"Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, the go-to resource for business leaders seeking actionable strategies to grow revenue and build lasting success. In today’s episode, titled "Creating Marketing That Sticks: Lessons in Balancing Data, Emotion, and Long-Term ROI,"" host Kerry Curran sits down with Preston Rutherford, co-founder of Chubbies, to explore the delicate balance between short-term wins and long-term growth in marketing. Preston shares the fascinating journey of building Chubbies into a household name, from its disruptive beginnings to its $100M exit. Along the way, he unpacks the four stages of brand evolution and reveals how marketers can strike the perfect balance between data-driven decision-making and emotionally resonant storytelling. From leveraging financial insights to justifying brand investments to the C-suite, this conversation is packed with real-world advice for navigating the complexities of modern marketing. If you’ve ever wondered how to align your marketing strategy with both short-term goals and long-term profitability, this episode is for you. Tune in and discover the keys to creating marketing that sticks!"
Great marketing isn’t just about data or emotion—it’s about finding the perfect balance. The data provides the roadmap; it shows you where you’re winning and where you’re falling short. But without an emotional connection, your brand becomes just another transaction, easily forgotten. The most successful companies understand this balance—they use data to guide decisions but invest in storytelling and brand building to create something that sticks with their audience. If you’re only chasing short-term wins like ROAS or quick revenue, you’re sacrificing the long-term loyalty and growth that truly make a brand sustainable.
Podcast Guest: Preston Rutherford
Host: Kerry Curran
Title: Creating Marketing That Sticks: Lessons in Balancing Data, Emotion, and Long-Term ROI
Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.484)
So welcome Preston, please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and expertise.
Preston Rutherford (00:08.056)
Yeah, Carrie, thanks for having me. Preston Rutherford co-founded a men's apparel brand called Chubbies. We started it in late 2011, sold the business at the end of 2021, almost 10 years to the day after founding. Lovely, wonderful exit over a hundred million dollars. Very blessed. And the business was then part of something called Solo Brands, which was, or is a roll-up …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:13.086)
you
Preston Rutherford (00:38.242)
… and is now part of the public market. So out there doing things and it's awesome to see Chubbies reach a scale that none of us as the founders or the team, or at least I guess I can speak for myself, never could have imagined. And it's wonderful to see. So now, no longer part of the business, but spending some time trying to create useful content that processes all of my mistakes and learnings from the process of …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:05.099)
You
Preston Rutherford (01:06.582)
… of helping to build the brand and going through the ups and the downs and the craziness and a lot of what I think we aim to talk about today, which is just this notion of the connection between marketing and revenue, brand performance, how to justify these things to your higher ups, to the execs, to the CEO, the CFO, to the board, why you do it and how you make more money by actually marketing and marketing effectively.
So I'm really excited to be there today or to be here today. And I think the one other thing that I should mention is this whole thing, this core theme that you talk about is so important. And we felt like it was so important that after leaving the brands, one of my Chubby's co-founders and I, who were both the ones who were focused on the marketing piece, have been spending the last two years trying to provide some tools that marketers can use to better measure the hard to measure marketing stuff, but the stuff that is so important so that we don't only have to focus on the short-term stuff. So we call that software marathon and we're in the early days of doing that. So it's been a lot of fun working on that as well. So that in a nutshell is me, Preston.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:20.49)
Excellent, well, thank you, Preston. We're very happy to have you with us today. So I know we talked a bit about how you caught my eye on LinkedIn with a lot of the just learnings that you were sharing and promoting and a fair amount about just bringing a brand to market and the kind of corporate conversations and investment choices that need to happen. And so talk to me about just, you know, what it was like to kind of bring a brand to market and kind of build that awareness of your product and differentiation.
