
Angela: Hey guys.
Rob: Hello, hello, hello.
Elena: And today we have a guest joining us, Aaron Pelander. He is the chief brand officer at GOVX, the largest online retailer serving the US military, first responder, and government communities. Aaron has spent nearly 12 years at GOVX and has led just about every part of marketing along the way, from customer engagement to email to paid search and social, before stepping into his chief brand officer role.
And these days he does everything from TV to sports sponsorships with the Padres, the Anaheim Ducks, the Diamondbacks, and even NASCAR. And through the GOVX Gives Back program, the company has donated over 3 million to nonprofits supporting military and first responder families. Thank you so much for joining us, Aaron.
Aaron: It's great to be here. Kinda surreal hearing the intro after listening to it so many times. Not my intro, but just you all being introduced and the show starting 'cause I love listening to it.
Rob: Thanks for listening. But before we get to all this smart stuff, Aaron, I just wanna learn a little bit more about the fact that you were an intern in a sports department, if I've got that right, and for like an ABC affiliate. So you've actually like worked behind the camera, like cutting highlight reels or stuff like that. So you must be a pretty creative guy. Is that — do you get — I mean, be honest with us. When you're looking at your GOVX TV spots, do you kinda get in there and go, "I wanna get into that edit. I can feel that need to make that highlight reel happen"?
Aaron: This wasn't on the question list, Rob. You went deep in the LinkedIn profile for that one. I haven't talked about my ABC affiliate intern days in a while. When I was finishing up school at University of Arizona, I worked at the ABC affiliate. Did an internship in the sports department, like you said, going to games, helping to get footage captured, and then heading back to the studio to cut it up and get the highlights ready for the nightly newscast.
And then that ended up becoming a full-time job, writing the copy for the nightly newscasts and, you know, that was an interesting role. I was actually kinda dumb to leave that job right out of college to have that kind of head start into the post-college career. But my love for San Diego, California, won out — I really wanted to live there. So I've been here ever since.
Rob: Now you're doing all these cool sports.
Aaron: Yeah, it's come full circle for sure. Yeah, I do have an affinity though for the technical aspects of it, the creativity. I know we'll talk more about creativity in a little bit. But what I thought I wanted to get into in a previous life, coming out of college, was movies or TV and some sort of media production. And things didn't end up exactly that way, but I'm pleased that I'm still able to incorporate that in what I do now.
Elena: That's funny. The paths to being a CMO are all so different. But you ended up doing a lot of the creative stuff that you were passionate about, so…
Aaron: It's a good mix now.
Elena: Yeah, for sure. Oh, we're so happy you're here, and we are back with some thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions in data, research, and what drives business results.
And I'm gonna kick us off, as I always do, with some research. And today it's a classic because it's actually the same research that kicked off GOVX's transformation, and actually our own as an agency too, as we started exploring marketing effectiveness — and that is "The Long and the Short of It" by Les Binet and Peter Field.
This was published by the IPA, and they analyzed nearly 1,000 campaigns from the IPA Effectiveness Databank and showed that marketing works in two fundamentally different ways. You've got the short and you've got the long, and the effects compound over time. Neither works alone. And that data pointed to an optimal balance of roughly 60/40 split of your budget: 60% towards brand building and 40% towards activation.
And they had this big warning about short-termism, that the industry's obsession with immediately measurable metrics was quietly eroding long-term profitability. It was published in 2013, and more than a decade later, most brands still have not acted on it. But today we're gonna talk to someone who did act on it.
So thanks again for joining us. I wanted to start at the beginning of your time at GOVX, because I think it'll help set the stage for what we're gonna get into today. What did GOVX's marketing strategy look like when you first joined, and when did you realize that approach was starting to sort of hit a plateau?
Aaron: So, like you said, I've been here for quite a while, and I've experienced the whole journey from 12 years ago to now. Not that we weren't doing any brand marketing in the early stages of the company, but it was, if not 100%, pretty darn close to a performance-only mindset. Facebook, Google — as they continue to still play a role — were the main focus, and it worked.
For the early stages, where we really needed to target, you know, specific occupations, people that were eligible for GOVX from the service community, they were good platforms for trying to reach those groups specifically. And we measured everything by whether the dollar we're putting in today, we were getting back today.
The turnaround time was super tight, and we were measuring things in months or less. I mean, it really was, what is the return like in this seven-day attribution window? And I'd say that went on till — I'll get more into where we are now — but roughly the 2022, 2023 time period. So, you know, the better part of a decade, coming out of COVID and just the ups and downs of that time period mixed in, along with the kind of playbook we had for getting the GOVX brand out there. Things just started to plateau, and the realization now, with some hindsight, is that we were spending too much focus on targeting our existing members. The more money we put into Facebook or Google to retarget people that already knew about us, it just didn't lead to any consistent growth. So that's kind of where we found ourselves in 2022, 2023: more money in these platforms is not the solution. So where do we go from here?
Elena: Yeah, probably a situation that a lot of marketers are familiar with and may be in right now. And as I mentioned earlier, you had a similar journey to us, that you discovered marketing effectiveness through reading The Long and the Short. So what clicked for you when you did read that? How did it sort of change your belief systems and how you were approaching marketing at the time?
Aaron: Yes, it was right around that time. And I wish I would've come across it 10 years earlier when it came out and, you know, really absorbed it all and implemented it. But I'm glad I came across it when I did. There's, you know, multiple things about it. I think that there's the overarching idea — the name of the paper, the book — the long-term benefit is gonna come from this longer view, not these short spikes that you see with the performance side of things and trying to get your immediate return. It just kind of hit immediately as I started getting into that, because we were experiencing it. And it started forming that belief of, all right, if we take a longer-term view, there's gonna be some positive result from that. Other elements of the book were the broad reach idea — again, like I was just saying, we were spending too much time focusing on existing members, or even when we were prospecting, very targeted — must fit this criteria for us to try to put an ad in front of you. And so more exposure from the book, around the wider the better, was truly a mindset shift for us, one that we're still going down that path. And then you mentioned the 60/40 split at the onset — those two things combined, taking the long view, opening up who we're trying to reach with a much broader perspective, and then setting our budget in that 60/40 frame and trusting it, those were the three biggest things out of coming across that. And then I just kind of went deeper and deeper. Just because it resonated so much with where we were, I wanted to watch every YouTube video that Les Binet was talking in and finding more people like them that, you know, are coming out of the UK and New Zealand and Australia, that you don't see as much of here in the States.
And so it really just kind of became a bit of an obsession, digging in with this brand mindset.
Elena: We've been down that rabbit hole too. It is a fun one for sure.
I'm really curious. It's super helpful to hear how someone, like, took the long and the short of it and really applied it at a brand. You mentioned these different principles you started applying. When we talked, you mentioned that you even sort of restructured marketing.
You've changed how your budget gets allocated to follow the 60/40 rule. Could you talk — I know you give away all your secrets at GOVX, but could you talk a little bit more about how you practically took that, the long and the short of it, and started to apply it?
Aaron: Yeah. So, in the — even in the early days, we were still separating out, like, a Facebook campaign to say, "This one's gonna target existing members. This one's gonna target non-existing members." But both were narrow, so even the non-existing members, it was, you know, make sure they are lookalikes or they have this exact occupation criteria that's matched. And then we were spending way more on the existing members anyway. We did have some separation. At the end of '22, beginning of '23, as this was all evolving, that's when we really went further, and we carved out to say, "All right, this is member marketing." So, you know, we're a member-based platform.
