For nearly a decade, marketers were told that brand building was becoming obsolete. The narrative was familiar: performance marketing was more measurable, more efficient, more accountable. Brand was the soft, slow, “nice-to-have” side of marketing, the part you justify only after the dashboards turn green. But now, in a dramatic reversal, the world’s most influential marketing report is confirming what creative leaders have always known: Branding is the #1 priority for CM

In a crowded digital landscape where consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages a day, simply being “seen” is no longer enough. Brands need to be felt. This philosophy is the driving force behind London : Los Angeles (LO:LA), an El Segundo-based agency that is redefining how businesses connect with their audiences.

On paper, visibility should equal success. After all, if people are seeing you, surely that means your brand is working. Except it doesn’t. And it’s not. Because being seen is not the same as being understood. And this is the crisis facing most modern brands.

In a world engineered to steal your attention, it’s easy for brands to assume that attention is the goal. More impressions. More views. More followers. More noise. We measure it, chase it, optimize it, and celebrate it as if attention itself were proof of progress. But there is a deeper, more strategic truth: Attention without intention is just distraction. Intention makes attention meaningful.