How much do companies spend on marketing?

There is a classic illusion: "If a product is good, it will sell itself." Spoiler alert: no, it won't. In today's digital noise, even a genius product stands almost no chance of survival without marketing.

Marketing is not an expense; it’s a revenue engine. Its job isn't "just to show a banner" but to build three fundamental pillars:

• Demand Generation: Sales deals with people who already want to buy. Marketing creates the people who will want to buy tomorrow.
• LTV (Lifetime Value) Management: Acquiring a customer is expensive. Getting them to return a second, third time, and keep buying for years is the job of brand marketing and CRM.
• The Flywheel Effect: The stronger the brand, the lower the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and the higher the profit margins - because people are willing to pay a premium for a well-known name.

A simple business formula: Sales bring in money today. Marketing guarantees that the company will keep making money tomorrow and five years from now.

Global corporations operate with budgets that exceed the GDP of some countries. Let’s dive a bit deeper into their spending for 2025:

1. Amazon ($47.1 Billion)

• Where they spend the most: Since Amazon is a retailer, a streaming service, and a cloud provider all in one, they invest aggressively in digital performance marketing to outbid competitors in search engines, as well as to acquire viewers for Prime Video.
• Cool Case Study: Integrating ads directly into live broadcasts and series on Prime Video transformed classic streaming into a real-time shopping platform.
• CEO's Stance: Andy Jassy actively invests in AI algorithms and targeting. For Amazon, marketing is the fuel for their "flywheel": more traffic → more sellers → lower prices → even more traffic.

2. L'Oréal (€14.17 Billion)

• Where they spend the most: The company invests a record 32.2% of its entire revenue into marketing. The top priority is influencer marketing and launching AI tools for personalized cosmetics selection (Beauty Tech).
• Cool Case Study: The launch of the premium Kérastase Gloss Absolu line and the AirLight Pro (a smart hairdryer) gadget, where they bet heavily on top stylists and TikTok influencers, instantly creating a viral effect.
• CEO's Stance: Nicolas Hieronimus notes: "We invest over 32% in promotion because it creates our virtuous circle of dominance. Marketing sustains brand value, allowing us to maintain premium pricing even during inflation."

3. Alphabet / Google (~$14.5 Billion)

• Where they spend the most: Ironically, the world's leading advertising platform spends billions on advertising itself. The largest share goes to B2B marketing (acquiring corporate clients for Google Cloud) and promoting their own line of hardware devices (specifically, Pixel smartphones).
• Cool Case Study: Dominating Super Bowl broadcasts and executing massive collaborations with key opinion leaders to showcase the AI photo-editing features of Pixel smartphones.

4. Samsung (~$10-11 Billion)

• Where they spend the most: Connected TV (CTV) and massive events. They maintain leadership through their Galaxy Unpacked launch events, which are watched by millions of people live.
• Cool Case Study: Aggressive promotion of the Galaxy AI platform. They boosted budgets for Performance Max tools by 260% while explicitly excluding competitors' audiences from their targeting, successfully poaching a portion of iOS users.

5. Procter & Gamble ($9.2 Billion)

• Where they spend the most: Traditional TV and Retail Media Networks (digital ads placed directly within retailer sites like Walmart or Amazon).
• Management's Stance: Kumar Venkatasubramanian (MD at P&G) emphasizes: "We focus on constructive disruption and communication superiority. Even when we optimize our spending, we never stop investing in delighting our consumers and reminding them of our presence every single day."

6. Unilever (~$8.5 Billion)

• Where they spend the most: Purpose-driven, social, and environmental marketing. Consumers buy Dove or Ben & Jerry's because they believe in what these brands stand for.
• Cool Case Study: Dove’s Real Beauty campaigns (rejecting filters and AI generation), which have generated billions in reach for years without relying on classic "buy this soap" pitches.

In short, the company will begin to die a slow death. At first, everything will seem perfect - expenses drop, and net profits skyrocket. But within a few months, a "scorched-earth effect" sets in: existing customers buy less frequently, and new ones simply never find out about you. Organic traffic tanks, and competitors push you out of search results and off supermarket shelves.

However, history knows a few unique exceptions.

The Airbnb case: when turning off performance ads is a win

In 2020, due to the pandemic, Airbnb found itself in a crisis and slashed its performance marketing budget (paid search, banners) by $542 million.

• The Result: Traffic dropped by only 5%! Why? Because over the preceding years, the company had built such a powerful brand that over 90% of users visited the site directly or via brand-specific searches on Google.
• Founder's Comment: Brian Chesky said at the time: "The pandemic showed us that we can scale back marketing and still retain most of our traffic. It was a massive lesson. We will no longer buy customers through search ads; instead, we will invest in PR and brand storytelling." Since then, Airbnb has focused almost exclusively on brand marketing.

Tesla lives without traditional marketing at all

• For years, it maintained its status as the world's most valuable automotive brand with a $0 advertising budget. Instead of banners, they relied on PR, Elon Musk's personal brand, referral programs ("buy a car, get free supercharging"), and the pure wow-factor of their products. 

(Though recently, with rising competition, Tesla has started rolling out its first targeted digital campaigns).

BUT! These cases prove only one thing → these brands either already poured billions into marketing beforehand or utilized a different type of acquisition (reputational and guerrilla marketing). Building trust costs time and money in ANY scenario.

If you strip away the complex textbook definitions, marketing is the architecture of value perception.

It’s not about "selling a product." It's about building a system where the customer clearly understands: "This brand solves my problem best, and I want to buy exactly this." For a business, marketing is:

1. 01An Airbag: A strong brand survives crises and trust shocks much more easily.
2. 02The Voice of the Customer: Marketing analyzes the market and tells developers what actually needs to be built, rather than trying to push whatever is already sitting in the warehouse.
3. 03A Competitive Advantage: A product can be copied in a few months (Chinese factories prove this every day). An emotional connection with a brand cannot be copied.

Companies spend billions on marketing because they are buying the most valuable currency of the 21st century from the consumer: attention and trust.

Commentary from the Founder of MAD: "The best marketing is the kind that doesn't feel like advertising. And believe me, achieving that requires spending billions. I work at a company where over 300 people are responsible for marketing - even in the age of AI. Why? Because marketing generates money."