We will cross 13 million members this month. How are we gonna reach those 13 million people, and how are we gonna reach everybody else? And that could include also the 13 million people, but what's that broad approach versus just these 13 million people? And so we kind of carved that out into member marketing and brand marketing. And there's some crossover, of course. I mean, there's member marketing that is happening on Facebook and Google. There's brand marketing that is still happening on Facebook and Google, but the approaches to them are much different. And the brand is getting the bigger share of the overall marketing pie, because it's a much bigger audience.
I've talked about it before, I think, but the 5% of people who are ever in-market at a particular time — there's a much bigger group in that 95%. So that's factored into why wouldn't we try to do more storytelling to this 95% and put more of our budget there. So we've, organizationally, we've broken the teams out more cleanly — not just at a campaign level, but there's the email team focused on driving that channel. There's paid search and paid social still happening, but for the sole point of how do we get that member group, specifically the ones that are in that 5% zone of, like, we think you're pretty close to trying to actually purchase something right now.
How do we spend the appropriate amount of money on that? And that's what falls into that 40% bucket. And we also measure that a lot more tightly with, kind of, our old-school profitability — is the return where we want it to be, quickly? And then there's the 60%, which is how are we telling the GOVX story creatively? How are we — back to the long and the short of it — trying to do things that are going to generate fame and gonna be memorable? The how-brands-grow mindset of mental availability and distinctive assets, all of that falls under that 60%.
Like, how are people going to know about us and keep us in mind? And that's the 60% — that's what we do through TV, the digital channels that I mentioned, we're doing more on YouTube than we used to, sport sponsorships — you know, we'll talk more about, but it's really the emotional tie-in to GOVX, not the "we want you to purchase something right now." Do we have a place in the broad community's mind, that we exist? And if you are a member already, are you gonna think of us the next time you actually are looking to purchase something? 'Cause we no longer expect that you are going to purchase something today, but you may a year from now.
Angela: I think every marketer's journey with marketing effectiveness is unique and yet the same in a lot of ways, at least those that we talk to. It feels like there's a lot of folks out there that have experienced that ceiling of growth, and they get into this — whether it's How Brands Grow or it's The Long and the Short of It — the paper, the book, feels a little like therapy.
And it also gives you a dose of reality that you maybe don't wanna hear, and it takes time for you. But I love talking to you because you speak with such conviction, and it's clear that the belief system exists. And I think getting to that belief is really hard for marketers. A lot of folks never get to a 60/40 split.
They're like, "In theory, this makes sense, but how do I action on it?" And measurement becomes a big focus. You even said earlier, getting to the 60/40 frame and then trusting it — okay, well, that's where you have to start. You have to make that move and have the belief system and support, of course, from the organization to get there. But then how do you measure things so that you have confidence that that 60/40 split, roughly, is right for the brand?
Aaron: High-level starting point is how is the business performing? But, you know, before we get into any of the channel stuff or kind of leading indicators, it's, what is our traffic, order, revenue, gross margin growth looking like? And in particular, in comparison to our marketing OPEX — are they growing the same? Are we not just growing, but are we scaling efficiently? Are we getting more out of the dollars we're putting in? And so we've, again, as a part of this journey, come to this point where we are very confident now that we have a certain percentage of gross margin that we think is the appropriate amount for marketing overall. We stick closely to that, and then from that pool of money, we go into the 60/40 split. But if the traffic, the orders, the revenue, the gross margin weren't going in the direction that we wanted, that's the main signal to, all right, we need to reassess where we're spending or how we're allocating. I can tell you that since we've made the switch to 60/40, these things have all been moving the way that, in theory, we thought that they would.
And so that gives us more confidence to then double down in key channels — TV being really the main one, the top of the list. But then on the brand side, to get a little more specific to your question, the leading indicators that I focus on the most are direct and organic search traffic, specifically landing on our homepage — not organic search traffic that's landing on a brand page or a product page, really something that gives me confidence that they're seeking GOVX out.
And there's also looking into Google Search Console and seeing search volume over time, same type of idea. But really, what are these indicators around people looking for GOVX specifically? And that metric, we've now been tracking with diligence for, you know, three going on four years, so there's lots of trends to look at. Share of search — something you all are familiar with, and another Binet idea. We started tracking that closely in 2023. It is incredible to see some of these charts that I maintain for GOVX versus some of our competitor set, and what has happened since we leaned into this.
There's one in particular — I'm not gonna name names, and we're a tough brand to compare against 'cause there's not too many that are exactly like what we do — but we were so far below them on the graph in 2022 and 2023, and then we are so far above them now, here in 2026. And I wouldn't think that that's just coincidence.
I mean, it is a result of the strategy that we've been adhering to. And then, just to keep going — direct members. I mentioned we'll cross 13 million members this month. Some of that comes through integrations that we have on other brands' websites, so they use our GOVX ID verification service to gate discounted offers on their own site, and that creates a GOVX account along the way. But we also get direct members — those people are just coming to GOVX.com, creating their free account, kind of through our front door. That direct member growth, and also the cost per direct member, is another key thing that I look at. So there's more, but those are the three big ones: the traffic, the share of search, and the direct members.
Angela: It's such great practical advice, because I think sometimes marketers pull that you need belief in marketing effectiveness, but then if you're going to invest in top-of-funnel marketing, the brand side of things, then you're only going to have belief that it's working — you don't have any leading metrics.
So I think hearing you talk about some of those things is super practical for marketers. You started television back in 2020, but initially, right, you weren't viewing it from a long-term perspective at first. And TV is a unique channel — we believe that it does drive that long-term demand and, of course, that mental availability.
But two, if you cross a consumer that's in-market for a product or service that you offer, it can convert immediately. So I'm curious how you're looking at TV today from a measurement side.
Aaron: We started in 2020, and we were measuring some of the same things — you know, response rate, cost per registration, cost per order. It's just that those metrics were kind of the end-all-be-all, and if we didn't kind of feel great about it, or if it didn't stack up to Facebook the same way, then we figured it didn't perform as well. The other thing I can say is that we were not reaching as broad of an audience as we are now. We were really condensed on, like, a small handful of networks that performed pretty well, but we were probably starting to hit the same people over the course of 2020, 2021.
There came a point in 2022 where we pulled back entirely. We started rolling it back in in 2023. But it was kind of the same thing — we had, at that point, the 60/40 conviction, but were unsold on TV.
And, to plug Marketing Architects some, I mean, moving over to work with you in 2025, now, you know, almost two years together, just the reach that we are experiencing with you, and the efficiencies of it, have honestly changed the game for how TV's performing for us, combined with us viewing it differently.
We're not expecting it to have such a quick return. So these days, still looking at cost per response, CPM. I know there's debate about how important impressions are, but what I've experienced over these last few years is the more impressions the better. And if we can get them cheap, then that's even better.
So that has been more important than it used to be, and we're still looking at cost per sign-up and cost per order, those types of things. But I'd say, in order, it's CPM, cost per response or cost per visit, and the cost per new member sign-up — those are the three things we look most closely at.
And we also trust you all to do what's best for our business, and we also believe in, you know, the AI tools you have and how you go about media buying. And the number of anecdotal stories I hear from people, like, "I saw a GOVX commercial on this, I saw a GOVX commercial on that," it's crazy how that's changed over the last two years.
