Soulpapamarketing’s branding & marketing story.
ROAS metrics don’t guarantee longevity.
Executives often misunderstand the numbers displayed on ad manager screens as absolute scorecards guaranteeing brand health. Soulpapamarketing does not pursue the typical ad agency approach of obsessing over short-term performance. Over the past 7 years, we have focused on establishing solid heritage partnerships with select brands and capitalizing on their growth. Looking at Meta advertising alone, we invest over 3 billion won annually in strategic budgets, and our actual operational scale including other marketing activities is far more substantial. In this process, numerous cases maintain an annual average ROAS of over 700% steadily, and at peak performance, we’ve recorded overwhelming efficiency exceeding 1,000% by a comfortable margin. This growth in metrics has inevitably been proven by massive expansion of total direct-to-consumer sales.
Yet amid these remarkable numbers, we have witnessed brands crumble like sandcastles in an instant. Seven years of data prove that the essence of collapse is not a lack of sales, but rather discrepancies that have always been quietly accumulating. This is because three gaps—unseen while intoxicated by high efficiency as anesthesia—erode the brand from within.
1. The Discrepancy Between Metrics and Navigation: A Marketing Compass Corrupted by False Numbers
Ad data is not merely a tool for boasting about performance. It is a navigational compass for reading market trends and determining the next destination. Just as a ship sinks when a compass is contaminated with impurities and its direction becomes skewed, the moment false numbers and fake figures seep into marketing metrics, the brand’s strategic judgment becomes corrupted.
In particular, platform ads like Coupang and Naver have far more inflated data than Meta or Google ads. This is because they broadly include sales from customers already searching with purchase intent or organic buyers who would have converted without ads as advertising results. Settling for this false efficiency causes leaders to overestimate the brand’s actual expansion capacity and plunges them into a swamp of complacency.
The reason Soulpapamarketing intentionally excludes all loyal customer segments deemed likely to organically repurchase from targeting is clear. This is because ad metrics should be the purest data showing how much new market demand has been persuaded. Not abandoning repurchase, but efficiently using ad spend while measuring only the essential strength of the brand in pioneering new markets—when we remove false numbers from metrics and confront the harshest data, only then can a brand truly read the genuine flow of the market and maintain proper navigation.
2. The Discrepancy Between Communication and Trust: Social Deception Under the Guise of Philosophy
The surest sign of brand collapse is not when ads stop, not when sales decline, but when—no matter how high sales are, no matter how high the ROAS—the inside and outside of the brand become misaligned. We only feel it when sales drop. But it’s been collapsing all along. When we psychologically dissect the abstract words authenticity and philosophy, brand decline ultimately stems from two types of discrepancies. (Most cases fall into these two categories.)
① The Discrepancy Between Intention and Action: Internal Contradiction
The executive mentally commits to respecting customers. But the moment profit or other variables intervene, actions betray intention. When the mind is angelic but the hands are those of a merchant—in other words, when will lacks detail, actions in practice collapse. Proclaiming that you’ll create products that help consumers, then quietly reducing ingredients upon seeing cost calculations or creating anxiety through fear marketing to sell at higher prices—this exemplifies such contradictions. Hollow commitments inevitably reveal their true nature through small choices in practice.
Typically, we call this behavior inconsistent. We say authenticity is lacking.
② The Discrepancy Between Action and Perception: External Misunderstanding
This occurs when the brand’s actions (sender) are interpreted entirely differently by the customer (receiver). The brand runs dramatic promotional marketing to attract new customers, expecting consumers to appreciate it. Yet existing customers who have paid full price and supported the brand feel betrayed. The moment the perception "Was I a fool for buying first?" takes root, the brand’s accumulated loyalty vanishes instantly. Furthermore, when the brand emphasizes social responsibility by donating in fields unrelated to its identity, customers dismiss it as sophisticated image-packaging marketing rather than genuine good deed. Customers are far more attuned to detecting the consistency of actual behavior hidden behind the brand’s polished language than to the language itself.
