Performance marketing + creative for growth-stage brands

You’re investing in growth.
Your system should be
working harder.

Performance rarely stalls because of one channel. It stalls when media, creative, measurement, and strategy stop learning from each other.

Growth Brands brings those pieces together in one closed-loop growth system, so every campaign improves what gets made, where it runs, how it’s measured, and what gets scaled next.

  • Senior team
    on your account
  • Media + creative
    together
  • Enterprise
    pedigree
  • 90-day
    validation
From emerging brands to category leaders
  • Sonic
  • Simplehuman
  • Buffalo Wild Wings
  • Mezban Foods
Proof

Marketing that moves the P&L

Representative outcomes from brands we’ve helped grow

+12%
Transaction growth
−36%
Cost per acquisition
+17%
Traffic growth
+8%
Sales growth
The handoff problem

Media and creative are disconnectedwhen they should be compounding each other.

Media knows what is performing. Creative should use that intelligence to decide what to make next. In most organizations, that loop breaks at the handoff.

MEDIAaudiences · bidsbudgets · placementsperformance signals CREATIVEconcepts · hooksassets · productioniteration · rotation WHAT'S WORKING WHAT TO MAKE NEXT The learning gets stuck.

When media and creative do not learn from each other, performance eventually plateaus.
Growth Brands closes the loop.

The Growth Brands closed loop

One team. One loop.

Media and creative operate as one system. Every campaign generates the intelligence that shapes what we make, buy, and optimize next.

EVERY CAMPAIGN WRITES THE NEXT BRIEF PERFORMANCE → LEARNING → CREATIVE → PERFORMANCE EVERY CAMPAIGN WRITES THE NEXT BRIEF
  1. 01
    Signals

    Audience, category, cultural and performance intelligence reveal what to test.

  2. 02
    Creative

    Insights become concepts and assets designed around a specific hypothesis.

  3. 03
    Media

    We deploy across the right channels and create a clean read on performance.

  4. 04
    Outcomes

    We measure what moved in the business, not just what moved in-platform.

  5. 05
    Optimize

    Those learnings become the next brief, and the loop starts again.

The system behind it

Most agencies rely on memory. We build intelligence.

Dani is Growth Brands’ living intelligence system, connecting your audience, brand, market and performance so every decision starts smarter than the last.

What Dani learns
  • Business goals & KPIsRevenue targets, key metrics
  • Audience intelligenceCustomers, segments, behavior
  • Brand & positioningStrategy, voice, guidelines
  • Cultural & competitive signalsTrends, social, market moves
  • Creative performanceWhat resonates and why
  • Media performanceChannel learnings, efficiency
  • Historical decisionsTests, outcomes, strategy
Dani
Growth Brands’
intelligence layer
PeopleWho matters and what moves them
PositioningWhere the growth opportunity is
TrackingWhat’s working and what to do next
Connects context → finds patterns
→ recommends next actions
What Dani powers
  • Sharper strategyDecisions grounded in real data and accumulated context
  • Smarter briefsEvery new brief starts with what we already know
  • Next-best actionsClear recommendations on what to test, change or scale
  • Creative intelligenceWhat messages, concepts and assets should come next
  • Performance intelligenceWhat’s actually driving growth and why
  • Executive reportingBusiness-level understanding, not just platform metrics
Every campaign adds intelligence
Grounded in your businessDani works from your goals, KPIs, brand context and performance history, so recommendations are specific to your business, not generic best practice.
Always currentPlatform changes, market signals and new campaign learnings continuously update the system, so the thinking never goes stale.
Your standards stay intactYour measurement framework, brand rules and strategic decisions remain part of the system, even as platforms and people change.
Intelligence compoundsEvery campaign adds context. Every result improves the next brief, the next decision and the next optimization.

The work doesn’t reset. The intelligence compounds.

The craft

Creative built to move people. Performance built to move business.

Most performance agencies optimize the media after the creative arrives. Growth Brands brings senior creative and performance together from the start, so what gets made is informed by what the market is already telling us.

