Marketing’s Most Underrated Growth Lever? Momentum.

We're excited to share a compelling thought piece from one of our esteemed board members, Alexander Concannon. In this article, Alex reflects on Marketing’s Most Underrated Growth Lever.

In today’s marketing discourse, the spotlight tends to fall on the usual suspects: reach, frequency, brand building, performance media, attention metrics, and creative effectiveness. All important. All necessary. But in my experience, there’s one principle that consistently drives outsized impact, without needing an outsized budget or a Cannes-winning reel. That principle is momentum.

Momentum isn’t about dropping a perfect campaign every quarter. It’s about constantly building on previous activity. It’s about feeling like a brand that you see everywhere even if you’re not. A brand that always seems timely. Consistently relevant. Not over-engineered, just always present. It’s about building familiarity and salience, even without the brute force of mass media or lavish spend.

We applied this approach at Employment Hero. We didn’t have the biggest budgets, but we built a sense of scale by showing up often, quickly, and consistently. That same principle is at work at Valiant, where we’ve seen brand interest grow nearly 200% year on year. Not from any single campaign, but from creating momentum.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

Speed beats polish. Five-star creative is great. But momentum means you’re shipping often, not waiting six weeks for feedback loops. Timeliness usually trumps perfection.

In-house teams make this possible. This is the big one. When your creative, performance, and CRM teams sit together (literally or figuratively), you can execute at speed. Our performance marketers are also champions of our brand. They know the tone, and they can adjust copy that day vs. asking someone else for approval.

News waits for no one. Our content team is plugged into comms. If there’s a chance to newsjack or be part of a trending moment, we don’t have to write a brief. We just act.

Momentum killers are everywhere. Multi-layered approval processes. Global agency lock-ins. I know a brand that has to brief September activity in June. That’s not just a planning problem, it’s a momentum killer. The world will change between now and then, and they won’t be able to respond.

You need visibility full-funnel. Our team sees what’s working in real-time. If something isn’t resonating, we pull it. We don’t wait for the post-campaign report. We learn mid-flight and course-correct.

Momentum isn’t bought. It’s built. It’s not the result of one genius idea; it’s the accumulation of smart, scalable systems that let you act fast, stay close to the customer, and never let the engine stall.

Money can buy reach. Brilliance can deliver creativity. But momentum? That’s operational. And once you’ve built it, it’s hard to match—and even harder to catch.

We’re fortunate to benefit from such forward-thinking leaders here at IHAC!

Thanks, Alex!