The impact of most marketing spend disappears when the budget does. The brands with the most durable value build on what works, and every year starts from a higher base.
01 The opportunity
The agency and paid media era is running its course.
Attention costs more
Platforms and media owners take a growing share of every budget, charging brands a toll to reach people who already like them.
Metrics measure the spend
ROAS, CPA and reach record what happens while you pay. Almost nothing records what's left afterwards.
Ops and culture are built around agencies and “rent”
Targets, sign-offs, hiring and agency rosters were set up for buying growth. So that's what the business is good at.
The brands pulling ahead aren't buying more attention. They're building things people come back to.
02 The problem
Same budget. More expected.
Sales and finance want tangible value for spend
Every line is asked for its return, in the quarter it runs.
The board wants both
Sales this year, and a brand that's healthier next year.
The team starts over
The same activations, briefed and built from scratch every year.
The answer isn't spending more, it's determining what the budget could do differently: Build cultural value that creates commercial value.
02 The problem
Most brand spend is rent.
When the spend stops, the value stops. Next year, you pay again from a standing start.
Rent state: works while you payIdeal state: kept, improves and gets cheaper
02 The problem
A quick test.
Think about last year's brand and marketing spend.
1Roughly what did we spend?
2How much of it is still working for us today?
The answer to the second question is the part you kept. Everything else was rented.
02 The problem
Your reports can't tell them apart.
What the P&L sees
Same cost, same line, gone in the year it's spent.
What actually happens over four years
€1.46m kept in the business over four years. And each kept edition lands better: a bigger audience, a team that knows how, an idea with credibility. Illustrative.
The difference is real. It just isn't in any report the team reads.
03 The answer
Some brands produce culture. Others rent it.
We've always believed brands shouldn't have to rely on media spend to grow. But building differently takes a different DNA. Red Bull is the proof, but in everything else we've built, the tenets have been consistent.
Create, don't sponsor
Build it from scratch and keep the rights.
Keep the learning
Do it yourself, so the know-how stays in the business, not with an agency.
Own the infrastructure
Build it once and deploy it again and again. Every reuse adds to the bottom line, like any capital investment.
Earn the word of mouth
Make it worth retelling, and put it in front of the people a scene listens to. They carry it further than media can.
None of this was a campaign. It was how the company decided, hired and measured.
03 The answer
Rent. Own. Generate.
Why shouldn't a brand with cultural ambitions aim to produce culture in its own right?
Rent
Sometimes necessary. But not a sustainable strategy on its own.
Value stops when the spend stops. Media, agency builds, sponsoring other people's events.
Own
Gets cheaper and better every time.
Ideas, people and audiences the business keeps and reuses. Each edition gives people something to pass on. Not only that, it adds to your brand value through tangible balance-sheet assets and a price premium.
Generate
Other people pay for it.
Tickets, sponsors, licensing. The brand starts to behave like a studio.
03 The answer
Case study 1Rent to own
Moonshot
Google Lunar XPRIZE × J.J. Abrams
A sunk sponsorship, turned into a story Google kept.
Started as
A ten-year sponsorship of a race to land a privately built module on the moon.
How it compounded
The pitch drew Hollywood's A-list. J.J. Abrams executive produced and backed rising director Orlando von Einsiedel, so every partner brought an audience and a reason to promote it.
What they kept
The story. Instead of a logo on someone else's competition, the sponsorship became a film series about our fascination with space.
The result
Premiered at SXSW, became a YouTube event and played in cinemas.
$300kfilm series budget
$2m+earned media
6x+the budget, back in coverage
Our part: co-produced by Matthew.
03 The answer
Case study 2Own
Red Bull Sound Select
Red Bull
A marketing activation that paid for itself in three years.
Started as
A digital product that helped link Red Bull's fragmented investment in music.
How it compounded
Built once, it grew to 40 venues in 5 cities, 6 festival stages and two five-week festivals. Venues were paid in drink promotions and case discounts instead of cash fees, and every show deepened Red Bull's standing in each city's music scene.
