The funnel's real problem is the assumption that you can push people through stages in order
WarningBrand Strategy
The funnel's real problem is the assumption that you can push people through stages in order
The fault in the funnel is linearity: the belief that you can sort people into groups, make the unaware aware, then force those people to become considerers and then converters. Roach's counter is simply that the world is not like that - people ping-pong around, and the elaborate customer journey maps of that era looked impressive on a wall and lost the room the moment anyone read the detail.
Source
The WARC Podcast - Four marketing frameworks you need to know (2026)
Tom Roach (VP, Jellyfish / Brandtech Group), interviewed by David Tiltman (WARC)
00:16:49-00:20:37, Tom Roach on The WARC Podcast, April 2026
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PrincipleThe performance plateau is Binet & Field translated for brands that only ever bought performancePrincipleLong and short have to be drawn as one system, or the chart itself invites a choicePrincipleFor a digital-first brand, performance spend is a floor, not a variableCaseThe most useful part of the performance plateau was identified by its readers, not its authorsWarningThe flat part of the growth curve is the most dangerous moment in a scale-up's lifeWarningThe brand-performance balance has shifted far less than the brand bubble believesWarningTeams named after funnel stages are structurally incentivised to stop the system workingPrincipleThe funnel survived because it made ad inventory easy to sell, not because it was ever accuratePrincipleBuild, Nudge and Connect - the funnel rewritten around how memory works rather than how inventory sellsPrincipleAwareness is not wrong, it is just far too thin a description of the top of the funnelPrinciplePerformance advertising mostly directs people to brands they have already chosenPrincipleCategory entry points are what replaces the message on a creative brief