Recently there has much interest in the role of marketing contributing to firm performance. However, in practice, because of implementation difficulties intended strategy often falls short of optimum performance. The purpose of this paper is to report a recent empirical study that can close the gap between marketing strategy and performance. We empirically investigate whether brand orientation can partly close the strategy–performance gap. Empirical evidence was collected from a sample of 403 Australian firms. Marketing strategy and innovation level were found to influence significantly brand performance. In turn, brand orientation moderated the path from marketing strategy to brand performance. The results suggest that brand orientation, marketing strategy and innovation can influence brand performance and it is brand orientation that offers extra benefits in terms of partly closing the strategy–performance gap.