The academic smackdown between “performance marketing” and “brand building” has grown tedious. We all believe Ritson, Sharp, and Stengel that there’s real value in building a brand. Loyalty! Distinction! Pricing Power! We all nod along to the notion that “performance” marketing and “brand” marketing work best together (cue: the inevitable funnel).

And yet, the chief marketing officer of a growing business has no time for theory, not even good theory backed by snazzy models. Racing to an IPO—or quarterly earnings or an annual bonus—you choose the predictable and immediate return on your investment. You give Google all the cash. And you do so with a little pit in your stomach, knowing full well that it’s not “ideal”—but hey, a CMO has got to grow.

And then, right under our ROI-sniffing noses, creative agencies die—clasping to their breasts the latest study from WARC extolling the value of brand building.

Champions of creative marketing know a “brand campaign” is an increasingly rare beast in a world that demands short-term accountability in every stitch of its marketing. There’s nothing wrong with that demand, of course; marketing should work. But let’s please, for at least a little while longer, caress the belief that marketing might work better if it weren’t whipped like a draft horse.

I am sure you believe this.

But what then do we do with our performance-obsessed marketing partners? How do we swindle the whip from their tight grips?

Here’s a suggestion: Let’s begin by never, ever trying to prove the power of “brand” marketing to a client. We won’t coax people to creative heights with the weak whisper of persuasion. This is a job for logic’s odd opposite. This is a job for inspiration.

In fact, brainy strategizing in defense of “creativity” often has a counter-productive effect, rooting anxious marketers in their nervous places. Every day we look at sales, revenue and conversion costs. Every single day. Then when an agency unfurls the charts, well, it only makes it easier to roll your (inside) eyes and find the obvious flaw in their data: It’s all projected, all wishful. ... What’s that? A study says that brands aiming for fame generate 1.3x more loyalty than their competition? That reminds me, I need to grow 225% this quarter to hit my goals.

Numbers bring forth numbers, which is why you should never bring calculators to a spreadsheet fight.

Instead, practice our preaching. We know that almost all decision-making is emotional. We’ve read Kahneman. We know about “blinking” and “nudging.” We know consumers are moved by passions, even when they pretend their decisions are rooted in reason. It’s why agencies sweat to do work that makes people feel something.

But dear agency friend: if logic doesn’t work on people buying your client’s products, why do you think it would work on clients buying your product?  You can’t reason people to bravery.

None of this is to say that agencies shouldn’t be profoundly strategic. Of course, they should be. But they should deploy that strategy very, very lightly at the moment they’re trying to stoke some client courage. An argument wins you nothing. Instead, be the thing you’re trying to do: Scrap the oodles of data-heavy set-up slides, burn your “reasons to believe” and be surprising, charming, maybe even a little reckless and a great deal of irresistible fun.

Three inspiration-based tips for selling “brand” work to a marketer fixated on performance:

Scribble out the line between “performance” and “brand” marketing

Don’t run away from the tried-and-true traffic-driving tools of performance marketing—coupons, giveaways, affiliate programs, branded search, endorsements. Embrace them—and dress them up in glorious brand clothes. Take your 2-for-1 promo and make it an actual creative idea. Craft the crap out of those paid search ads. Indulging the brand/performance distinction perpetuates the idiocy that “brand” marketing doesn’t “perform.” Don’t do that. Scramble those eggs together.

Be a heart magnet, not a head tickler

If you’re not making a client your accomplice, you’re making them your judge. Find ways to engage your client emotionally. Enlist them on the creative journey. If you think your client should be doing only the “thinky bits” while leaving the “creative bits” to you, you’ll be left with a client who is only overthinking. Let them play. Ask them about music and colors and casting and typeface and vibe. Ask them what they feel is funny or sad and scary about their brand. Ask them to invent five great innovations—or pick three great spokespeople. Let them birth babies they want to share with the world.

Put your skin on the performance line

You truly believe emotional brand marketing “performs” for the business. Great. Tie your compensation to a performance metric—not some fuzzy futuristic bullshit about attitudes and equity; nope, tie your compensation to the same metrics to which your client is held accountable; generally, short-term sales and margins. The act of offering this is a courage-building force in itself. It says more than any case study could. It’s a gift and a dare.

Ultimately, if creative brand marketing has a future alongside the ever-perfecting machinery of performance marketing, it needs to stop insisting on its own importance and arguing like an academic. We, its creators and crusaders, need to make people feel its power.