Field Note 6: "I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference."

From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost:

"I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference."

"In the poem, Frost admits both roads were 'really about the same.' The traveller makes a choice, walks it fully, and later tells himself a story about why it mattered.

In marketing, that's not irony or luck. That's strategy.

Most people read "the one less travelled by" and think it means "do something weird for the sake of being different." So they chase novelty. They launch a new brand campaign every year. They update offers continuously. They copy whatever looks contrarian on LinkedIn.

That's not the lesson.

The lesson is deliberate commitment to a path and accepting the trade-offs.

There's a difference between surface-level differentiation and strategic focus.

In marketing, both roads often look "about the same." In most instances, it's still being torn over investing in brand or performance.

The real risk isn't picking wrong. It's refusing to pick at all and mistaking that for progress.

The Marketer's paralysis I (still) see the most is between two roads that both seem right: Brand or performance. Long-term positioning or short-term revenue. Building awareness or driving conversions.

The truth is, both roads are viable.

What definitely doesn't work is trying to do one through the other.

I see it constantly. Clients who want brand salience but only measure ROAS, or clients who want immediate conversions but insist every ad needs a brand manifesto.

They're trying to walk both paths at once and end up with a confused messaging hierarchy.

When I work with clients, the first question isn't "Which should we choose?" It's "What does the business need from this marketing activity?"

If you're optimising for performance, you build brand creative that converts. Fast cuts. Clear CTAs. Product-forward messaging. The brand builds slowly as a byproduct of consistent presence, but you swoop in on people who have already expressed interest in whatever you are selling.

If you're optimising for brand awareness, you accept short-term inefficiency. You make work that you know won't convert immediately, but compounds over time. Performance becomes easier later because people already know who you are.

Both roads work. But most brands can't afford to walk them simultaneously.

Most businesses lose more to indecision than bad decisions. There's a perception that the cost comes from taking the wrong path, but it actually comes from standing at the fork, trying to walk both, and going nowhere.

I was once on a pitch team for a major power tool brand.

The brief screamed "emotional brand platform." Big film. Big idea. The kind of campaign that could win awards, make a good margin for the agency, and keep everyone happy.

But something felt...off. The brief was titled "Digital Awareness Campaign," yet they already had a prominent name in market. I kept asking myself, "Why were they struggling to shift power tools online if everyone seems to know their name?"

I looked at their analytics. Their CAC was climbing. Attribution was a mess. Paid media was a blunt instrument doing all the heavy lifting with no clear path from ad to purchase.

Then came the internal review. We had two creative platforms. The room was subtly leaning towards the "big telly" idea. It felt impressive. More "creative." More expected of us.

The other territory was less glamorous. It was built from performance insights, which meant it could be flexible, modular and testable with clear feedback loops. It felt like more of a system than a campaign. Clever, but not sexy. Necessary, but not the kind of work that wins pitches...or so everyone thought.

Halfway through the review, I couldn't hold it in.

"Guys...this work is solving a problem that they don't have, we're wasting our time"

It was uncomfortable as hell. I could feel the tension shift.

I thought I was about to get fired.

Thankfully, after a couple of pitch losses to more "digitally modern" agencies, there was a clear management agenda to be "more digital-minded" (this was a while ago). So people listened.

The problem became clear: we had brand awareness; we just needed to convert the interest.

We pitched three creative platforms, but they were creative systems in reality. Ideas that could be brought to life across multiple products and are inherently built for performance.

We won. The other agencies came with big telly ads and lost.

Looking back, the road less travelled in marketing isn't always "the big telly ad" (although I do love them!). Sometimes it's disciplined focus. And once you choose it, you have to walk it and not look back.

Side note: Within a year, the Power Tool company's online revenue went from 10% to 18%.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

Murph