Create Demand vs. Capture Demand
Allocate marketing around whether buyers need awareness or a path to purchase
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
This framework replaces the vague brand-versus-performance debate with a diagnosis of the company's demand constraint. If buyers already understand the category and actively seek a solution, marketing should emphasize capturing that demand through search, paid acquisition, organic discovery, and conversion paths. If buyers do not yet recognize the category, product, or value proposition, the company must first create demand through brand, product, experiential, and educational marketing. Most businesses need both functions, but in different proportions. The allocation should therefore begin with the amount of capture spending required to meet marketing's revenue commitment, while preserving resources to create future demand before the existing pool becomes saturated.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain during a discussion of Airbnb's brand and performance marketing allocation.
Core principles
- 01Create demand when the market lacks awareness or understanding.
- 02Capture demand when buyers already know and want the category.
- 03Brand activity primarily creates markets; direct response primarily captures them.
- 04Even demand-creation businesses need mechanisms that convert resulting interest.
- 05Budget proportions should reflect the company's current demand problem.
How to run it
- 1
Diagnose the demand constraint
Decide whether the business primarily lacks market awareness or struggles to convert demand that already exists. Use customer behavior, search activity, and category familiarity as evidence.
Pro tip Separate the diagnosis by audience when operating a two-sided marketplace.
Watch out Do not assume every audience has the same level of category awareness.
- 2
Estimate capturable demand
Quantify the available demand across search, paid platforms, organic discovery, and other high-intent channels. Estimate how much can be acquired economically.
Pro tip Model both channel capacity and diminishing returns.
Watch out Visible search volume is not the same as profitable demand.
- 3
Fund the revenue commitment
Allocate enough capture spending to deliver the revenue for which marketing is accountable. Base this on unit economics rather than an arbitrary percentage.
Pro tip Use marginal return rather than blended historical return when increasing spend.
Watch out Do not consume the entire budget merely because additional demand appears capturable.
- 4
Create future demand
Invest remaining resources in increasing awareness of the category, company, or specific value proposition. Select the perception change before choosing channels.
Pro tip Define the intended audience and belief shift in one sentence.
Watch out Brand activity without a defined audience or perception goal is difficult to manage.
- 5
Rebalance over time
Review how market awareness, channel economics, and saturation evolve. Shift the allocation as the binding constraint changes.
Pro tip Use leading awareness indicators alongside revenue outcomes.
Watch out A fixed allocation can become obsolete as the category matures.
In the wild
A startup sells a workflow customers do not yet recognize as a distinct software category. It reserves enough search and retargeting budget to convert existing high-intent prospects, then places most remaining resources into education, product demonstrations, and category narratives that make the problem legible.
→ The company captures current intent while expanding the future pool of qualified buyers.
A CRM vendor operates in a familiar category with abundant search demand. It funds paid and organic capture to reach its quarterly pipeline target but preserves part of the budget for campaigns that change how mid-market buyers perceive its platform.
→ Revenue targets remain supported without making future growth wholly dependent on saturated acquisition channels.
Common mistakes
Treating brand and performance as opposites
Both serve the same growth system at different stages. Creating demand without capturing it wastes interest, while capturing without creating eventually exhausts the market.
Copying another company's percentage split
Another company's category maturity, audience awareness, economics, and capabilities may be entirely different.
Funding capture until nothing remains
Profitable short-term acquisition can still create a future growth ceiling if no resources expand demand.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for marketing leaders deciding how to divide resources between long-term awareness and directly attributable acquisition.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for teams that lack reliable revenue targets or basic evidence about existing market demand.
From the transcript
“before you decide like how you allocate your budget, you have to decide am I in a capture demand situation or am I in a…”
“The direct response is really like capture market. Brand is really create market.”
“In the capture demand bucket, it's really how much I need to spend in there to hit the revenue targets that marketing are accountable to.”
From the episode
Breaking Down Airbnb’s Brand Marketing Strategy