Preston Rutherford (02:56.238)
Sure. So the way I like to think about it is we went through these four phases that I think many brands go through. so in terms of directly addressing your question, bringing a brand to market, I at the beginning, we felt there was both an, let's call it an ideological or vibe gap, which you would call brand, but we weren't necessarily that articulate back then. And a product gap at the time, think of what 14, 15 years ago …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:16.866)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (03:25.97)
… shorter shorts were not the norm. They are certainly now, but it was a very long cargo pocket. So anyways, we were entrepreneurs in search of a business and we wouldn't, one of our friends started Instagram and another one of our friends from college started Snapchat and we were like, well, none of us studied computer science, so that's not really in the cards, but maybe we can make some shorts. So that's what we ended up doing. We ended up finding that …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:30.178)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Preston Rutherford (03:53.394)
… simply being the, from a brand perspective, the opposite of the status quo in many ways. Meaning at the time, the main style for men was the sort of previous version of Abercrombie and Fitch. Now it's cool. Back then, it was not cool. Or different, right? It was much cooler than you. You have to look a certain way. You can't come in unless you look and feel and are this way. And …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:10.134)
Yeah …
Preston Rutherford (04:23.438)
… it's not about having fun and being exclusive, inclusive excuse me, it's very much the opposite. So our thinking was that it doesn't fit what we're looking for, what we're needing, so let's just try to be the opposite. So we named our company Chubbies, which is ridiculous, and we were all about accepting yourself for who you are, having a good time, and then trying to orient everything around the opposite of taking oneself seriously. So that was the approach.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:37.858)
You
Preston Rutherford (04:49.368)
And then the other piece is we weren't going to do sort of like heavily produced video or photo shoots. was, and again, think of this 2011, the iPhone, yes, it had a camera. Was it a great camera? No. So we were, we were doing a lot of our marketing in a way that kind of looked and felt like the photos you would take of your own weekend rather than some Abercrombie or Ralph Lauren million dollar photo shoot. So I think that's the whole feeling …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:02.078)
Right.
Preston Rutherford (05:19.182)
… really resonated with folks. But we didn't have money to spend. in this sort of stage one, it was let's just do really interesting things that get people's attention that are free. So at the time on Facebook, you could reach on Facebook, not even Instagram or TikTok, you could reach most of your audience by doing interesting things. And we would be able to do things like giveaway campaigns that could go viral.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:36.32)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (05:46.956)
At the time they weren't as sketchy as they kind of look and feel now. But we just used the tactics that were available to us at the time. That stage one, I think that's a lot of that is what helped us kind of rise above where there was a clear gap and we were just trying to be the total opposite of what status quo was at the time. And I think because of that, there was just this natural, okay, there's this need that exists where our thinking was, well, there are four of us.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:58.348)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (06:15.854)
There've gotta be other people out here in the world who are like us, who are not being met with the current sort of status quo product. And it turns out there were. Now, I don't know how many at the time, but there were some, right? And I think we created the story and the brand to where you either loved it or you hated it. And at the beginning, you don't love being hated, but then you realize at least there was something to hate. So when you're, when...
Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:44.492)
Yeah …
Preston Rutherford (06:45.39)
… you haven't created something that is, or when you're not at a brand, for instance, that has something to hate, you might be running the risk of just being so, we're trying to appeal to everyone that no one really cares. So in a lot of ways, being hateable is a blessing. Not that we aimed for it and not that we wanted the majority of people to hate us, but just it's a tweak. Obviously you're in 100 % of the world to ...
Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:01.303)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (07:11.672)
… be completely over the moon in love with you, but that obviously is impossible. So that was one of the things that we took from our previous experiences. It's okay if people hate us because what we want is for someone to react and to love it or hate it, not be apathetic. That's stage one. Stage two very much is this idea. My gosh, people are buying our stuff. We're becoming a company. We have employees. My gosh, we have quarterly plans. We have forecasts. We need to systematize this thing …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:15.703)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (07:42.17)
… and Facebook ads were becoming a thing. So then I think our stage two is just this notion of, well, let's scale, let's grow really fast. Let's be, well, we're data driven. All this data is available, so let's make the most of it. The problem is that it's very short-term data. How much I put a dollar in, how much money do I get out 15 minutes later? It feels great and it works at the beginning.
