business

My love/hate relationship with the funnel.

Nader AshwayLeave a comment

I have a complicated relationship with the marketing funnel. On one hand, I love it. It’s elegant. It’s simple. And it’s one of the most useful and illustrative conceptual models our industry has ever produced.

On the other hand, I HATE IT. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s woefully incomplete. And we’ve been teaching it, illustrating it, and building marketing plans around it for more than a century without bothering to fix one rather glaring omission.

A little history. The marketing funnel has been around for a long time. Its origins date back more than 100 years, when advertising pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis introduced the principles that eventually evolved into the four-stage A-I-D-A model we use today: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. (Technically, Lewis’ first A stood for Attention, but the underlying idea about moving through these stages was quite similar.)

The concept is beautifully simple, logical, and easy to understand. And when you visualize that progression as a funnel, it gets even better. The wide opening at the top represents the universe of consumers who might become aware of your brand. As they progress through the stages, the funnel narrows, illustrating perhaps the most important reality: not everyone who becomes aware will become interested. Not everyone who’s interested will develop desire. And not everyone who desires your product will take action.

There’s leakage at every stage. And this is why the conceptual model is so useful. [Sidebar: There are a lot of people out there who genuinely think that reaching a million people with an ad campaign means that a million people will suddenly consider buying your product. Your current client is probably one of them.]

The funnel, as a model, helps us understand how marketing impacts consumers and their perceptions over time. It also reminds us that the job of marketing is mostly about progressively creating the appropriate conditions for consumers to make decisions.

The funnel is also one of the best teaching tools in the business. In fact, I use it with my grad students every semester. However, the tragic flaw of the funnel is that it treats the action as the finale. And that’s where the “hate” part of my love/hate relationship with the funnel strolls onto the stage.

Here’s why. The A-I-D-A model simply ends at action. And then, nothing. It’s like “YAY! We did it! We got a consumer to take an action! We’ve reached the bottom of the funnel! Order the pizza and beer and then let’s take the afternoon off!” It has that “Mission Accomplished” ethos written all over it. It’s ridiculous.

First, let’s consider what “action” actually means. It might mean visiting a website. Or downloading a PDF. Or offering up an email address. It doesn’t always mean making a purchase, or an initial appointment. And as we all know, downloading a PDF, while a cute KPI, is not going to get your client renewing your budget for next year. The marketing job is not done when someone reads your e-book, bro.

Now let’s assume that the action is indeed a purchase. The consumer has navigated through all four stages, chosen your brand over the competition, and handed over some hard-earned money. That’s a win.

But what happens next? Do we simply display the thank you page, wave goodbye, and turn our attention to the next batch of unsuspecting prospects? Of course not. That would be marketing malpractice, especially because you’d be abandoning the relationship right at the moment when it’s become most valuable.

In fairness, smart marketers have understood the importance of retention, loyalty, repeat purchase, and advocacy for decades. And many funnel-faithful marketers include some of these things, but they tend to do so outside of the model. That stuff happens on a different floor of the building. So, if we’re willing to admit that there’s usually more to the conceptual story, why do we keep leaving out the last chapter? That’s like having Freebird or Hotel California, but without the guitar solos at the end.

Models matter. Especially the ones that are being taught in both undergrad and grad schools. They influence how we think, what tactics we may prioritize, and ultimately, where we may spend our marketing dollars. The funnel is so ubiquitous that we now have acronyms like TOFU, MOFU and BOFU (which all sound silly to me, by the way) to represent top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel activities. So, when something this popular and widely utilized under-represents the whole story, I think we’re doing the industry a disservice by perpetuating it. We have to illustrate what happens next, and include it as an essential element of the model.

So I propose a modest addition to the venerable AIDA framework. Let’s call it AIDAI. Just add another “I” at the end. And it stands for Involvement.

The idea is simple: after a consumer takes action, marketers should be working just as hard to encourage continued involvement with the brand as they worked to generate awareness, interest, desire, and action in the first place. Some of that involvement is practical. Product updates. Warranty information. Service reminders. Helpful content that makes the product easier or more enjoyable to use. And when that initial action is NOT a purchase, involvement can keep the brand top of mind for a consumer who has expressed some level of interest. A well-conceived brand app can be an excellent example of the “I” part of the funnel in action.