And just a real quick side note — an unexpected benefit that you all have provided for us is on the B2B side. So, you know, we have a team of people that go out and try to get new brands to come on to GOVX to sell. The nature of those conversations is much different now than it might have been some years ago, because they've seen us on TV.
And I know you all have talked about it before, of like there's kind of this innate value that comes just with being on TV — not just for the visibility, but also, it gives the company some level of stature because you're on TV. It's made these B2B conversations more easy and fruitful, and in many cases, brands are reaching out to us rather than us having to reach out to them.
Angela: Such a great spot to be. I know we hear often from the CEOs or even the CFOs that work at the brands — you know, our partners — that they can feel the impact of television done right, too. I think whether it's new B2B doors opening or negotiations with retail suppliers, are easier than they used to be.
There's these business effects that are a little more intangible but yet very meaningful for a brand. I'm curious, once you've got some proof in what you're doing, it's probably easier to keep it going. But from your perspective, working with a CEO or a CFO, how did you earn buy-in from the executive team on releasing the reins a little bit, in terms of how tightly digital is measured and we're gonna track everything exactly, and moving into a channel like television where we're still gonna track, to your point — and you've got great metrics that you've shared with our listeners here — but it still requires some trust in the CMO to go in that direction. So how did you earn that buy-in from the CEO and CFO?
Aaron: Honestly, the first step was passionately trying to convince them that the research that existed was worth trusting. And that's not an easy thing to do. But, as I've already mentioned, when I was digging into what existed from an academic and theory standpoint, it was kind of pulling the highlights out of that, packaging it as best I could in a way that I thought would be convincing. And that's where I started, because we didn't have — I couldn't come to the table and say, "Look at these, you know, secret tests I've been running for the last two years. It's great, now we can open the floodgates." It was, we don't need to figure this all out on our own. People have been studying this and figuring this out for a long time, and here's the evidence behind it. That was kind of the starting point. I think, combined with everybody being in agreement that we were kinda stuck, why not give this a try?
And then, thankfully, there was approval of that, and not only was there approval of it, but there was a willingness to have a long leash on letting it unfold — not just from the CEO and CFO level, but also from our board, of, "We're gonna go bigger on TV."
"We're gonna structure our budget this way. We're gonna start taking on some sports sponsorships that are gonna be really hard to measure, but we think it's a good addition to our mix." Thankfully, you know, starting a lot of this stuff in 2023, at some point in 2023, by 2024 — you know, kind of that six-month to 12-month delay that you should expect — the evidence was hard to miss, and it's just kind of been building since then.
It's not easy, because it does take a leap of faith on the executive side. It takes a leap of faith for everybody, and also some patience, and trusting that you're not going to be able to track everything precisely, from "this dollar equaled this action" right now. That's a hard hill to get over, but I'm glad we did.
Angela: I feel like every brand goes on a journey related to marketing effectiveness as they get into top-of-funnel marketing and they're starting to see those leading indicators. And then you had mentioned starting to invest more in sports and things like sponsorships. I think it would be helpful for the audience — how are you looking at those investments?
How is it going? It's not just, you know, release the reins, we're gonna do anything now. So how do you stay disciplined in doing something that is harder to measure?
Aaron: First, I'll say that it is a journey that we've been on and continue to be on, and just like everything else, we do not have all the answers. We're learning as we go. We're pivoting and building off of successes and mistakes. But I'd say there's a couple of things that we're looking for these days, and then I'll talk about the measuring.
It's a bit of the continuation of how do you drive memorable moments where your brand is aligned with something that your audience cares about, and it's not just slapping a logo on something, but it's tied to, in our case, something patriotic or something emotional. So the things that I'm most excited about right now, that we've started, that we're taking on more of and we're kind of proactively seeking out, are things you've seen if you've been to a sports game before — the hero-of-the-game type moments, or stand-up-and-be-recognized type moments, where it's during game action.
Everybody's in the arena or the stadium. The focus is on somebody that's served our communities or our country, and, you know, they're on the jumbotron, everybody's applauding, and GOVX is alongside for it. There is the logo placement aspect of it — the LEDs, the jumbo screen, all that — but it's also that very-hard-to-measure subconscious level of, it's cool that GOVX is supporting this moment here in my town where I live and I'm seeing this game. And so, you know, last year we started that with the Chicago Blackhawks. We have that with the Chicago White Sox. We have it with the Anaheim Ducks. We have another one that's coming, to be announced. But there's attention, there's a sizable audience, there's an emotional moment that people can attach to, and then there's repeatability.
You know, depending on the league or the sport you're doing — there's, in baseball's case, 81 home games. Well, we can have this moment 81 times. And for a couple of these teams, there's extension onto TV as well. So, you know, we've worked with whatever regional network the team is on, and that moment is shown on the broadcast.
So it's something where we're focused on the in-stadium component, but we're trying to extend it beyond that. And then there's other aspects to these partnerships that don't involve the in-stadium or TV stuff. So we've — again, it starts with business success, like, can we afford to do this?
And sports sponsorships are not inexpensive, but we think that they are a good part of the mix. They help us tell the GOVX story, especially in these moments that matter. And we're getting better at the measurement side of things. So there's an agency that we work with that's kind of helping us.
That's a newer relationship, but we really look at it from a, what's the business impact? And so for us, we sell tickets for these teams as well that we're working with, so it's a bit of a benefit that we have, where we are also their partner on the ticketing side for gating and distributing their military or their first-responder ticket discounts. And so there's a measurable way we can see, are we seeing activity from that? So that'll kind of fall under the business bucket. There's also new members — so if the team or the league has GOVX ID included on their side, and a GOVX account is being created as they're on their path to getting a ticket discount, that's another quantifiable thing for us. On the marketing kind of return side of things — I've actually seen some articles about this just even this week — I don't love the idea of media equivalency: the signage got seen this many times on TV, and therefore it's worth this much. But it's something that we have for now.
So we take that, but then we discount it heavily — so, yeah, the value was this much, but we're gonna give it a weight of, like, eh, it's probably worth like 40% of that. And then you combine those things together, the business impact and the marketing impact, compare that against how much you're investing in the sponsorship — does that seem like a return that you're comfortable with? And then there's other things we can look at around geo stuff. So I mentioned the Blackhawks and the White Sox — like, how are we doing in Chicago since we started doing these sponsorships? And then lastly, I mean, we're working with you all.
We're also working with another agency towards the MMM side of things — fun buzzword these days. In all my conversations so far about it, sponsorships is not the easiest thing to fit into it, but I know it can be done, and we will learn a lot as we try to get a viewpoint on sponsorships in our overall media mix, as a part of the MMM projects that we're working on.
Rob: Well, connecting those emotional moments with your brand obviously pays dividends on all kinds of fronts, just like creative does. You have long hair, I have no hair, so we must be a couple of creative fellas. And it sounds like you actually wrote the first TV commercial for GOVX, and it's still running five years later.
You obviously think about creative a lot — probably comes from your sports roots, right? What's your thinking behind bold creative and consistent creative?
Aaron: I mean, I think even before coming across The Long and the Short of It and How Brands Grow and all that stuff, the intuition is, is this something that people are gonna remember or not? You know, nobody sets out to make boring creative, I think, for the most part. But the challenge for us, I think, initially, or even still, but I think we're getting more focused on what works, is how do you try to balance telling the story in 15 seconds or 30 seconds — how do you tell the story of what GOVX is and who it's for? And then, like, side notes of, it's free to create an account.