But oftentimes, and I think many brands of any age who are doing this sort of, bottom-funnel performance marketing thing where you measure the effectiveness of your marketing by how it drives short-term revenue are seeing the diminishing performance of their performance marketing. That's kind of like stage two. And at the end of it, you start to be like, my gosh, what's, you it's not working as well as it used to. And then you transition to this stage three, which we call their midlife crisis, or just the realization that we need to change where, you know, we're starting to discount more. starting to have to rely on these things that don't feel …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:31.49)
You
Preston Rutherford (08:39.244)
… rate, our ads are becoming much more sort of like product offer urgency driven rather than, hey, here's just a piece of content that should ideally make you feel great. Our product is featured, but not sort of at the forefront. I'm not telling you to buy right now. I'm just saying, hey, here it is, right? We're having a great time. Hope you have a great time enjoying this content. Go on with your day because you're probably not in the market right now. But when you do come in the market, this creative will have increased the probability that you automatically choose me.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:52.32)
Right. Yep.
Preston Rutherford (09:07.116)
rather than going through this heavy rational process. But we weren't doing any of that because it didn't drive short-term revenue. So therein lies the tension, but we realized we needed to do some more of that stuff. So we had to figure out how to measure it, how to justify it, how to talk to the execs about it, and how we make the case for this kind of marketing too. And then stage four, this idea that, okay, we're starting to figure out this notion of yes, marketing drives revenue and the best way it drives revenue both in the short and long term …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:12.866)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (09:37.134)
… profitable revenue is by balancing this idea of brand and performance, long-term and short-term. And from what we've seen, I think any brand that kind of reaches some semblance of long-term sustainability, weathers through multiple cycles, is able to generate sustainable growth at a very sort of high meaningful profit margin has been able to find that balance. Not that we never go back, right? Because all of this is cyclical and these life cycles repeat themselves, but that's sort of like what …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:40.812)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (10:06.58)
… we found it. So anyways that's a little bit of the four stages I think of the brand story that very much reflects the Chubby story that we went through as well.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:15.008)
Yeah, it's such an amazing kind of brand and legacy that you've created. And I love the stages and kind of how you can, I'm right there with you kind of feeling the pain of each stage. But even going back to the beginning, I think what was so important and really stands out about your story is from the beginning, you knew you needed to differentiate and you knew you wanted to be a little bit disruptive. And I think that's that in itself.
That is part of a brand strategy. And I think that a lot of brands miss that part of it, like, I'm going to do something that's going to go against the grain. And I love your comfort with being hated because that's attention, right? It's kind of like creating that friction. Another key point that I really liked that you made was the vibe. The brand vibe is really, it's funny because I think of my kids who watch a fair amount, probably too much YouTube, but they use the word vibe all the time. And it should be more top of mind when it comes to your brand and your brand narrative and story. And so just having that differentiation and creating that vibe of we're normal people, we're out, we're taking pictures to your point, like that sets you up for success.
And I love that you figured out how to come back to that, but that discounting and that paid media phase, every time, just maybe think about every time there's a holiday, there's always my Instagram feed is 50 % off, 70 % off by now. And I'm like, I don't, I don't know you. I don't know you. Like, what are you offering me? All I'm getting is a big square that says 60 % off. I don't know. Like it's, so it's, it's creating that on …
Preston Rutherford (12:04.19)
Right.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:12.906)
… that balance of kind of getting to know you, investing in the brand building and that awareness. I love that, you know, talking about like, maybe not going to buy now, but we're going to build this relationship. when you are ready. But I know as we talked about, it's a bit of a challenge to get your leadership team to want to invest in things that aren't going to show that return, especially when they got a little bit addicted to the, you know …
Preston Rutherford (12:17.384)
Right.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:42.24)
… the short-term results and the instant gratification of paid media. So talk a bit about those conversations and how you're able to kind of educate those holding the purse strings for that investment around kind of building those relationships again.