There is an apt expression for such gap-filled behavior. It’s called a "cringey brand."
3. The Discrepancy Between Depth and Care: The Complacent Excuse of Targeting Beginners
In business, we often hear the excuse "Our target is beginners, so deep expertise isn’t necessary." But this is merely a cowardly excuse to justify the absence of expertise. There is an uncrossable river between a 15,000 won sushi set carefully crafted by a master with 50 years of experience for sushi beginners and a 15,000 won set made by a first-year chef—in terms of depth and finish.
A real brand meets the customer’s level; it doesn’t dumb down the brand to match beginners. Those who choose a category simply because it’s profitable always make excuses that targeting beginners is fine, thereby exposing their gaps. But beginner customers grow through your brand. The moment they outgrow the beginner stage, your shallow depth becomes the decisive reason for brand abandonment.
To maintain a healthy long-term relationship with customers and create high average order values and repurchase rates, executives must first be more passionate about the field than anyone else. Every struggle and growth stage the executive has experienced must be embedded in the product to properly guide and support customers. A brand that doesn’t love its field and merely mimics without understanding the ecosystem becomes disposable trash the moment customers gain knowledge.
In the end, if you run a cosmetics brand, you must be a cosmetics expert. For oily skin cosmetics, you must be an oily skin care specialist. You must have suffered through it. For a swimwear brand, you must be a swimming specialist. You must be more of a swimmer than anyone, swimming at dawn and dusk. There must be a reason to love swimming so much. If you run a health food supplement brand, and it’s probiotics, you must be an expert in that. And you must have been saved by it. Only then can you transcend imitation and deliver seamlessly with greater depth.
Conclusion: The Essence of Branding Is Ruthless Alignment
After spending tens of billions of won over 7 years, what we’ve learned is that technique can never triumph over essence. A 1,000% ROAS might be the result of brilliant technique, but it’s not a certificate guaranteeing brand longevity.
The only condition for a brand not to collapse is ruthless alignment. Ad manager numbers must represent actual market persuasion, brand messaging must align with customer experience, and most importantly, the executive’s life and depth must align with expertise in that field. What discrepancies is your brand hiding behind impressive numbers right now? If you fail to bridge that gap, the castle you’ve built is no different from one built on sand.
Sniper Insight
Wake up from the illusion of 1,000% ROAS.
Numbers cannot cure the rotting roots of a brand.
Ad data is not a performance sheet; it’s a navigation compass.
Where are you trying to go with a compass mixed with fake numbers?
Remember, kindness toward new customers can be betrayal to existing ones.
Donation without authenticity leaves only the marketing label.
The excuse of targeting beginners cannot shield your mediocrity.
Are the marketing campaigns or social contribution activities currently underway at your brand perhaps misaligned with its core values, unintentionally creating different perceptions in customers’ minds? Particularly, it’s time to check whether your strategy for acquiring new customers is eroding the trust assets of existing loyal customers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a brand fail even with high ROAS?
Yes, even with over 1,000% ROAS, a brand can collapse. A critical discrepancy exists between ad efficiency metrics and actual brand health, and it’s common for brands to collapse in brand assets, customer loyalty, and profit structure while feeling secure about high ROAS.
Why shouldn’t we only look at ROAS?
ROAS only shows ad spend efficiency versus sales, but doesn’t reflect brand sustainability like repeat purchase rate, brand awareness, and customer lifetime value. Relying solely on ROAS easily traps you in discount-dependent sales structures, which damages brand value long-term.
How can we prevent brand collapse amid high advertising performance?
Beyond ROAS, we must monitor brand health metrics like repeat purchase rate, average order value trends, and brand search volume. A balanced growth strategy that reduces ad dependency while simultaneously building organic traffic and customer assets is essential.
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Insights from Soulpapa Marketing — Korea’s digital marketing agency.