You know, trying to get all that messaging in, versus how do we not necessarily hit all of those points, but make it something where, if somebody's gonna watch the whole 15 seconds or the 30 seconds because it's funny, it still ties into our audience, because it's featuring firefighters or military personnel.
And so there's the recognition of, this is the audience. And then something that's worked from the beginning, and I think is kind of best practice, is logo on screen the whole time, clear call to action at the end. But, more and more, the belief is like — whether it's funny, funny doesn't have to be the thing, humor doesn't have to be the thing, but it sure helps, I think — is are people gonna actually watch this for a few seconds? And even if they don't get 100% crystal-clear view of what GOVX does, they will at least hopefully remember the name, think to check GOVX.com to learn more about it, or it's gonna cause their eyes and ears to perk up when they see GOVX in a sports sponsorship or a paid search ad or paid social ad.
So it starts to kind of connect the dots from the different places that we're showing up. Right now we have a combination of both. We have kind of a straightforward one — this does a good job of telling who we are, what we have to offer — and I think that's a good thing.
And it's useful beyond TV, too. There's lots of places where we need that — we need that asset to show, this is GOVX in a nutshell in 15 seconds. And then I think also having the comedic side has been good for us, not just on TV, but other places where we're spending money, like YouTube and Meta.
Rob: People love to laugh. Speaking of love, GOVX loves America, we love America. But why does America not seem to love marketing effectiveness — or at least a lot of the conversations we're having around it? It seems like these belief systems that you're talking about, you know, just when it comes to American marketers, just feel more foreign. Why do you think that is?
Aaron: I think awareness and patience are the two headlines. I mean, I think it's just not talked about as much, and then the patience to let it play out. I feel like I'm seeing it more now — maybe it's just 'cause I'm more aware of it, and my LinkedIn feed is getting filled with Marketing Architects stuff and related. But, yeah, I feel like I'm seeing it more. I think it's just not something that's talked about broadly. I don't come across a lot of marketers that are talking about it. And then the patience side — of just, this isn't gonna return right now, and that's what I'm getting measured on, for how did this quarter go, and if I can't show a good story for that, then I'm in trouble. And then the other thing that kind of covers both of those is, you know, I've been doing this for 20-ish years. There's lots of people like me where the formative early years of that 20-year career so far were directly aligned with Google and Meta becoming the thing. In my — and our — defense, it was what we were told, and also there were some successes with it.
And there still are, but it just was how marketing was supposed to happen and where it was going. And so now, people like me have to kind of readdress, reassess, like, wait, I have to unlearn all this stuff that I thought was the end-all-be-all. And that's a challenge. I don't know why it's more the US than other places, other than there seem to be more prominent academics in those areas.
I… listening to James Hurman on the podcast, he spoke to it a little bit. I really like Future Demand — I think it does a good job of bringing everything together, and hearing him talk about part of his ambition, to kind of make it more accessible and less academic almost. I think he does a really good job of that in the book, and hopefully it continues to pick up — although selfishly, I kind of hope it doesn't pick up, 'cause it's an advantage for us.
Rob: For sure. Well, speaking of advantages, 20 years is a great run to learn a lot of things. If you were to bump into a brand that is a mid-sized brand who's really hitting their performance plateau, what's the one piece of advice you'd offer them?
Aaron: Stop over-targeting. Go for broad reach with memorable assets. I think that the mental availability — and I know there's some argument around, like, differentiation versus distinctiveness, and mental availability used to be called something else or it should be called this — but at the end of the day, are you putting something forward that is going to leave a mark in somebody's memory, so that somewhere down the line they think about you? And a retargeting ad on Facebook that shows you the product you last looked at — well, that's fine if you left it in your cart.
It's not gonna do a whole lot to imprint the brand on you down the line. I think that's one of the biggest things we've learned over this process so far, is go broad, with assets that are helping you in the future, not necessarily just this exact moment.
Rob: Gosh, I think you just answered my last question, or at least a lot of people would say your take on that was pretty contrarian. But do you have any others? Do you have one big contrarian point of view? We always like to close with that question. So if you were gonna offer up your biggest one —
Aaron: I mean, we've talked about it already, but I think that the quest for precise attribution is overrated, and in many cases an inefficient use of time. I understand there has to be attribution — you have to try to make an educated move on we're gonna spend here versus here — but there's so much time wasted on, we've gotta get this exactly right.
And there's so many different attribution models that you could be moving forward with, rather than just sitting there kind of wading through, "Hey, why can't we tell where this exact order came from?" — when the reality is, it probably came from 15 different things that happened.
Elena: Yeah, love that. Well, Aaron, this has been honestly therapeutic for me hearing you talk about this stuff. So thank you. I wanted to wrap us up with something just kinda fun — thinking about sticking with things and, like, the long side of the long and the short of it, what is a hobby or skill that you've stuck with long after most people would've quit?
Aaron: Yeah, this was actually maybe one of the harder questions I had to think about, because during 14 years of parenting, I feel like hobbies have gone out the window. But the answer is, probably fantasy sports. I know it's still a big thing, but I was thinking about, you know, age 11, like middle school, doing fantasy college basketball, oddly, and fantasy football.
You know, sitting around friends' kitchen tables picking players, and then tracking stats through box scores, you know, before fantasy sports was a thing. And then here I am now, in my mid-40s, still in fantasy baseball and fantasy football leagues with friends I've had since age 11. I don't know if every midlife adult can make that claim.
Elena: Ange, what do you — you got something?
Angela: Yeah, I mean, I've talked before about playing basketball in college. I started when I was in first, second grade, so played for a total of 14 years, which was sort of insane. But I think the other one that's maybe more interesting is I like to crochet, and that makes me feel like I'm 80, but it's therapeutic for me. It's not a very common hobby, I don't think, for someone my age.
Rob: I think my hobby — most people give up when they're like nine — and that's doing magic tricks. I started doing them in middle school, and I still do them today, and I still love torturing people with them.
Elena: Mine is, I rode horses for 10 years. I don't do it at all anymore, but if anyone randomly needed me to ride a horse with a lot of skill, I could do that. So I have that now in my repertoire, if we —
Rob: Don't you just hang on? Like, what's the skill? Don't you —
Elena: There's a little more hang —
Rob: — on for dear life?
Elena: Yeah, I'd like to see you ride a horse, Rob, with no experience. Gosh. Well, Aaron, thank you again for joining us today. We're gonna include the GOVX website, your LinkedIn, anything else you wanna plug before we sign off?
Aaron: Uh, no. Thanks so much for having me on. This is really a highlight, just 'cause I've listened to the podcast so much.
Angela: Well, you're living it. You should be teaching us.
Elena: Seriously.
Angela: All right, great.
Aaron: Thank you.
Rob: And I'm jealous of your hair, by the way.
Aaron: Yeah, I get that from time to time.
Episode 180
Betting on the Long with Aaron Pelander, Chief Brand Officer, GOVX
The IPA analyzed nearly 1,000 campaigns and found a 60/40 split between brand and performance marketing drives the strongest long-term growth. GOVX tested that research and broke free of a plateau.
This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob talk with Aaron Pelander, Chief Brand Officer at GOVX, the largest online retailer serving the US military and first responder community. Aaron shares how GOVX moved from a performance-only mindset to a balanced brand strategy. He breaks down the leading indicators his team tracks, from share of search to direct traffic. Marketers on a plateau will get a real plan for building brand strength.