Preston Rutherford (12:58.854)
Sure the way that and and let me just sort of caveat or preface by saying I was never really good at this because I made all the mistakes in these conversations I've been able to reflect and like okay now that my ego is detached from Roas right because that was effectively a direct correlation between return on ad spend and my happiness for
Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:26.37)
Yep.I get it. You're, you're refreshing your, your analytics. Like, I want to see what's new. How many more came through? Yeah. Yep.
Preston Rutherford (13:27.251)
Better part of a decade, for better or worse. Exactly, exactly. Every 15 minutes, yeah. Do I have worth as a human or do I not? Well, it's based on this number in this column. So let me just first say that coming from a position of humility, but the things that I think might work and the timing to your point is perfect, harkening back to what you're saying. My Instagram feed right now is just filled with 60 % off and you don't even know what the product is or ...
Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:00.322)
Right.
Preston Rutherford (14:01.268)
or why it's a product that you even want to buy. And that's just going to, like we're talking right now on the second, third week of November. So when this comes out, people will probably be doing the retro on Black Friday, Saber Monday and thinking about, my gosh, well, it didn't really do as well as I thought it would. And maybe I had to pull some triggers or levers that I don't feel super great about because sales were coming in soft or …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:15.564)
Right. Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (14:27.612)
… my gosh, the post-Black Friday Cyber Monday lull is longer than it has ever been. So you're in one version of those things. Maybe some of you, if you're a unicorn or in the phase of crushing it, you know, nothing is problematic at this stage, but my understanding is you're in the vast, vast, vast minority. So in terms of these conversations, right, that's where the rubber meets the road, right? Because it's not rocket science to ...
Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:35.447)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (14:56.226)
… come to the conclusion that, we need to do this brand thing, or that if 100 % of the ads we're putting out there are this product offer urgency-based stuff that really drive great short-term revenue, it's pretty obvious that, hey, this can't last forever if we're not doing anything to balance it, right? Whether or not you believe in the idea of a funnel,
Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:20.78)
Right.
Preston Rutherford (15:24.364)
You are a human. You yourself are a consumer of products. And if you just go down your credit card statement and look at the things that you just recently bought and then ask yourself why, ask yourself, was it a completely rational purchase? Ask yourself, what is this decision-making process that I as a human use? You'd probably find that the folks from which you purchase, some of it was a discount, but some of it was maybe because of a brand that you felt something about, who was also discounting got you to buy or it was your splurge, right? Where you kind of paid a little bit more than you'd be happy to admit where you kind of go to your wife and just be like, you know, it was just a one type thing. But that's the one where you're just kind of like, wow, there's perceived value there that has been created that was accomplished strictly with ads or marketing that just gets you to buy right now, right? You felt something emotional about it. Or if you're not buying the …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:11.436)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Preston Rutherford (16:21.646)
… absolute cheapest cheapest cheapest price, you're paying a little bit more even if it's on discount. That delta is something that was created by something other than hitting people over the head with discounts all the time. Okay, so this is all obvious to a certain extent and we can resonate that it's true for us as people, but again when we look into the company's bank account or we look at our forecast for next year or we're you know coming in a little bit soft …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:28.246)
Right.
Preston Rutherford (16:49.664)
… or we've really got to focus on profitability in this coming year, whatever it might be, this conversation is somewhat difficult, right? Because the knee-jerk every dollar has to be accountable. Every dollar has to generate a clear return. So how can, how can, we don't have to throw away money to just kind of like put it out there. And that's when we need to talk about a couple of things. One, how is the current trend going? Is what we're currently doing working?
Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:15.745)
It.
Preston Rutherford (17:21.08)
Where do we go from here? What do we want to have happen? And then three, just from an objective, rational first principles perspective, we are aligned. We are on the same page. Okay, so let's go through each one first. Status quo, how's it going? If you're having this conversation at all internally with your higher ups or with those who hold or control the purse strings. And if you're wanting to do things that you haven't been able to get approval to do, most likely it's because you as a marketer feel that, hey, we got to do some of this stuff and I feel limited because I lack measurement or something like that. So the truth is there, right? The status quo isn't working for some reason. Maybe you've been cashing in all of this brand equity that's been built and you're starting to feel like, hmm, I haven't been making enough deposits.