Consider Starbucks. Its app (and the embedded rewards program) provides ongoing reasons and avenues for customers to continually interact with the brand, accumulate benefits, explore offers, and return for future purchases. It also does not require a purchase…you can download the Starbucks app even if you’ve never purchased. (And that download, interestingly, is an action that might ultimately lead to a first purchase!)

BMW offers “Performance Driving Schools” across the country, where they offer classroom lessons and driving classes, including for teens. BMW extends the purchase of your vehicle by showing you how to take the “ultimate driving machine” and learn how to drive it as such. But here’s the cool part: You don’t need to be a BMW owner to participate. The “action” here is simply showing interest. (And note how compelling it might be to sit behind the wheel of an M5 and drive it like a race car.)

Other brands go even further and create opportunities for purchasers to not only continue interacting with the brand, but also to interact with other purchasers. Jeep and Harley-Davidson, for example, offer opportunities for owners to participate in events, to organize group rides, and to form communities that reinforce the emotional connection between consumer and brand.

These aren’t merely clever promotional tactics. (I mean, they are.) They’re deliberate efforts to extend the customer relationship beyond an initial action, even if that action is an expression of interest. And they work in different ways, across different categories, for different reasons.

Now, let’s be clear. Not every brand can take advantage of these opportunities. I can’t imagine a meetup of enthusiastic toilet paper purchasers getting together for extreme wiping lessons. But the potential is there in different ways, and every brand should be asking what meaningful ongoing involvement might look like.

And that’s my beef with the current four-stage funnel. It simply ends. And that’s why I not only think that Involvement should be the fifth stage, but I also think it should shift the way the model flows. Once added, it creates a continuous loop stage between Action and Involvement. It looks like this:

The brand actively encourages involvement. Involvement stimulates additional actions. Those actions create opportunities for deeper involvement. And around we go.

And the additional action does not necessarily have to be a repeat purchase. (Although that’s delicious.) Sometimes it’s participation in an event. Sometimes it’s sharing content, or offering a testimonial, or recommending the brand, or simply choosing to stay connected in various ways. But here’s the quiet part that I’ll say out loud. Continued involvement can reinforce preference, reduce perceived risk and ultimately create deeper trust. Which implies that future actions may not require the same journey through awareness/interest/desire. The relationship itself has changed, and illustrates that nice, neat, linear funnels are not so linear after all.

I’m not suggesting we abandon the traditional funnel. I’m suggesting that we finish it, and avoid ending with a splat. Because the job of marketing isn’t simply to move consumers from awareness to action. It should be to create and sustain valuable relationships that encourage consumers to keep acting, interacting, participating, advocating, and yes, even keep purchasing when that’s appropriate too.

Super Bowl 60 Grins and Groans

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Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks on their dominating performance over the New England Patriots. And a special shout-out to Charlie Puth for a stunning performance of the national anthem. Wow! If only the advertising could reach such heights.

THEMES
While stuffing your ads full of celebrities is always a Super Bowl theme, this year didn’t deviate from that path. It was a bit much, and in most cases, did not really serve the spots very well.

AI seems to have pushed out automobile advertising. I counted six (seven if you count the Alexa offering with Chris Hemsworth?) spots that featured AI in some way, including ChatGPT’s nod to developers, and some new entrants to help with every day tasks, like creating apps.

Retro also showed up to the party, with Instacart taking the absolute cake with Ben Stiller and Benson Boone and their over-the-top competition for the spotlight. Very funny. Dunkin’ tried their hand at it, too, with less success, and Xfinity inserted themselves into the original Jurassic Park with a well-managed proposition that their services would have “just worked” and avoided some pretty big mishaps. Plus Coinbase rocked a retro-looking karaoke spot for…well, that’s unclear. More on that later.

Speaking of unclear, vagueness unfortunately turned out to be a theme too. A movie promo for Netflix that never mentioned the title. The Coinbase spot, just listing irrelevant lyrics, and poor Poppi soda, talking about “vibes” instead of probiotics.

Also, the Backstreet Boys was kind of a theme this year too (?) I’ll just leave that there. And did I mention that there were talking – make that SINGING – clumps of hair on bathroom floors and in shower drains? Ooof. Makes you miss the good old days of puppy-monkey-babies, doesn’t it?

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Budweiser returned to form with a coming-of-age story of a Clydesdale foal and a clumsy eagle chick that both grow up to become symbols of Americana. They generally don’t miss the mark with these life-on-a-farm vignettes, and this year was no exception.