Topics Covered
• [04:00] GOVX marketing before the plateau hit
• [07:00] What clicked after reading The Long and the Short of It
• [09:00] Splitting budget into member and brand marketing
• [14:00] Leading indicators like share of search and direct traffic
• [21:00] Earning executive buy-in for TV and sponsorships
• [33:00] Aaron's advice for brands stuck on a plateau
• [34:00] Why precise attribution is overrated
Resources:
2013 IPA Report
GOVX Website
Aaron Pelander's LinkedIn
Today's Hosts
Elena Jasper
Chief Marketing Officer
Rob DeMars
Chief Misfit
Angela Voss
Chief Executive Officer
Aaron Pelander
Chief Brand Officer, GOVX
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Transcript
Elena: I'm Elena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co-host, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the chief misfit at Misfits & Machines.
Angela: Hey guys.
Rob: Hello, hello, hello.
Elena: And today we have a guest joining us, Aaron Pelander. He is the chief brand officer at GOVX, the largest online retailer serving the US military, first responder, and government communities. Aaron has spent nearly 12 years at GOVX and has led just about every part of marketing along the way, from customer engagement to email to paid search and social, before stepping into his chief brand officer role.
And these days he does everything from TV to sports sponsorships with the Padres, the Anaheim Ducks, the Diamondbacks, and even NASCAR. And through the GOVX Gives Back program, the company has donated over 3 million to nonprofits supporting military and first responder families. Thank you so much for joining us, Aaron.
Aaron: It's great to be here. Kinda surreal hearing the intro after listening to it so many times. Not my intro, but just you all being introduced and the show starting 'cause I love listening to it.
Rob: Thanks for listening. But before we get to all this smart stuff, Aaron, I just wanna learn a little bit more about the fact that you were an intern in a sports department, if I've got that right, and for like an ABC affiliate. So you've actually like worked behind the camera, like cutting highlight reels or stuff like that. So you must be a pretty creative guy. Is that — do you get — I mean, be honest with us. When you're looking at your GOVX TV spots, do you kinda get in there and go, "I wanna get into that edit. I can feel that need to make that highlight reel happen"?
Aaron: This wasn't on the question list, Rob. You went deep in the LinkedIn profile for that one. I haven't talked about my ABC affiliate intern days in a while. When I was finishing up school at University of Arizona, I worked at the ABC affiliate. Did an internship in the sports department, like you said, going to games, helping to get footage captured, and then heading back to the studio to cut it up and get the highlights ready for the nightly newscast.
And then that ended up becoming a full-time job, writing the copy for the nightly newscasts and, you know, that was an interesting role. I was actually kinda dumb to leave that job right out of college to have that kind of head start into the post-college career. But my love for San Diego, California, won out — I really wanted to live there. So I've been here ever since.
Rob: Now you're doing all these cool sports.
Aaron: Yeah, it's come full circle for sure. Yeah, I do have an affinity though for the technical aspects of it, the creativity. I know we'll talk more about creativity in a little bit. But what I thought I wanted to get into in a previous life, coming out of college, was movies or TV and some sort of media production. And things didn't end up exactly that way, but I'm pleased that I'm still able to incorporate that in what I do now.
Elena: That's funny. The paths to being a CMO are all so different. But you ended up doing a lot of the creative stuff that you were passionate about, so…
Aaron: It's a good mix now.
Elena: Yeah, for sure. Oh, we're so happy you're here, and we are back with some thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions in data, research, and what drives business results.
And I'm gonna kick us off, as I always do, with some research. And today it's a classic because it's actually the same research that kicked off GOVX's transformation, and actually our own as an agency too, as we started exploring marketing effectiveness — and that is "The Long and the Short of It" by Les Binet and Peter Field.
This was published by the IPA, and they analyzed nearly 1,000 campaigns from the IPA Effectiveness Databank and showed that marketing works in two fundamentally different ways. You've got the short and you've got the long, and the effects compound over time. Neither works alone. And that data pointed to an optimal balance of roughly 60/40 split of your budget: 60% towards brand building and 40% towards activation.
And they had this big warning about short-termism, that the industry's obsession with immediately measurable metrics was quietly eroding long-term profitability. It was published in 2013, and more than a decade later, most brands still have not acted on it. But today we're gonna talk to someone who did act on it.
So thanks again for joining us. I wanted to start at the beginning of your time at GOVX, because I think it'll help set the stage for what we're gonna get into today. What did GOVX's marketing strategy look like when you first joined, and when did you realize that approach was starting to sort of hit a plateau?
Aaron: So, like you said, I've been here for quite a while, and I've experienced the whole journey from 12 years ago to now. Not that we weren't doing any brand marketing in the early stages of the company, but it was, if not 100%, pretty darn close to a performance-only mindset. Facebook, Google — as they continue to still play a role — were the main focus, and it worked.
For the early stages, where we really needed to target, you know, specific occupations, people that were eligible for GOVX from the service community, they were good platforms for trying to reach those groups specifically. And we measured everything by whether the dollar we're putting in today, we were getting back today.
The turnaround time was super tight, and we were measuring things in months or less. I mean, it really was, what is the return like in this seven-day attribution window? And I'd say that went on till — I'll get more into where we are now — but roughly the 2022, 2023 time period. So, you know, the better part of a decade, coming out of COVID and just the ups and downs of that time period mixed in, along with the kind of playbook we had for getting the GOVX brand out there. Things just started to plateau, and the realization now, with some hindsight, is that we were spending too much focus on targeting our existing members. The more money we put into Facebook or Google to retarget people that already knew about us, it just didn't lead to any consistent growth. So that's kind of where we found ourselves in 2022, 2023: more money in these platforms is not the solution. So where do we go from here?
Elena: Yeah, probably a situation that a lot of marketers are familiar with and may be in right now. And as I mentioned earlier, you had a similar journey to us, that you discovered marketing effectiveness through reading The Long and the Short. So what clicked for you when you did read that? How did it sort of change your belief systems and how you were approaching marketing at the time?
Aaron: Yes, it was right around that time. And I wish I would've come across it 10 years earlier when it came out and, you know, really absorbed it all and implemented it. But I'm glad I came across it when I did. There's, you know, multiple things about it. I think that there's the overarching idea — the name of the paper, the book — the long-term benefit is gonna come from this longer view, not these short spikes that you see with the performance side of things and trying to get your immediate return. It just kind of hit immediately as I started getting into that, because we were experiencing it. And it started forming that belief of, all right, if we take a longer-term view, there's gonna be some positive result from that. Other elements of the book were the broad reach idea — again, like I was just saying, we were spending too much time focusing on existing members, or even when we were prospecting, very targeted — must fit this criteria for us to try to put an ad in front of you. And so more exposure from the book, around the wider the better, was truly a mindset shift for us, one that we're still going down that path. And then you mentioned the 60/40 split at the onset — those two things combined, taking the long view, opening up who we're trying to reach with a much broader perspective, and then setting our budget in that 60/40 frame and trusting it, those were the three biggest things out of coming across that. And then I just kind of went deeper and deeper. Just because it resonated so much with where we were, I wanted to watch every YouTube video that Les Binet was talking in and finding more people like them that, you know, are coming out of the UK and New Zealand and Australia, that you don't see as much of here in the States.
And so it really just kind of became a bit of an obsession, digging in with this brand mindset.
Elena: We've been down that rabbit hole too. It is a fun one for sure.
I'm really curious. It's super helpful to hear how someone, like, took the long and the short of it and really applied it at a brand. You mentioned these different principles you started applying. When we talked, you mentioned that you even sort of restructured marketing.
