Just out of curiosity, how would these events unfold? 1) They do the campaign and 2) rationalize [what I presume is] a failure, or 1) Rationalize a bad campaig

Just out of curiosity, how would these events unfold? 1) They do the campaign and 2) rationalize [what I presume is] a failure, or 1) Rationalize a bad campaign and 2) get it going? Also, how valuable was branding? Were the bad ROI's justified after all?