Whatever the feeling is, it's relatively simple exercise to the extent you have access to some of the financials and you know a little bit about and you could get like if you're a public company you can get all this info and if you're not a public company you should be able to get access to some of this info and when you go to the CFO and say hey I'd love to I'd love to look at our annual you know operating model and see like what our forecast is and how we actualize not just for revenue this thing that maybe we're gold against but like I want to understand how contribution margin is training I want to understand how you know, things, the dollars are flowing through OpEx. I want to understand our balance sheet.
You're going to look so good to your CFO. It's like, huh, that's awesome that this person cares about this stuff. So that being number one. And then get in there, get in on these financials and then look at the year over year and look at how things have been trending. Most likely you were spending as much or more than last year and you've been getting less for it. So that in and of itself is a point where we could just say, hey, you know, let's be adults here …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:06.679)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (19:13.738)
… is what we're currently doing working. And so we have to agree that there's a problem to solve before we can change our behavior. So that's the first thing we have to accomplish. And as a marketer, having a better understanding of all the financial statements of the business, assuming of course you can get access to them or some version of them, will make you a more effective marketer, right? Because at the end of the day, revenue is a vanity metric and we need to understand dollars that we're dropping through the P &L. So that being number one all of the benefits associated with that. Number two, just objective, right?
Just if you pull up all of your ads, all of your emails, all of your whatever, and just show them to your CFO, just walk through them, just be like, how do we feel about this, right? Is this the right thing to do, right? Say, CFO, you joined this company because you probably wanted to get rich in some form, right? You wanted your equity to be worth something, you wanted to have an IPO, or you wanted to get acquired. As you know, CFO, we get acquired by slightly some EBITDA multiple. Looking back to number one, has EBITDA been growing? Has our EBITDA margin been growing? Probably not. So, what are the most profitable brands in the world doing? Yeah, some of them have been around for 100 years, but most of them, and just like taking that out of account, most of them, people just feel something emotional about the brand.
Most of them are not running ads like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Most of them do not have red strike-throughs. Most of them are not XYZ. And that then allows us to just sort of say, hey, at a high level, our current behaviors are inconsistent with the things that the best, most profitable brands in the world do. Not that they never discount, not the blah, blah, but just there's this tension. And then the third piece is just, well, okay, so what do do about it? How actually do people purchase? What does that look like? Well, okay.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:02.998)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (21:13.518)
You were talking about this earlier. You see the 60 % discount and you're like, I don't even know you. So like, I have no context. I'm probably not in the market for this random water bottle right now. So this is 60 % off. Yeah. I mean, it's just in one ear and out the other. Or if I click and purchase just cause for some reason, you're like, you got me. I'm going to be the lowest lifetime value customer that you acquire. And so it's going to probably cost you more than it's worth to acquire me. And it's a waste of everyone's time. Definitely a waste of money. So then it's like, well,
Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:18.131)
Right. Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (21:43.222)
Okay, how do people purchase? They find out about you, they start to feel something about you, that thing that they feel is not just some random emotion, it's somewhat tied to you as the company, the product that you make, and then you make it easy for the consumer to understand why they're going to choose you versus any one of your competitors, right? And you don't do all this explicitly, right? I mean, it comes from a couple different points, but explicitly, the fact is that that content that does those things, that increases the probability that you're automatically chosen, or increases the probability that when they come in market they're going to click your ad and buy, it is not content.
It is not content or creative that gets you to buy immediately. Now sometimes there's this hybrid of brand formants, awesome, but in order to do this filling of the funnel, which is a controversial term, in the most effective way, it generally has to be creative that doesn't hit you over the head to buy, it makes you feel something, makes you remember so that when it is time to convert you, when it is time for you to convert or clear out that funnel, you can have something that is extremely effective. So those are the three pieces where it's just sort of like, okay, yeah, but then it comes down to measurement as the final piece, because at the end of the day, we are completely aligned. We want to generate the most possible profits. We didn't start a business to say, hey, my one-day click return on ad spend is a four …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:37.441)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (23:07.31)
… success. My brand is a success, right? No, it's over the course of three, five, seven years on a rolling basis. We want the total profit dollars to go up. That's the point of business, regardless of whether you're a consumer brand or not. And to point you, I think the reason you have the podcast, a big reason why this happens over time is because of marketing, is because of a strong brand, right? It's combining this, finding this balance of filling the funnel, emptying the funnel, brand, performance, whatever it might be.