You've changed how your budget gets allocated to follow the 60/40 rule. Could you talk — I know you give away all your secrets at GOVX, but could you talk a little bit more about how you practically took that, the long and the short of it, and started to apply it?
Aaron: Yeah. So, in the — even in the early days, we were still separating out, like, a Facebook campaign to say, "This one's gonna target existing members. This one's gonna target non-existing members." But both were narrow, so even the non-existing members, it was, you know, make sure they are lookalikes or they have this exact occupation criteria that's matched. And then we were spending way more on the existing members anyway. We did have some separation. At the end of '22, beginning of '23, as this was all evolving, that's when we really went further, and we carved out to say, "All right, this is member marketing." So, you know, we're a member-based platform.
We will cross 13 million members this month. How are we gonna reach those 13 million people, and how are we gonna reach everybody else? And that could include also the 13 million people, but what's that broad approach versus just these 13 million people? And so we kind of carved that out into member marketing and brand marketing. And there's some crossover, of course. I mean, there's member marketing that is happening on Facebook and Google. There's brand marketing that is still happening on Facebook and Google, but the approaches to them are much different. And the brand is getting the bigger share of the overall marketing pie, because it's a much bigger audience.
I've talked about it before, I think, but the 5% of people who are ever in-market at a particular time — there's a much bigger group in that 95%. So that's factored into why wouldn't we try to do more storytelling to this 95% and put more of our budget there. So we've, organizationally, we've broken the teams out more cleanly — not just at a campaign level, but there's the email team focused on driving that channel. There's paid search and paid social still happening, but for the sole point of how do we get that member group, specifically the ones that are in that 5% zone of, like, we think you're pretty close to trying to actually purchase something right now.
How do we spend the appropriate amount of money on that? And that's what falls into that 40% bucket. And we also measure that a lot more tightly with, kind of, our old-school profitability — is the return where we want it to be, quickly? And then there's the 60%, which is how are we telling the GOVX story creatively? How are we — back to the long and the short of it — trying to do things that are going to generate fame and gonna be memorable? The how-brands-grow mindset of mental availability and distinctive assets, all of that falls under that 60%.
Like, how are people going to know about us and keep us in mind? And that's the 60% — that's what we do through TV, the digital channels that I mentioned, we're doing more on YouTube than we used to, sport sponsorships — you know, we'll talk more about, but it's really the emotional tie-in to GOVX, not the "we want you to purchase something right now." Do we have a place in the broad community's mind, that we exist? And if you are a member already, are you gonna think of us the next time you actually are looking to purchase something? 'Cause we no longer expect that you are going to purchase something today, but you may a year from now.
Angela: I think every marketer's journey with marketing effectiveness is unique and yet the same in a lot of ways, at least those that we talk to. It feels like there's a lot of folks out there that have experienced that ceiling of growth, and they get into this — whether it's How Brands Grow or it's The Long and the Short of It — the paper, the book, feels a little like therapy.
And it also gives you a dose of reality that you maybe don't wanna hear, and it takes time for you. But I love talking to you because you speak with such conviction, and it's clear that the belief system exists. And I think getting to that belief is really hard for marketers. A lot of folks never get to a 60/40 split.
They're like, "In theory, this makes sense, but how do I action on it?" And measurement becomes a big focus. You even said earlier, getting to the 60/40 frame and then trusting it — okay, well, that's where you have to start. You have to make that move and have the belief system and support, of course, from the organization to get there. But then how do you measure things so that you have confidence that that 60/40 split, roughly, is right for the brand?
Aaron: High-level starting point is how is the business performing? But, you know, before we get into any of the channel stuff or kind of leading indicators, it's, what is our traffic, order, revenue, gross margin growth looking like? And in particular, in comparison to our marketing OPEX — are they growing the same? Are we not just growing, but are we scaling efficiently? Are we getting more out of the dollars we're putting in? And so we've, again, as a part of this journey, come to this point where we are very confident now that we have a certain percentage of gross margin that we think is the appropriate amount for marketing overall. We stick closely to that, and then from that pool of money, we go into the 60/40 split. But if the traffic, the orders, the revenue, the gross margin weren't going in the direction that we wanted, that's the main signal to, all right, we need to reassess where we're spending or how we're allocating. I can tell you that since we've made the switch to 60/40, these things have all been moving the way that, in theory, we thought that they would.
And so that gives us more confidence to then double down in key channels — TV being really the main one, the top of the list. But then on the brand side, to get a little more specific to your question, the leading indicators that I focus on the most are direct and organic search traffic, specifically landing on our homepage — not organic search traffic that's landing on a brand page or a product page, really something that gives me confidence that they're seeking GOVX out.
And there's also looking into Google Search Console and seeing search volume over time, same type of idea. But really, what are these indicators around people looking for GOVX specifically? And that metric, we've now been tracking with diligence for, you know, three going on four years, so there's lots of trends to look at. Share of search — something you all are familiar with, and another Binet idea. We started tracking that closely in 2023. It is incredible to see some of these charts that I maintain for GOVX versus some of our competitor set, and what has happened since we leaned into this.
There's one in particular — I'm not gonna name names, and we're a tough brand to compare against 'cause there's not too many that are exactly like what we do — but we were so far below them on the graph in 2022 and 2023, and then we are so far above them now, here in 2026. And I wouldn't think that that's just coincidence.
I mean, it is a result of the strategy that we've been adhering to. And then, just to keep going — direct members. I mentioned we'll cross 13 million members this month. Some of that comes through integrations that we have on other brands' websites, so they use our GOVX ID verification service to gate discounted offers on their own site, and that creates a GOVX account along the way. But we also get direct members — those people are just coming to GOVX.com, creating their free account, kind of through our front door. That direct member growth, and also the cost per direct member, is another key thing that I look at. So there's more, but those are the three big ones: the traffic, the share of search, and the direct members.
Angela: It's such great practical advice, because I think sometimes marketers pull that you need belief in marketing effectiveness, but then if you're going to invest in top-of-funnel marketing, the brand side of things, then you're only going to have belief that it's working — you don't have any leading metrics.
So I think hearing you talk about some of those things is super practical for marketers. You started television back in 2020, but initially, right, you weren't viewing it from a long-term perspective at first. And TV is a unique channel — we believe that it does drive that long-term demand and, of course, that mental availability.
But two, if you cross a consumer that's in-market for a product or service that you offer, it can convert immediately. So I'm curious how you're looking at TV today from a measurement side.
Aaron: We started in 2020, and we were measuring some of the same things — you know, response rate, cost per registration, cost per order. It's just that those metrics were kind of the end-all-be-all, and if we didn't kind of feel great about it, or if it didn't stack up to Facebook the same way, then we figured it didn't perform as well. The other thing I can say is that we were not reaching as broad of an audience as we are now. We were really condensed on, like, a small handful of networks that performed pretty well, but we were probably starting to hit the same people over the course of 2020, 2021.
There came a point in 2022 where we pulled back entirely. We started rolling it back in in 2023. But it was kind of the same thing — we had, at that point, the 60/40 conviction, but were unsold on TV.
And, to plug Marketing Architects some, I mean, moving over to work with you in 2025, now, you know, almost two years together, just the reach that we are experiencing with you, and the efficiencies of it, have honestly changed the game for how TV's performing for us, combined with us viewing it differently.
