Marketing Operators: "Brand Tracking That Matters and How Modern Teams Scale TV"

Date: December 5, 2025
Hosts: Connor Roland, Cody Plofker
Guests: Jonathan McKenzie (Turtlebox), Austin Santino (Tatari)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the evolving landscape of brand tracking, why it matters for modern marketing teams, and strategies for scaling TV advertising—especially for brands bridging the gap between performance and "brand" marketing. The conversation covers practical frameworks, real-world experiences scaling campaigns, measurement best practices, and a candid look inside Turtlebox's journey from bootstrapped DTC brand to multi-channel leader.

Key Topics & Insights

1. The Addiction & Challenges of Offer-Driven DTC (00:20 – 01:54)

• The hosts open with reflections on recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions, discussing the pressure to lengthen, reinvent, and layer offers.
  • “The low hanging growth plan in front of you is just to do more offers, longer sales.” – Connor Roland [01:00]
• Risks include degrading average unit revenue (AUR) and antagonizing retail partners, forcing brands to balance short-term revenue with long-term pricing discipline.

2. Consumer Trends: Protein Maxing & Brand Culture (02:00 – 04:19)

• Fun sidebar about the “protein maxing” trend—Starbucks protein cold foam review, Sweetgreen’s 106g protein bowl.
  • “I’m so into the protein maxing trend... my 3 year old daughter was like, ‘I’m protein maxing.’ That’s how I know I’m saying it too much.” – Cody [02:13]
• This becomes an analogy for how brands latch on to viral consumer trends for relevance and growth.

3. The Shift from Performance to Brand: Tracking What Actually Matters (07:06 – 11:32)

Cody’s Journey

• Cody discusses evolving from “click attribution” and traditional growth marketing to embracing incrementality and brand campaigns.
  • “Click attribution, you can only invest... we plateau’d where you can get with just click attribution and you have to do things to feed that beast.” [07:06]
• Early wins were from highly measurable, conversion-driven channels. As Jones Road matures, investment is shifting up the funnel.

The Dilemma of Brand Investment

• How to hold brand investment accountable without demanding direct ROAS.
  • “With brand marketing, it’s easy to just put money into it and not hold it accountable… You have to hold it to something, but not in the way you would performance media.” – Cody [09:37]

4. Defining Brand Investment—Beauty vs DTC (10:17 – 12:35)

• In categories like beauty, “brand marketing” often means influencers, seeding, sampling, events.
  • “In beauty... it’s all influencer, all events, all sampling. Okay, so for a D2C brand, maybe, but I still think we’re underinvested in it.” – Cody [10:17]
• Performance marketing can drive revenue rapidly but without the buzz and “earned media value” (EMV) that drives long-term demand.

5. How to Measure Brand: Tools and Philosophies (11:45 – 13:38)

Brand Tracking with Tracksuit

• Introduced as a way to longitudinally measure aided/unaided awareness, consideration, preference—across competitors and time.
  • “You can see your conversion rate from awareness to consideration... you can almost apply funnel diagnostics to these strategies.” – Cody [16:06]
• The objective: establish a baseline, target strategic investments (influencers, events, sampling), and measure incrementality over time.

Correlating Brand Health to Revenue

• “Ultimately if we can spike those numbers... is that a leading indicator towards revenue?” – Cody [18:24]
• New standard: Are more people searching for your brand? Is Google search going up with media/brand spend?

6. Creative Diversity, AI Tagging, and the Future of Analysis (04:39 – 06:31)

• The hosts discuss “creative diversity”—producing lots of varied ad assets and the operational pain of analyzing them.
• Motion’s AI tagging is featured as a solution.
  • “It makes the comparative analytics just so much simpler... all these different breakdowns that we used to have to labor over to tag...” – Connor [05:40]

7. Incrementality, Search Lift, and Upper Funnel Attribution (24:16 – 27:37)

• Discussion about running “brand lift” and “search lift” studies on Meta, YouTube, and via geo holdouts.
  • “You can use those DMAs you’re excluding... and pull them out of your Google search account, actually look at the lift on brand queries...” – Connor [24:42]
• Retargeting and sweepstakes can drive measurable gains in brand search. “Whenever we spend more money, queries go up.” – Connor [26:26]

8. Brand vs Performance: A False Binary? (29:19 – 32:37)

• Many DTC leaders don’t split “brand” vs “performance” in practice.
  • “If you’re running performance marketing, you are generating brand value. The best way to generate brand is have a bunch of happy customers.” – Connor [29:41]
• There’s always a trade-off: short-term revenue vs future demand, but at scale, every brand must move up-funnel and invest in future awareness.

9. Advice & Best Practices on Brand Measurement (33:28 – 35:26)

• Future: integrating baseline spend and search lift as core KPIs.
  • “As my baseline spend is going up—so TV, reach, awareness, spend—is my brand search going up? Trying to get a simple correlation.” – Cody [25:43]

10. Featured Guest: Jonathan McKenzie of Turtlebox – Building a Brand by Community (35:55 – 44:55)

The Turtlebox Origin Story

• Four friends, a sailboat, and the unmet need for a rugged, outdoor speaker.
• Extensive R&D led to a commercial product in 2018, then rapid scale.