So there has to be some way to measure. Now, how do we do that? Well, traditionally, it's been surveys, right? Do a bunch of surveys and you, man, need brand awareness, up 15 basis points. That's fine. For younger brands, it tends to be quite expensive and the turnaround time a little bit slower and it's harder if you're changing your media mix on a daily basis or a weekly basis. It works for the co-ops of the world, et cetera, et cetera. If you have the money to pay for massive amounts of surveys,
By all means, do it. It has been proven over decades, centuries maybe, that that works and that's a great way to measure this notion of brand. Getting from here to here on awareness generally leads to increases in revenue over the course of six months, a year, et cetera, et cetera. That number one, do it, great. Number two, there are other objectives, let's call them digital metrics that have been proven to when you move this leading indicator, it leads to more sales.
And the best way to move this leading indicator is to generally do things that you would consider brand. Reach a lot of people and reach a lot of people with this content that makes people feel something. And that is organic branded search on Google or Amazon or TikTok even. So how many people are searching for your brand name? Very simple, right? To the extent Google represents total demand in the world, which
Kerry Curran, RBMA (24:51.361)
Yep.
Preston Rutherford (25:02.252)
I mean it has a monopoly and a lot of people use the internet, right? So and there's been a lot of research that supports increases in your share of organic branded search Increases in your market share six months later a year later So that's a great way to do it and there's infinite research to support it Not really controversial now there are obviously nuances and blah blah blah that people can discount away But at the end of the day, it's pretty good but one of the problems is that
This organic brand search number can be influenced by your short-term ads, and can be influenced by running discounts. So we have to be cognizant to strip that stuff out so that when you put that number in front of someone and say, organic brand search went up, they can't say, it's because you just ran a discount. So obviously people are going to search for your brand more because they're trying to get the deal. So then you respond by saying, I already thought of that, stripped it out …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (25:59.01)
Right.
Preston Rutherford (25:59.662)
… because we've run pulse tests in the past where we ran a discount and we saw the jump in brand search. I've pulled that out. That's when it starts to be, okay, they're being thoughtful here, right? They're not just trying to grade their own work and show that they're a success, they're actually being objective. So that would be the next way to go about it. And then there are other ways to think about measuring the leading indicators that then lead to increases in organic brand search. And those are things that we started to use at Chubbies, which things like …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (26:08.854)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Rutherford (26:29.216)
… social engagements, right? Your ads and your social posts. People are engaging with those things. In a lot of ways, those are the new survey results, right? Because those represent not the specific, it's like in the same way you wouldn't expect us to be one of 3,000 survey respondents, you don't track them over the internet to see, survey respondent number 735 purchased. That's brand marketing. No, those 3,000 survey responses represent a total …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (26:37.345)
Right, right.
Preston Rutherford (26:58.014)
… and changes in those responses over time represent changes in future revenue. Same thing for these engagements, right? But they're better in a lot of ways because you've gotten millions of times more of them. if you're, whatever, going to just do 2,000 surveys, but you probably get 2,000 engagements in a day, in a week, right? Across everything that you're doing, right? So we need plentiful real-time but cheap data. And so I think that's the future of where this is going.
That's, think, how Chubby started to behave and then that became a much more obvious and objective way to justify spend here where it's just like okay I've seen in the same way that with the surveys we were doing in the past that we could no longer afford we've seen how changes in this survey metric lead to future growth or decline in revenue I'm getting many more data points that are updating constantly …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (27:42.444)
You
Preston Rutherford (27:53.782)
… and so I'm going to focus, in the same way I'm focused on driving purchases with my direct response in a very short period of time. I'm focused on driving these non-purchase behaviors, but these engagements, but I'm able to measure them within that same period of time. And I've seen how getting these engagements drives future revenue. Voila. We now have a way to get to this notion of brand ROAS, which every CFO seems to be obsessed with these days.