Google Gemini let us in on a quiet conversation between mother and child while looking for a new home, and using Gemini to visualize the space in new ways. Their banter is sweet and sensitive. And the platform shines because it’s proven right before your eyes. For years, Google has always managed to humanize their services (even paid search) with a deft and elegant touch. Well done.

HIMS and HERS probably made the most significant statement of the night, starting out by saying “rich people live longer.” And then doubling down with the line “the wealth gap is a health gap.” Then they hit it out of the park when they wrap the idea that personalized science is in reach for everyone, punctuated with the line, “Now that’s rich.” Wow – now THAT’S a statement, and a great way to get 99% of the country to at least pay attention. Gutsy move, and I think it paid off handsomely.

GRINS:
The best ads of the night all have something in common, which is that they take a simple concept (which is usually a basic, un-exciting value proposition) and inject it with drama in some way to make that boring-ish platform an exciting new way to understand the brand. All of these did that very well this year. Here are my top three:

Apartments.com/Homes.com starts with their basic selling proposition: “with millions of listings on our platforms, you’re going to find virtually any place you can live.” Then, they set up the way in to the concept: it would be easier to just find the places you CAN’T live. Then, hilarity ensues when they dramatize those “you can’t live here” locations: a tarmac at a busy international airport, a de-commissioned Soviet space station, the Mariana Trench, and so on. There’s a clear path here to successful advertising, which is to dramatize the benefit, or in this case, dramatize the opposite. Strong work here for sure.

Grubhub
Sometimes, the best ideas are the simplest ones. And no brand demonstrated that better than Grubhub. They took a bland boardroom idea about not passing on delivery fees to consumers and turned it into an elegant, funny, villainize-the-fees sendup. The brand joins us as partners against a common and bothersome enemy. (Smart.) It doesn’t hurt when George Clooney sits at the head of the table and says “we’ll eat the fees.” The reason I love this spot so much is for its SINGULARITY. One idea, clearly articulated, then exceptionally well-executed.  A winner in my book.

State Farm wins the night with their Super Bowl spot, spoofing “halfway there” insurance with Danny McBride and Keegan-Michael Key clearly explaining that you’d be “livin’ on a prayer” with their insurance to Hailee Steinfeld. The spot was great, but so were all the ancillary teasers that they did both online and on sneaky TV buys leading up to the game. Of course, a Jon Bon Jovi cameo at the end doesn’t hurt and Steinfeld seals the deal when she turns to a State Farm billboard and simply utters “I should have gone with State Farm.” Fun, over the top, deliciously comedic performances, (I’d love to see the outtakes for this) and a clear and simple proposition. They drive off into the sunset (that’s the victory) and the State Farm Guy says “stop livin’ on a prayer and get State Farm.” This is big-league-level Super Bowl advertising, well-executed, well-acted and well-delivered.

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GROANS
Now, if taking your core value and dramatizing it in some way is a smart path for successful Super Bowl advertising, then the opposite is true when you either a.) don’t state your value proposition very clearly or b.) don’t explain why there’s value in choosing you. A lot of spots fell flat in this regard, including these.

Ritz crackers had the basic punch list of a Super Bowl spot: get a bunch of celebrities. Check. Put them on a beach and have a party. Check. But then…what? We’re “salty” and don’t want to go to the party? Sure, Jon Hamm delivers a couple of brand points when he says “they do have Ritz crackers, though…that salty buttery flavor…” And…that’s it. Oh, and then Scarlett Johansson shows up on a jet ski. Bowen Yang is almost always funny, but the script here just made him an unclear, even unlikable character. The problem here is that Ritz do not come out as the hero, nor do the characters turn out as the heroes once they decide to join the party. It’s like they positioned Ritz for “other people,” which is the exact opposite of a brand directive, don’t you think?

I don’t even know what Squarespace was trying to accomplish with their commercial. The ad seems to focus on the main character not being able to secure a vanity URL, and then being frustrated by that. (Also, why does she live in a castle on a remote island?) But that’s not the Squarespace proposition anyway. I didn’t understand this at all. Someone just got enamored of the idea of having Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos do their spot and then seemed to forget what people know and understand Squarespace to be. (A template-based website building platform.) Now…if the ad was designed to show that Squarespace now offers domain registrations, (do they do that now?) this was also the exact OPPOSITE way to describe that. (She can’t secure emmastone.com throughout the spot and smashes laptops in frustration.) Basically, Squarespace dropped like $10 million to do a very nice commercial plug for GoDaddy. Head-scratcher for sure. Side note: director Lanthimos also did the Grubhub “Feest” spot.