Ahora tequila seltzer campaign
AhoraBrand platform / Hispanic creative
I love New York tourism campaign
I ♥ NYTourism brand campaign
U.S. Army Warriors Wanted recruitment campaign
U.S. ArmyRecruitment campaign
Clyde May’s bourbon campaign
Clyde May’sBrand / product creative
Ale Ortiz
Creative leadership

Ale Ortiz Chief Creative Officer

Experience across the world’s leading agencies and iconic brands.

  • Leo
    Burnett
  • Deutsch
  • TBWA\Chiat\Day
  • McCann
  • Campbell Ewald

Film, brand platforms, digital, activations and culturally fluent creative, now connected directly to the performance loop.

The media team knows what performs.

The creative team knows how to turn that learning into the next idea.

Here, they work as one.
Who you work with

Big-brand experience, built for growth-stage businesses.

We bring the rigor, judgment, and cross-functional experience of enterprise marketing teams to companies that need senior thinking without enterprise-agency complexity. You work directly with the people leading the strategy, creative, and performance.

Senior experience across leading agencies and holding companies
Duryea Ruffins, Founder of Growth Brands
Duryea RuffinsFounder

20+ years across Publicis, WPP, Omnicom and IPG, leading growth and marketing for some of the world’s largest brands and high-growth businesses. Duryea brings the senior strategy, commercial judgment and cross-channel leadership behind every Growth Brands engagement.

Maddy Bromberger, Advisor, Advertising Strategy and AI Compliance
Maddy BrombergerAdvisor, Advertising Strategy & AI Compliance

25+ years leading omnichannel strategy, audience development, media, insights and measurement across CPG, retail, QSR, entertainment, financial services, automotive and technology. Maddy also brings a regulatory lens across AI, data privacy and emerging technology.

Ale Ortiz, Chief Creative Officer
Ale OrtizChief Creative Officer

Award-winning writer and creative director with 20+ years building brands, creative departments and integrated campaigns across Leo Burnett, TBWA\Chiat\Day, Deutsch, Casanova//McCann and Campbell Ewald. His work connects cultural insight, storytelling and craft to business growth.

If we work together

Ninety days to a clear answer.

We start with a focused 90-day engagement, not an indefinite commitment. The goal is to understand your growth engine, improve the highest-leverage opportunities, and leave you with a clear recommendation on what to scale, what to change, and where to stop forcing the issue.

01

Establish
the baseline

We get clear on how growth is working today across media, creative, measurement, and conversion. The objective is to separate assumptions from reality and identify where performance is actually being created, constrained, or lost.

  • Diagnose
  • Analyze
  • Find opportunities
02

Improve
the system

We act on what the business is telling us. That may mean reallocating investment, refining measurement, strengthening creative, tightening execution, or changing how channels and teams work together.

  • Prioritize
  • Test
  • Iterate
03

Make
the call

By the end of the quarter, you get a clear read on the economics and a recommendation in writing: scale harder, keep refining, or redirect resources toward something more productive.

  • Measure
  • Recommend
  • Plan next
Senior operators stay close to the workStrategy, creative, media, and measurement are led by experienced people who stay involved as the work evolves.
One operating system across growthMedia, creative, measurement, and strategy work from the same signals, so decisions are connected instead of siloed.
A clear decision by day 90You leave the quarter knowing what is working, what needs to change, and where the next dollar or effort should go.
The growth assessment

A clearer view of what’s holding growth back.

Before we ever talk about working together, we look across the parts of your growth system that matter: performance, creative, measurement, conversion, and how those pieces are working together.

Work with us or not, you leave with priorities you can act on.

  1. 01Before the conversation
    We build the context.

    Share your website, current growth priorities, channel mix, and any performance context you’re comfortable providing. We do the homework before the call so the conversation starts with your business, not a generic checklist.

