In Part 1 of this article, we explored why brands matter, especially for startups. Now we will focus on how brands actually grow in value as people learn about and intensify their preference for them over time.

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a drastic shift in how companies allocate marketing dollars and how they measure success of their marketing and advertising efforts. Google, Facebook, and Amazon (and recently TikTok) gobble up billions of ad dollars for their ‘performance ads’, ads that promise a click and immediate transaction that can be easily calculated, and performance immediately measured.