Tom Roach

Why organisations work with Tom Roach

• He originated the “performance plateau” framework, a specific, named diagnosis of the growth ceiling that confronts brands over-indexed on performance channels, developed in collaboration with econometrician Dr Grace Kite and published in Marketing Week.
• His IPA Effectiveness Gold Awards span McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, and Barclays, among the most analytically rigorous advertising effectiveness cases in UK industry history.
• As Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, he worked directly alongside Les Binet, the most cited figure in marketing effectiveness research, placing him at the centre of the field’s most serious practitioner thinking.
• He is one of the few voices making the commercial case for brand investment from inside a performance-first agency group, giving his arguments about the brand/performance divide an operational credibility that consulting positions rarely carry.
• His “Share of Model” framework addresses an unmapped emergent risk: how large language models represent brands, and what that means for commercial visibility as AI increasingly mediates discovery and purchase intent.

Biography highlights

• VP Brand Strategy at Jellyfish, part of The Brandtech Group; prior roles at adam&eveDDB, BBH London, Leo Burnett, and AMV BBDO – a career spanning over two decades at the leading edge of UK advertising
• Multiple Gold IPA Effectiveness Awards across campaigns for McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, and Barclays
• Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB working directly alongside Les Binet
• Key contributor to BBH London’s designation as IPA Effectiveness Company of the Year 2018–19
• Marketing Week columnist; regular speaker at Cannes Lions, SXSW, Google Firestarters, and IPA Effweek
• Originator of the “performance plateau” concept (with Dr Grace Kite) and associated “Bothism” brand/performance integration framework, widely adopted in marketing practice

Biography

Many marketing organisations are measuring the right things in the wrong sequence. Brands that concentrated investment in performance channels – search, social, display – often found their growth curve flattening at precisely the moment leadership expected it to accelerate. Tom Roach named this pattern the “performance plateau,” developing the concept with econometrician Dr Grace Kite and publishing it in Marketing Week, where it has since entered mainstream marketing vocabulary.

The credibility behind that argument is operational. As Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, Roach worked directly alongside Les Binet – the most cited figure in marketing effectiveness research – before that, spending seven years driving BBH London’s effectiveness practice to IPA Effectiveness Company of the Year status in 2018–19. The IPA Gold Awards he contributed to, across McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, and Barclays, represent some of the most analytically demanding advertising cases in UK industry history.

At Jellyfish, part of The Brandtech Group, Roach holds a position that few brand effectiveness thinkers occupy: making the case for long-term brand investment from within a digital-first, performance-oriented agency. That vantage point has produced frameworks with real institutional friction behind them, “Bothism” (the philosophy of ending the false choice between brand and performance), a revised model of how people enter and move through markets, and “Share of Model,” which addresses what large language models say about brands and why this matters commercially.

He writes regularly for Marketing Week and speaks at Cannes Lions, SXSW, and IPA Effweek, using those platforms to pressure-test frameworks with practitioners rather than simply advocate positions.

Key speaking topics

• Marketing effectiveness
• Brand and performance marketing integration
• The performance plateau
• Brand building in fragmented media
• Creative effectiveness
• Generative AI and brand strategy
• AI brand visibility and Share of Model

Ideal for

• CMOs and marketing leadership teams whose growth from performance channels is flattening
• CFOs and senior leaders challenged to build the internal case for long-term brand investment
• Brand and performance marketing teams operating in organisational silos
• Agency leadership and strategy teams working across integrated client portfolios

Audience outcomes

• A specific diagnostic for identifying whether their organisation has hit the performance plateau, and a framework for addressing it
• Clearer understanding of how brand building and performance marketing are commercially interdependent rather than competing priorities
• A framework for evaluating creative effectiveness across fragmented, platform-native media environments
• Practical thinking on what AI-mediated search and discovery means for brand visibility (Share of Model)
• Language and commercial evidence to make the case for brand investment to boards and finance leadership