    • Business
    • Media
    • Creative
    • Measurement
  2. 02During the assessment
    We identify the constraints.

    Together, we look at where growth is being created and where the system is breaking down. That could be channel economics, creative fatigue, measurement gaps, conversion friction, positioning, or teams operating in silos.

    • What’s working
    • What’s stuck
    • Why
  3. 03After the assessment
    You get the priorities in writing.

    Within two business days, we send a concise Growth Assessment showing the highest-leverage opportunities we see and the order we would address them.

    • 3–5 priorities
    • Rationale
    • Next action
Growth assessmentPrepared for: Your brand · Illustrative example

What may be constraining growth

Your media is generating useful signals, but those learnings are not consistently shaping creative development, and current measurement makes it difficult to distinguish channel efficiency from incremental growth.

Revenue$420K+28% vs. prior 90 days
ROAS2.1x+18%
CAC$52−22%
Conversion rate1.8%+0.4pp

Key opportunities

  • Creative
  • Media
  • Measurement
  • Conversion
  1. 01
    Connect performance signals to the next creative briefBuild the next testing cycle around the messages, audiences, and offers already showing strongest response.
    Creative + Media
  2. 02
    Reallocate investment around growth economicsIdentify which channels and audiences deserve incremental budget based on business outcomes, not platform efficiency alone.
    Media + Measurement
  3. 03
    Tighten the conversion pathAddress the highest-friction point between acquisition and purchase before adding significant incremental spend.
    Conversion
  4. 04
    Strengthen the measurement frameworkCreate a clearer view of what is actually contributing to growth across platform reporting, customer data, and business outcomes.
    Measurement
Next stepsWe recommend starting with Opportunities 01 and 02 in the next 30 days, then reassessing performance before scaling additional investment.

Your assessment is specific to your business. These are illustrative examples only.

Built for brands with something to scale

Growth-stage consumer brands already investing in marketing and looking for a more rigorous path to the next stage of growth. Typically, there is meaningful traction, an active marketing engine, and a senior decision-maker looking to improve how strategy, creative, media, and measurement work together.

FAQ

Questions we get a lot.

Straight answers about who we work with, what we do, how we work, and what to expect.

01Is Growth Brands right for a company like ours?

We work best with growth-stage brands that already have traction, are investing meaningfully in marketing, and need a more rigorous way to connect strategy, creative, media, measurement, and conversion. If the fundamentals are still being built from scratch, we may not be the right partner yet.

02Is this just paid media?

No. Performance is the entry point, but we look at the system around it: creative, media, measurement, conversion, positioning, and how those pieces work together. The goal is not to optimize one channel in isolation. It is to improve the growth engine.

03We already have an agency or in-house team. Do you replace them?

Not necessarily. Growth Brands can lead the work, complement an existing team, or operate as the senior strategic layer around resources you already have. Sometimes the right recommendation is to keep your current partners and change how the system is working around them.

04What happens during the first 90 days?

We establish the baseline, identify the highest-leverage constraints, act on what we learn, and determine what deserves to scale. By day 90, you should have a much clearer view of what is working, what needs to change, and where additional investment makes sense.

05What happens after the 90 days?

If the economics and working model are strong, we build from there. That could mean continuing the performance engagement, expanding creative, adding channels, or taking on a broader growth mandate. If the opportunity is not there, we will tell you that too.

06What channels and capabilities can you actually manage?

Our performance work can span paid social, search, programmatic, CTV, video, audio, and other relevant channels. But channel selection follows the business problem. We do not start with a predetermined media mix and force your growth strategy into it.

07Who actually does the work?

Senior operators stay close to the engagement. Strategy, creative, media, and measurement are led by experienced people who remain involved as the work evolves rather than disappearing after the pitch.

Book the growth assessment

See what’s holding
growth back. Pick a time.

In 30 minutes, we look across the parts of your growth system that matter: creative, media, measurement, conversion, and how those pieces are working together. You leave with a clearer view of the constraints and what we’d prioritize next.

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