Coinbase
Sure. Everybody wants to steal some headlines for doing something downscale, and maybe even outrageous. Remember the floating QR code or Crowdstrike’s “western” theme in the  last couple of years? This was just weird. I’m not sure how “rock your body” lyrics relate to a cryptocurrency platform. Are you? Please explain it to me. Note to future Super Bowl advertisers: show this first in your strategy meetings and then explain to everyone, “we’re NOT doing this.”

So…what was your favorite? I’d love to hear.

Six for 2026: the marketing truths that actually matter this year.

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Well, it’s a new year, and you know what that means. Gyms are overcrowded with people determined to stick to their beach-body resolutions, and bloggers everywhere are posting “2026 prediction” lists.

Predictions are dangerous because they’re a zero-sum game. You’re either dead-on, or dead wrong. So let’s not do that. Instead, let’s remember that marketing doesn’t change so much as it adapts to its environment: new tools, new methods, new channels. So this post isn’t about trends. It’s about truths –  the ones I think will be smacking all of us in the face in 2026.

Truth #1: GEO is re-shaping search.
If SEO was about ranking pages, then GEO is about shaping answers. Even though it’s still important, being “findable” is no longer the ultimate goal. In almost stunning and sudden fashion, prospects aren’t scanning the top 5-10 blue links on Google…they’re reading a synthesized and sophisticated response from a generative engine (like Gemini, most ubiquitously) and then moving on with their day.

The new challenge for search marketers is less about keyword management and campaign groups, and more about establishing authority and clarity through curated content. We have to answer the question: If an AI bot has to explain our brand, what would it say? And if your positioning is even a bit fuzzy, the machine will happily invent something equally nebulous for you. And you probably won’t like it.

This is not a technical or platform problem with Google Ads. It’s the new reality, and a challenge to upgrade our thinking and our writing.

Truth #2: AI will not solve your marketing problems.
Most AI-powered marketing today is simply the automation of work that probably shouldn’t exist in the first place. Re-hashed content, surface-level messaging, and ugh, those AI-generated videos and commercials that are shiny, but hollow.

Make sure you know who you are, what makes you different, and whom you want to care about those things. Because AI won’t make a bad strategy better, it’ll just help you deploy it faster. So hey, let’s be careful out there.

Truth #3: Brand still matters (and always will.)
From the time the idea was first introduced, (it was as far back as the late 1950s by a Harvard professor called Neil Borden,) the concept of brand is what helps companies distinguish themselves in loud and cluttered categories. Brand helps reduce cognitive risk for consumers…when they’re not sure what the comparison criteria are, they can fall back on the idea that “I know something about this company.” (That’s true even if what the consumer “knows” is what you’ve been telling them all along. Yay advertising!) Brand drives preference, and preference is a marketing force that can’t be easily usurped.

Truth #4: Offline marketing is not going away anytime soon.
Despite the popular thinking that social media is the only channel that matters, the physical world is still out here kicking ass. And while we all embrace digital channels for their efficacy, let’s remember that old engines will continue to run as long as you start them up every now and again, and keep the oil clean.

Direct mail still delivers reliable returns. Events still drive serious leads. Popups (stores, experiences, installations,) are still, well, pop-ular. When a brand shows up in some physical form, whether in a mailbox or face-to-face, it signals scale and even seriousness. In a world where the media cycle is based on the next post with a million views and influencer promo codes, offline marketing tells consumers you actually give a shit.

Truth #5: Selling the category is still sticky.
When consumers don’t quite understand the nuances in a given category, they default to less risky decisions, like buying on price or relying on referrals. But that might not favor YOUR brand.

Brands that educate consumers on the category help to reframe the entire decision process. (This is why category content is so popular.) When you do this, you tell consumers that your brand “gets it” and is there to guide in some way. And the best part? None of that feels “salesy.” Instead, it feels like help to the consumer, and your brand gets the halo effect.

Truth #6: The middle of the funnel is where decisions get made.
I rarely talk about funnels (except that one time, in this post) because consumers are not abstract concepts that “move” through a space. But as a conceptual framework, funnels help illustrate the consumer journey across the time variable.

