Dr Martens hands Arena Media a bigger global brief, uniting brand and performance
Updated: Sep 1
Dr Martens has widened Arena Media UK's brief to run brand and performance media together across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the US — a clear vote for one joined-up media model over the old split between awareness and sales.
Dr Martens has expanded its media partnership with Arena Media UK, handing the agency a broader remit that unites brand-building and performance media under a single model. Arena Media now leads performance activity, including search and affiliate, on top of its existing integrated media strategy, planning and activation work. The expanded brief spans the UK, France, Germany, Italy and, for the first time, the United States, according to reporting from Decision Marketing and Campaign.
To support the US expansion, Arena Media will hire a planning director based in New York to strengthen integration with Dr Martens' North American teams. The agency has worked with the bootmaker across EMEA for four years, evolving its media approach into an audience-led model. No billings figure was disclosed.
From split funnels to one connected model
For years, many brands ran brand media and performance media as separate disciplines — often with different agencies, different metrics and, quietly, different agendas. Brand teams chased reach and salience; performance teams chased last-click returns. The result was frequently double-counting, wasted budget in the messy middle of the funnel, and endless arguments over who deserved credit for a sale.
Dr Martens' move reflects a broader correction. Head of marketing Michael Boaler said expanding the partnership into the US gives the brand "a more connected global structure" and "stronger collaboration across markets." Arena Media UK principal partner Alex Sherr framed it as "a more unified model for growth." Translated: fewer hand-offs, one set of numbers, and media decisions made across the whole customer journey rather than in silos.
Marketing Minute's read: why UK brands should care
Unifying brand and performance is not just an efficiency play — it is how you stop optimising to the wrong number. When search, affiliate and social sit in the same plan as your brand campaigns, you can see how upper-funnel investment actually lifts branded search and conversion, instead of letting performance channels claim demand that brand activity created. That is the difference between measuring marketing and understanding it.
For UK businesses, the practical lesson is about structure, not scale. You do not need a five-market brief to benefit. Even a small brand can insist that whoever runs paid search also sees the brand plan, shares a single dashboard, and is measured on incremental growth rather than last-click ROAS alone. The 60/40 rule of thumb — roughly 60% of budget to brand, 40% to activation — only works if someone is accountable for both halves at once.
The risk to watch is concentration. Putting brand and performance with one partner buys coherence but reduces the natural tension that keeps each discipline honest. If you consolidate, replace that lost friction with rigorous, independent measurement — incrementality tests, clean attribution and regular third-party review — so the single agency is still held to a hard growth standard.
Quick FAQ
What has Dr Martens actually changed?
It expanded Arena Media UK's role from integrated media planning to also lead performance media — search and affiliate — across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the US, uniting brand and performance under one agency model.
Why are brands merging brand and performance media?
To remove duplication and silos, get a single view of how upper-funnel investment drives conversion, and make budget decisions across the whole customer journey rather than optimising each channel to its own narrow metric.
Does a small business need a unified media model?
Yes, in principle. Even without a multi-market brief, insist that brand and performance share one plan, one dashboard and one growth-based measure of success. The structure matters more than the budget size.
Splitting brand and performance across teams that don't share a scoreboard is how brands quietly pay twice for the same customer. Dr Martens is doing the sensible thing — one plan, one set of numbers, one accountability. Every UK brand can copy the principle, whatever the budget.
— Alicia Morris, Creative & Campaigns Writer at Marketing Minute
Unified brand-and-performance media is becoming the default because it stops you optimising to the wrong number — but consolidation must be paired with independent, incrementality-based measurement.
Do your brand and performance budgets sit under one plan, or are they still fighting over credit? Tell us how your funnel is set up.
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Related reading
Written by Alicia Morris, Creative & Campaigns Writer at Marketing Minute
Comments