And so we're talking in these performance marketing terms, but we're driving different purchase behaviors. And once you start getting the fluency to be able to talk about this, like for my e-comm business, I want more purchases coming from organic search rather than just people clicking on my ads. For instance, most brands, if you break up your revenue and look at your revenue from organic search, it's probably not growing as fast as your paid revenue or revenue from people clicking ads. So that becomes really clear too, or, CFO, my singular objective …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (28:35.05)
Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (28:50.446)
… is to drive that metric. Revenue from organic search, and then to the extent your CFO is sophisticated enough, or you as a marketer are sophisticated enough to have done the lifetime value by acquisition traffic source, if you're an e-com business, and you'll probably find that the lifetime value over 12 months of someone acquired via organic search versus someone who clicked on an ad is generally far, far higher.
So it becomes largely unarguable that this is an initiative that is absolutely important for us to track. But you gotta be able to measure it, you gotta be able to talk about it in a way where it's in the terms that the CFO uses, not you, the marketer, the CFO. So anyways, hopefully those three or four pieces helped.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (29:32.514)
Now, very, very helpful. Thank you, Preston. You know, just the fact you started with understanding the financials is such an important part of the story that I think a lot of marketers, to your point, kind of stay away from. But I think that's I love that you started with that, because to your point, if you're not understanding the broader business impact, the whether it's the EBITDA or the profit margins, you're never gonna get to what's really going to kind of align to the big picture, like the North Star of the business to your point.
It's like, sure, there's volume, there's sales revenue, but to your point, it's like making sure getting to that alignment and then all the measurements and initiatives that roll up to that. Definitely helpful. And you've shared a tremendous amount of value. examples and frameworks. Really, this is amazing. Do you have any kind of last recommendation or key point that you want to make sure our listeners are getting today?
Preston Rutherford (30:42.984)
I think as you called out, just this idea of if there's a single way to become a better marketer is to understand a piano better.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (30:52.992)
Yeah and we don't spend enough time talking about that. So you'll have to come back on again and we'll do a whole PNL exercise. But I agree. I think that's so smart. Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (31:00.366)
I would love it. Yeah, yeah, it'd be great. But that's your focus. mean, because your piece is around CMO and CRO and potentially a better CRO, Chief Business Officer, Chief Profit Officer, but that's kind of a funky term. But ultimately, that's what I think you're saying, which is at the end of the day, this thing over here, CMO, ideally is driving incremental profit growth. And if it's not doing that, it's not
Kerry Curran, RBMA (31:15.318)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Preston Rutherford (31:30.382)
They're not doing their job. And so the way you're set up, which is so great, is like that connection has to be in existence. Because if you're just doing marketing for the sake of marketing, you shouldn't be doing it, right? It's about effectiveness. Everything ultimately ladders to profits, but not just today. Because that's where we run into problems. It's about this very Warren Buffety, if you know what I mean, just like long-term cash flow via a moat. I mean, he's the biggest fan of the brand that there is. And he's the …
Kerry Curran, RBMA (31:40.086)
Yeah. Right.
Preston Rutherford (31:59.924)
… successful investor there is so I don't know let's listen to him instead I'm just some rando pontificating on the internet
Kerry Curran, RBMA (32:03.488)
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's perfect. I'll try to line him up next, but no, you bring up so many valid points. So Preston, thank you so much for your time today. And again, so many valuable points. So I really appreciate you sharing your expertise today.
Preston Rutherford (32:12.494)
Please, yeah, that'd be good.
Preston Rutherford (32:19.032)
Thank you, Kerry.
Preston Rutherford (32:25.006)
Of course, my pleasure. I hope it was helpful for the audience.
Kerry Curran, RBMA (32:27.656)
Absolutely, thank you.