Hi {{first_name | there,}}

For more than 25 years, I’ve helped teams build marketing that cuts through noise and scales revenue.

Geoff’s Growth Guide is where I share the strategy, go-to-market frameworks, and execution systems that work in practice. Not theory. Not hype. Just the mechanics behind durable growth.

Modern marketing has become extraordinarily good at measuring things. We can track clicks, conversions, acquisition costs and return on ad spend with remarkable precision. We know which campaigns generate leads, which channels produce revenue and which audiences are most likely to convert.

But just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean it's the most valuable thing to invest in. Think about the brands you remember, recommend or instinctively trust. Chances are, those relationships weren't built through a single advertisement or measurable conversion.

They developed through experiences, repeated interactions, positive associations and the gradual accumulation of brand familiarity. And much of that is notoriously difficult to attribute.

This creates an interesting dilemma for marketers.
When every investment is expected to demonstrate measurable returns, what happens to the activities that build long-term brand preference?

That's a question worth exploring in light of Bilt's recent marketing strategy.
The rewards and loyalty company has been investing in experiences, community engagement and cultural relevance rather than relying exclusively on traditional performance marketing.

It's an approach that raises some important questions about how businesses create demand, measure effectiveness and decide where to invest their marketing budgets.

And that brings us to a bigger question: Have we become so focused on proving that marketing works that we're overlooking some of the things that make it work in the first place?

If this resonates, I’d love to hear what you think. Just hit “reply” or click here. I read every response.

Marketing has always involved a certain amount of uncertainty. A customer might see an advertisement, hear a recommendation, attend an event or encounter a brand repeatedly before deciding to make a purchase.

The challenge is that modern marketing systems are much better at recording transactions than explaining everything that influenced them.

That can create an uncomfortable imbalance. Campaigns that generate immediate, attributable results are relatively easy to defend. Activities designed to build awareness, preference, emotional attachment or community are harder to evaluate, even when they contribute meaningfully to future growth.

But some brands are deliberately investing in those less predictable activities, not because they've abandoned commercial objectives, but because they recognise that customer relationships extend beyond the moments when someone is ready to buy.

Bilt, Rothy's and Liquid Death offer three different approaches to this challenge. Each is finding ways to create experiences and associations that conventional advertising might struggle to deliver.

Bilt began with a compelling functional proposition: allowing renters to earn rewards on one of their largest recurring expenses. That's an effective customer acquisition argument, but it doesn't necessarily create the emotional attachment required to sustain a brand over time.

Earning points on rent might give someone a reason to join. It doesn't automatically give them a reason to care about the company beyond the rewards.

Bilt's recent marketing strategy appears designed to address precisely that distinction.

In an October 14 interview with Business Insider, CMO Zoe Oz described Bilt's ambition to become a lifestyle brand through exclusive merchandise, physical experiences and community engagement.

The company has expanded beyond rent rewards into restaurants, fitness and entertainment, creating opportunities for members to interact with Bilt throughout their everyday lives. Its merchandise collections and pop-up events are designed to make membership feel like something worth participating in, rather than simply a way to accumulate points.

Oz has suggested that experiential initiatives are substantially more effective than traditional approaches, although their commercial impact remains difficult to quantify. Events may generate enthusiasm and advocacy, but the challenge is determining whether that engagement translates into stronger retention, preference and customer lifetime value.

My Take: Bilt is attempting to move from being a useful rewards platform to becoming a brand customers identify with. That's strategically valuable because competitors can replicate functional benefits more easily than established emotional connections and communities.

The real measure of success isn't how much excitement its experiences generate, but whether they create more valuable customer relationships over time.

One criticism of experiential marketing is that it produces compelling photographs, enthusiastic social posts and very little evidence of commercial impact.

Rothy's offers an interesting counterpoint.

According to an October 16 Business Insider report on experiential influencer marketing, a Rothy's pop-up activation generated a 75% increase in traffic.

The strategy goes beyond attracting people to an event. Visitors share content, recommend the experience and generate curiosity among audiences who weren't physically present. Those interactions can encourage additional visits and introduce new customers to the brand.

Unlike impressions or engagement figures, increased traffic demonstrates a measurable change in customer behaviour.

However, more visitors don't automatically mean more profitable customers. The reported increase doesn't establish how many additional purchases occurred, whether those purchases were incremental or whether the activation justified its costs.

My Take: Rothy's demonstrates that experiential marketing can produce measurable outcomes without relying exclusively on digital attribution. Increased traffic is a useful indicator, but it isn't proof of commercial success.

Marketers should measure experiences against their intended objectives while connecting those results to purchasing behaviour and business value wherever possible.

Liquid Death provides another variation on the same strategic principle.

The company sells products in categories where functional differentiation can be limited. Water, for example, is hardly a product that naturally lends itself to elaborate storytelling.

Yet Liquid Death has built a distinctive identity through irreverent humour, entertainment and unconventional campaigns. In a January 2026 Marketing Brew interview, the company discussed its approach to creating content people actively want to watch, using comedy writers and an in-house creative operation to develop unconventional campaigns.

One promotion offered customers the chance to win a fighter jet. Other initiatives have featured unusual merchandise, collaborations and deliberately outrageous creative concepts designed to generate attention and conversation.

The strategy isn't dependent on every campaign becoming viral. Smaller pieces of content can reinforce Liquid Death's distinctive personality, while successful ideas can be amplified through paid media.

The underlying objective is straightforward: make the brand memorable before the customer reaches the shelf. In categories where products can appear interchangeable, familiarity and recognition can influence which option customers choose.

My Take: Liquid Death illustrates the difference between purchasing attention and creating a brand people voluntarily pay attention to. Its irreverent creative style won't suit every business, but the strategic principle is broadly applicable, although you do need to choose the right use case for this sort of promotion. A new, up-and-coming brand can’t usually pull off this sort of promotion because they lack the reputation and track record that’s needed to generate buzz and publicity. That would lead to a promotion that’s far less effective than what Liquid Death achieved.

Distinctive, memorable marketing can influence purchasing decisions long after the original interaction, even when the eventual conversion can't be traced directly to the campaign.

Question for you:
Are you investing in the marketing that creates the most value, or the marketing that's easiest to measure?

The ability to track clicks, conversions and revenue has transformed marketing for the better. But when those metrics become the primary basis for investment decisions, it's easy to overlook activities that build the awareness, trust and preference behind future growth.

As Bilt, Rothy's and Liquid Death demonstrate, creating demand and capturing demand are different jobs, and both deserve attention. The challenge is understanding how each contributes to business growth without expecting every activity to produce the same kind of measurable result.

That doesn't mean brand building should escape accountability. It means we need better ways to evaluate its contribution, particularly when the commercial benefits emerge over months or years rather than days.

And that's where we'll pick up next week.

In Part 2, we'll move from the examples to the practical application. We'll introduce a three-part framework for connecting marketing objectives, evidence and business impact, then explore five actionable ways to identify growth opportunities your existing dashboards might be overlooking.

Because the goal isn't to measure less. It's to make sure we're measuring what matters, investing in what works and not sacrificing tomorrow's growth to make today's numbers look better.

Have you seen a brand invest in something that was difficult to measure but clearly made a difference? Or have you found ways to demonstrate the value of marketing activities that traditional attribution overlooks? Hit reply and tell me or simply click here and share your experiences. I respond directly, and the strongest topics often shape future editions.

See you in the next edition,
Geoff

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