We're not expecting it to have such a quick return. So these days, still looking at cost per response, CPM. I know there's debate about how important impressions are, but what I've experienced over these last few years is the more impressions the better. And if we can get them cheap, then that's even better.
So that has been more important than it used to be, and we're still looking at cost per sign-up and cost per order, those types of things. But I'd say, in order, it's CPM, cost per response or cost per visit, and the cost per new member sign-up — those are the three things we look most closely at.
And we also trust you all to do what's best for our business, and we also believe in, you know, the AI tools you have and how you go about media buying. And the number of anecdotal stories I hear from people, like, "I saw a GOVX commercial on this, I saw a GOVX commercial on that," it's crazy how that's changed over the last two years.
And just a real quick side note — an unexpected benefit that you all have provided for us is on the B2B side. So, you know, we have a team of people that go out and try to get new brands to come on to GOVX to sell. The nature of those conversations is much different now than it might have been some years ago, because they've seen us on TV.
And I know you all have talked about it before, of like there's kind of this innate value that comes just with being on TV — not just for the visibility, but also, it gives the company some level of stature because you're on TV. It's made these B2B conversations more easy and fruitful, and in many cases, brands are reaching out to us rather than us having to reach out to them.
Angela: Such a great spot to be. I know we hear often from the CEOs or even the CFOs that work at the brands — you know, our partners — that they can feel the impact of television done right, too. I think whether it's new B2B doors opening or negotiations with retail suppliers, are easier than they used to be.
There's these business effects that are a little more intangible but yet very meaningful for a brand. I'm curious, once you've got some proof in what you're doing, it's probably easier to keep it going. But from your perspective, working with a CEO or a CFO, how did you earn buy-in from the executive team on releasing the reins a little bit, in terms of how tightly digital is measured and we're gonna track everything exactly, and moving into a channel like television where we're still gonna track, to your point — and you've got great metrics that you've shared with our listeners here — but it still requires some trust in the CMO to go in that direction. So how did you earn that buy-in from the CEO and CFO?
Aaron: Honestly, the first step was passionately trying to convince them that the research that existed was worth trusting. And that's not an easy thing to do. But, as I've already mentioned, when I was digging into what existed from an academic and theory standpoint, it was kind of pulling the highlights out of that, packaging it as best I could in a way that I thought would be convincing. And that's where I started, because we didn't have — I couldn't come to the table and say, "Look at these, you know, secret tests I've been running for the last two years. It's great, now we can open the floodgates." It was, we don't need to figure this all out on our own. People have been studying this and figuring this out for a long time, and here's the evidence behind it. That was kind of the starting point. I think, combined with everybody being in agreement that we were kinda stuck, why not give this a try?
And then, thankfully, there was approval of that, and not only was there approval of it, but there was a willingness to have a long leash on letting it unfold — not just from the CEO and CFO level, but also from our board, of, "We're gonna go bigger on TV."
"We're gonna structure our budget this way. We're gonna start taking on some sports sponsorships that are gonna be really hard to measure, but we think it's a good addition to our mix." Thankfully, you know, starting a lot of this stuff in 2023, at some point in 2023, by 2024 — you know, kind of that six-month to 12-month delay that you should expect — the evidence was hard to miss, and it's just kind of been building since then.
It's not easy, because it does take a leap of faith on the executive side. It takes a leap of faith for everybody, and also some patience, and trusting that you're not going to be able to track everything precisely, from "this dollar equaled this action" right now. That's a hard hill to get over, but I'm glad we did.
Angela: I feel like every brand goes on a journey related to marketing effectiveness as they get into top-of-funnel marketing and they're starting to see those leading indicators. And then you had mentioned starting to invest more in sports and things like sponsorships. I think it would be helpful for the audience — how are you looking at those investments?
How is it going? It's not just, you know, release the reins, we're gonna do anything now. So how do you stay disciplined in doing something that is harder to measure?
Aaron: First, I'll say that it is a journey that we've been on and continue to be on, and just like everything else, we do not have all the answers. We're learning as we go. We're pivoting and building off of successes and mistakes. But I'd say there's a couple of things that we're looking for these days, and then I'll talk about the measuring.
It's a bit of the continuation of how do you drive memorable moments where your brand is aligned with something that your audience cares about, and it's not just slapping a logo on something, but it's tied to, in our case, something patriotic or something emotional. So the things that I'm most excited about right now, that we've started, that we're taking on more of and we're kind of proactively seeking out, are things you've seen if you've been to a sports game before — the hero-of-the-game type moments, or stand-up-and-be-recognized type moments, where it's during game action.
Everybody's in the arena or the stadium. The focus is on somebody that's served our communities or our country, and, you know, they're on the jumbotron, everybody's applauding, and GOVX is alongside for it. There is the logo placement aspect of it — the LEDs, the jumbo screen, all that — but it's also that very-hard-to-measure subconscious level of, it's cool that GOVX is supporting this moment here in my town where I live and I'm seeing this game. And so, you know, last year we started that with the Chicago Blackhawks. We have that with the Chicago White Sox. We have it with the Anaheim Ducks. We have another one that's coming, to be announced. But there's attention, there's a sizable audience, there's an emotional moment that people can attach to, and then there's repeatability.
You know, depending on the league or the sport you're doing — there's, in baseball's case, 81 home games. Well, we can have this moment 81 times. And for a couple of these teams, there's extension onto TV as well. So, you know, we've worked with whatever regional network the team is on, and that moment is shown on the broadcast.
So it's something where we're focused on the in-stadium component, but we're trying to extend it beyond that. And then there's other aspects to these partnerships that don't involve the in-stadium or TV stuff. So we've — again, it starts with business success, like, can we afford to do this?
And sports sponsorships are not inexpensive, but we think that they are a good part of the mix. They help us tell the GOVX story, especially in these moments that matter. And we're getting better at the measurement side of things. So there's an agency that we work with that's kind of helping us.
That's a newer relationship, but we really look at it from a, what's the business impact? And so for us, we sell tickets for these teams as well that we're working with, so it's a bit of a benefit that we have, where we are also their partner on the ticketing side for gating and distributing their military or their first-responder ticket discounts. And so there's a measurable way we can see, are we seeing activity from that? So that'll kind of fall under the business bucket. There's also new members — so if the team or the league has GOVX ID included on their side, and a GOVX account is being created as they're on their path to getting a ticket discount, that's another quantifiable thing for us. On the marketing kind of return side of things — I've actually seen some articles about this just even this week — I don't love the idea of media equivalency: the signage got seen this many times on TV, and therefore it's worth this much. But it's something that we have for now.
So we take that, but then we discount it heavily — so, yeah, the value was this much, but we're gonna give it a weight of, like, eh, it's probably worth like 40% of that. And then you combine those things together, the business impact and the marketing impact, compare that against how much you're investing in the sponsorship — does that seem like a return that you're comfortable with? And then there's other things we can look at around geo stuff. So I mentioned the Blackhawks and the White Sox — like, how are we doing in Chicago since we started doing these sponsorships? And then lastly, I mean, we're working with you all.
We're also working with another agency towards the MMM side of things — fun buzzword these days. In all my conversations so far about it, sponsorships is not the easiest thing to fit into it, but I know it can be done, and we will learn a lot as we try to get a viewpoint on sponsorships in our overall media mix, as a part of the MMM projects that we're working on.
Rob: Well, connecting those emotional moments with your brand obviously pays dividends on all kinds of fronts, just like creative does. You have long hair, I have no hair, so we must be a couple of creative fellas. And it sounds like you actually wrote the first TV commercial for GOVX, and it's still running five years later.