Differentiation by Audience and Product

• Simple “dumb speaker” design, beautiful ID, lean on community rather than mass-appeal.
  • “We want our grandmothers to be able to use this product... we’re just going to do a few things really, really well.” – Jonathan [42:43]
• Learning from the Yeti playbook: focus on core niche audiences (hunting, fishing) and grow outward.

Wholesale Strategy

• Entered first into “hook and bullet” stores—unique among competitors.

11. TV Advertising: Creative, Community, and Measurement (49:00 – 66:25)

Community-Driven Content

• Turtlebox content is centered on actual community members (ambassadors, not “influencers”).
  • “If my creative director goes and films a commercial and doesn’t use an ambassador from our community team, he kind of didn’t do his job.” – Jonathan [51:58]

Scaling TV with Tatari: Context & Measurement

• Turtlebox runs golf ads during golf, baseball during MLB, and so on—contextual creative for cultural relevance.
• Tatari’s Austin Santino explains the testing approach: start with connected TV (measurable, digital-like), then expand to linear once audiences and context are validated.
  • “Streaming is a great way to validate the channel... as you grow, linear is a very cost-effective way to extend your audience.” – Austin [54:45]

Content Production Mix

• Combination of high-production shoots, agile internal teams, and organic “friends of the brand” UGC.
  • “There are two or three pieces of content... best performers... we paid $0 and told nobody to do them.” – Jonathan [62:10]
• “We always want people to see that Turtlebox has friends, not money.” – Jonathan [62:10]

Learnings & 2026 Strategy

• Goal: More intentional storytelling on TV, fewer but bigger creative swings.
  • “Performance investing is like day trading... on TV... I want us to be really, really intentional about the creative.” – Jonathan [59:47]
• Aim: “Maturation year”—hold creative longer, aspire to “Toyota with the jackhammer” strategy.

12. Practical Advice for Brands Entering TV & Brand-Led Growth (65:54 – 70:36)

Austin (Tatari): How to Start

• “Validate it first, that it’s driving performance for the business... that’s what helps you really start to invest and take bigger swings.” [65:54]
• Control and transparency are key when venturing into new media channels.

Jonathan McKenzie’s Advice

1. Take small bets: Start small, “fail fast”, learn, iterate. Don’t overanalyze or get stuck in planning.
   • “Take small bets, learn something, do it again, change, pivot, course-correct.” – Jonathan [67:25]
2. Surround yourself with good people: Founders, advisors, people who disagree and challenge you will make the business healthier.
   • “If I was the only person running this company, it would have died a long time ago... wrestle with your co-founder. That wrestling is good and productive and it will lead to good places.” – Jonathan [70:02]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Brand Measurement Reality:
  “The hardest thing to track is brand awareness without conversion... You have to find correlations and be comfortable.” – Connor Roland [13:38]

• Value of Search as a KPI:
  “As I spend more on Meta, I need to make sure I’m reaching more people... as you spend more as a total business, are more people searching for your brand? That’s like the simplest way of brand health.” – Cody [11:48]

• Creative Attribution Challenge:
  “If you’re running performance marketing, you are generating brand value. The best way to generate brand is have a bunch of happy customers.” – Connor [29:41]

• TV Creative Philosophy:
  “Performance investing is like day trading... on TV, I want us to be really, really intentional about the creative that we send.” – Jonathan McKenzie [59:47]

• Outcome-Orientated Advice:
  “Take small bets…don’t be afraid to take risk, just take conservative risk... surround yourself with good people.” – Jonathan McKenzie [67:20-70:36]

Timestamps for Key Sections

• DTC Discounting Culture: 00:20 – 01:54
• Protein Maxing Analogy: 02:00 – 04:19
• Brand Tracking Strategy: 07:06 – 18:24
• How to Structure Brand Campaigns & Tracking: 16:04 – 18:24
• Testing Brand Attribution (Brand/Search Lift): 24:16 – 27:37
• Brand vs Performance Debate: 29:19 – 32:37
• Guest Interview, Turtlebox Backstory: 35:55 – 44:55
• TV/Streaming Content & Measurement: 49:00 – 66:25
• Advice to Brands on Entering TV: 65:54 – 70:36

Final Takeaways

• As brands mature, measurement must expand beyond short-term ROAS to include brand lift, search lift, and awareness tracking.
• The old binary between “performance” and “brand” is breaking down—incrementality and creative diversity are essential.
• TV/streaming can be a massive lever if approached with context-aware creative and tested for incremental results.
• The strongest brands invest in community, adaptability, and take risks in measured, iterative ways.

This episode is essential listening for DTC and omnichannel leaders grappling with brand-building, measurement, and unlocking new growth channels, especially TV and upper funnel.