Top of the funnel marketing is easy…it’s just about attention. Brands will do all kinds of dopey things to get attention, (remember when iHop said they were switching to a burger company?) and they still seem to work. Conversely, the bottom of the funnel is largely an outcome function, and almost always offer-driven.

But the middle? Ooof. That’s the hard part. It’s hard because it’s messy. Because it’s harder to measure. And because it demands work, mostly in the form of strong, informative and relevant content. It’s hard mostly because that’s where the leakage lives.

Content that helps educate consumers on the category (see Truth #5 above) and helps them decide at their own pace can do more long-term brand building (see Truth #3 above) than just “getting the click.” If your funnel goes from “hello” to “buy now,” you’re gonna struggle.

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The job of marketing hasn’t changed, and it won’t change just because it’s 2026 and we have some shiny new tools at our disposal. It’s still about managing perception, reducing risk, and driving preference at the moment of choice. Face the truth(s) and make this the strongest year ever for your brand and your clients.

You want good* advertising? You won’t find it in the election media blitz.

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Don’t you just love advertising in presidential election years? Aggressive, repetitive, and often un-creative ads in every commercial pod, whether you’re watching football, soap operas, or game shows. ‘Tis the season to be mud-slinging.

In the general election, The New York Times has reported that more than $500 million will be spent by the Harris and Trump campaigns, and that the Super PAC supporting Harris will pour $187 million into television and radio alone in the final 49 days. I’m not great at math, but that’s almost $4 million PER DAY from September 17th through November 5th. That’s not counting digital, social, texting, robo-calls, and whatever else each campaign’s AI-driven algorithms are cooking up.

But what about the ads themselves? Is there any tangible messaging going on beyond the “don’t vote for the other team, because they’re terrible” tropes? Sadly, not much.

The Trump campaign has struck gold with one spot called “They/Them” that’s running ad nauseam across cable networks, which focuses on a (decontextualized) message about Harris supporting gender reassignment in prisons, with the implication that American taxpayers are footing the bill. It ends with the line, “Kamala’s agenda is they/them. Not you.” However you feel about the issue and the message, (and the malevolent editing,) you gotta admit that’s a darn strong line to punctuate the spot. It’s creative and pithy, and rings a potent dog whistle for conservatives who bristle at all things trans.

Harris fires back with a spot focused on Trump and his anti-abortion influence, and his implicit ties to the mercurial Project 2025. The spot is called “Who He Is,” and is (again) focused on her opponent, and his previous (and likely future) inclinations as it relates to national policy.  The compelling aspect of this spot is that none of it is conjecture – Harris is highlighting actual changes that were affected during Trump’s actual presidency. It invites the viewer to draw their own conclusion (and the creative directors are betting on this,) that “if he did it before, he’ll do it again.”

So, what’s wrong with this advertising? Some would argue that the ads are fine, claim “that’s just what they do,” and that politics simply brings out the worst in strategists and creative directors. Hey, it’s a limited run, so attack, attack, attack, and it’s definitely rated R for rubbing just about everyone the wrong way.

But that isn’t the way most brands compete, is it? Most brands want to use the precious time they have with the consumer to connect to something positive, and special, and DIFFERENT about that brand. Most brands want to say good things (about themselves,) and let the consumer draw their preferences from there. Geico, as an almost on-par example, (they spend almost $3 million per day in advertising year-round,) doesn’t spend their time shitting on Allstate or State Farm. They use that time and all that money to drill simple, memorable messages into consumers’ minds: 15 minutes could save you 15% or more; so easy a Caveman could do it; etc.

Some strategists argue that you should NEVER mention your competition in your ads, because you’re essentially using YOUR media budget to promote THEM (to some degree.) Tell that to Coke v. Pepsi, or McDonald’s v. Burger King, or Apple v. PC. There are exceptions to every rule.

But marketing IS a conversation, and a campaign is an extended conversation that happens in short spurts over long periods of time. Brands use 15 or 30 or 60 seconds to get you to think something, believe something, and maybe even to do something over the course of several months or more. If they spend all their time talking about the other brands, what would you think about them? And more importantly, would you think about them at all?

That’s what’s disappointing about this unprecedented time in marketing history. The most money ever spent on presidential campaign advertising, and all we’re doing is rejecting the rules that all of us are taught about advertising, especially about being memorable, and about never misleading your audience.

I think we can do better. And I’m looking forward to November 6th, when we can go back to talking lizards, bunnies banging drums, and people getting their hands stuck inside potato chip containers. Ain’t advertising great?