You obviously think about creative a lot — probably comes from your sports roots, right? What's your thinking behind bold creative and consistent creative?
Aaron: I mean, I think even before coming across The Long and the Short of It and How Brands Grow and all that stuff, the intuition is, is this something that people are gonna remember or not? You know, nobody sets out to make boring creative, I think, for the most part. But the challenge for us, I think, initially, or even still, but I think we're getting more focused on what works, is how do you try to balance telling the story in 15 seconds or 30 seconds — how do you tell the story of what GOVX is and who it's for? And then, like, side notes of, it's free to create an account.
You know, trying to get all that messaging in, versus how do we not necessarily hit all of those points, but make it something where, if somebody's gonna watch the whole 15 seconds or the 30 seconds because it's funny, it still ties into our audience, because it's featuring firefighters or military personnel.
And so there's the recognition of, this is the audience. And then something that's worked from the beginning, and I think is kind of best practice, is logo on screen the whole time, clear call to action at the end. But, more and more, the belief is like — whether it's funny, funny doesn't have to be the thing, humor doesn't have to be the thing, but it sure helps, I think — is are people gonna actually watch this for a few seconds? And even if they don't get 100% crystal-clear view of what GOVX does, they will at least hopefully remember the name, think to check GOVX.com to learn more about it, or it's gonna cause their eyes and ears to perk up when they see GOVX in a sports sponsorship or a paid search ad or paid social ad.
So it starts to kind of connect the dots from the different places that we're showing up. Right now we have a combination of both. We have kind of a straightforward one — this does a good job of telling who we are, what we have to offer — and I think that's a good thing.
And it's useful beyond TV, too. There's lots of places where we need that — we need that asset to show, this is GOVX in a nutshell in 15 seconds. And then I think also having the comedic side has been good for us, not just on TV, but other places where we're spending money, like YouTube and Meta.
Rob: People love to laugh. Speaking of love, GOVX loves America, we love America. But why does America not seem to love marketing effectiveness — or at least a lot of the conversations we're having around it? It seems like these belief systems that you're talking about, you know, just when it comes to American marketers, just feel more foreign. Why do you think that is?
Aaron: I think awareness and patience are the two headlines. I mean, I think it's just not talked about as much, and then the patience to let it play out. I feel like I'm seeing it more now — maybe it's just 'cause I'm more aware of it, and my LinkedIn feed is getting filled with Marketing Architects stuff and related. But, yeah, I feel like I'm seeing it more. I think it's just not something that's talked about broadly. I don't come across a lot of marketers that are talking about it. And then the patience side — of just, this isn't gonna return right now, and that's what I'm getting measured on, for how did this quarter go, and if I can't show a good story for that, then I'm in trouble. And then the other thing that kind of covers both of those is, you know, I've been doing this for 20-ish years. There's lots of people like me where the formative early years of that 20-year career so far were directly aligned with Google and Meta becoming the thing. In my — and our — defense, it was what we were told, and also there were some successes with it.
And there still are, but it just was how marketing was supposed to happen and where it was going. And so now, people like me have to kind of readdress, reassess, like, wait, I have to unlearn all this stuff that I thought was the end-all-be-all. And that's a challenge. I don't know why it's more the US than other places, other than there seem to be more prominent academics in those areas.
I… listening to James Hurman on the podcast, he spoke to it a little bit. I really like Future Demand — I think it does a good job of bringing everything together, and hearing him talk about part of his ambition, to kind of make it more accessible and less academic almost. I think he does a really good job of that in the book, and hopefully it continues to pick up — although selfishly, I kind of hope it doesn't pick up, 'cause it's an advantage for us.
Rob: For sure. Well, speaking of advantages, 20 years is a great run to learn a lot of things. If you were to bump into a brand that is a mid-sized brand who's really hitting their performance plateau, what's the one piece of advice you'd offer them?
Aaron: Stop over-targeting. Go for broad reach with memorable assets. I think that the mental availability — and I know there's some argument around, like, differentiation versus distinctiveness, and mental availability used to be called something else or it should be called this — but at the end of the day, are you putting something forward that is going to leave a mark in somebody's memory, so that somewhere down the line they think about you? And a retargeting ad on Facebook that shows you the product you last looked at — well, that's fine if you left it in your cart.
It's not gonna do a whole lot to imprint the brand on you down the line. I think that's one of the biggest things we've learned over this process so far, is go broad, with assets that are helping you in the future, not necessarily just this exact moment.
Rob: Gosh, I think you just answered my last question, or at least a lot of people would say your take on that was pretty contrarian. But do you have any others? Do you have one big contrarian point of view? We always like to close with that question. So if you were gonna offer up your biggest one —
Aaron: I mean, we've talked about it already, but I think that the quest for precise attribution is overrated, and in many cases an inefficient use of time. I understand there has to be attribution — you have to try to make an educated move on we're gonna spend here versus here — but there's so much time wasted on, we've gotta get this exactly right.
And there's so many different attribution models that you could be moving forward with, rather than just sitting there kind of wading through, "Hey, why can't we tell where this exact order came from?" — when the reality is, it probably came from 15 different things that happened.
Elena: Yeah, love that. Well, Aaron, this has been honestly therapeutic for me hearing you talk about this stuff. So thank you. I wanted to wrap us up with something just kinda fun — thinking about sticking with things and, like, the long side of the long and the short of it, what is a hobby or skill that you've stuck with long after most people would've quit?
Aaron: Yeah, this was actually maybe one of the harder questions I had to think about, because during 14 years of parenting, I feel like hobbies have gone out the window. But the answer is, probably fantasy sports. I know it's still a big thing, but I was thinking about, you know, age 11, like middle school, doing fantasy college basketball, oddly, and fantasy football.
You know, sitting around friends' kitchen tables picking players, and then tracking stats through box scores, you know, before fantasy sports was a thing. And then here I am now, in my mid-40s, still in fantasy baseball and fantasy football leagues with friends I've had since age 11. I don't know if every midlife adult can make that claim.
Elena: Ange, what do you — you got something?
Angela: Yeah, I mean, I've talked before about playing basketball in college. I started when I was in first, second grade, so played for a total of 14 years, which was sort of insane. But I think the other one that's maybe more interesting is I like to crochet, and that makes me feel like I'm 80, but it's therapeutic for me. It's not a very common hobby, I don't think, for someone my age.
Rob: I think my hobby — most people give up when they're like nine — and that's doing magic tricks. I started doing them in middle school, and I still do them today, and I still love torturing people with them.
Elena: Mine is, I rode horses for 10 years. I don't do it at all anymore, but if anyone randomly needed me to ride a horse with a lot of skill, I could do that. So I have that now in my repertoire, if we —
Rob: Don't you just hang on? Like, what's the skill? Don't you —
Elena: There's a little more hang —
Rob: — on for dear life?
Elena: Yeah, I'd like to see you ride a horse, Rob, with no experience. Gosh. Well, Aaron, thank you again for joining us today. We're gonna include the GOVX website, your LinkedIn, anything else you wanna plug before we sign off?
Aaron: Uh, no. Thanks so much for having me on. This is really a highlight, just 'cause I've listened to the podcast so much.
Angela: Well, you're living it. You should be teaching us.
Elena: Seriously.
Angela: All right, great.
Aaron: Thank you.
Rob: And I'm jealous of your hair, by the way.
Aaron: Yeah, I get that from time to time.