What they kept
One platform linking Red Bull's artist network, festival sponsorships, on-premise accounts and the global Red Bull Studios network.
The result
Broke even in three years, then rolled out to 6 countries.
40 venuesacross 5 cities
$800k+ticket and sponsorship revenue
6countries in the global roll-out
Our part: invented and led by Matthew.
03 The answer
Case study 3Own to generate
The Red Bulletin
Red Bull Media House
A marketing channel that became a media business.
Started as
A marketing channel with a point of view beyond Red Bull's own events and athletes.
How it compounded
Distributed through thousands of on-premise accounts, airline lounges and action sports venues. Its point of view opened doors to new subcultures and personalities, and became leverage in athlete and culture negotiations.
What they kept
An editorial voice, and the readers and advertisers it attracted.
The result
Within five years, a global men's active lifestyle magazine in 11 countries, profitable, with its own P&L inside Red Bull Media House.
5mreaders
11countries, with its own P&L
$900knewsstand ($400k) and ad ($500k) value
Our part: Dre was global editor-in-chief.
03 The answer
Case study 4Own to generateOutside example
Stripe Press
Stripe
A marketing channel that customers pay to read.
Started as
A 2018 imprint publishing the ideas Stripe's founders believe drive progress, starting with reissues of overlooked classics.
How it compounded
Sold through Stripe's own checkout as well as major booksellers. Pop-ups, zines, a podcast and a feature film turned a book list into a brand people seek out.
What they kept
Editorial and design in-house, for a readership of founders and builders who pay full retail price.
The result
Brand content that brings money back in, run as its own business unit inside Stripe. Its bestseller, Poor Charlie's Almanack, needed four printings.
20titles, sold at full retail price
4printings of its bestseller in launch season
9cities on its pop-up bookshop tour
Why it's here: we didn't work on this one. It's proof that owned growth works in B2B.
03 The answer
Case study 5Own to generateOutside example
Figma Config
Figma
A product launch customers pay $899 to attend.
Started as
A 2020 user conference giving the community a physical home: about 1,000 people in one room.
How it compounded
The keynote became the stage for Figma's biggest launches. Sponsors like Google, Amazon and GitHub buy in, fans run watch parties worldwide, and it has spread to London and Bengaluru.
What they kept
The community at the centre: free virtual access for everyone, and an identity designed in-house that attendees remix into their own merch.
The result
Within four years, around 10,000 people at Moscone Center. In 2026, in-person tickets sold out more than a month early, with no waitlist.
10xin-person attendance, 2020 to 2024
$899ticket, sold out 5+ weeks early
100+community-run watch parties
Figma doesn't disclose Config revenue or costs.
Why it's here: we didn't work on this one. It's a current example of a software brand making owned growth pay.
03 The answer
The power is in the format.
Infrastructure is the easy win. A business unit is the long game. The format is where owning starts to compound.
In order of ambition
The gimme
Infrastructure
The stage, the rig, the tools. Easy to justify and cheaper from the second use. Take it. It's a start, but it's not the biggest opportunity.
Where the power is
A format
A named, repeatable piece of culture that's yours. It keeps the idea, the people, the know-how and the audience, and gets better every time it runs. Each edition gives people something to pass on. Most brands already have one. They just rebuild it every year.
The long game
A business unit
Formats other people pay for: tickets, sponsors, licensing, built one format at a time, never announced.
What makes a format: five things you keep, which a one-off activation leaves behind.
The ideaNamed and repeatable. You keep the rights.
The peopleThe talent and partners who give it credibility. You keep the relationships.
The know-howHow to run it, inside your team. You keep the capability.
The audiencePeople who come back, and who you can reach directly.
The outputContent, stories and footage. You keep the library.
03 The answer · Try it with your numbers
Rebuild or keep?
Pick an event you rebuild from scratch every year. Set how often it runs and what it costs. Then switch on what you'd own instead of hiring in again. Own three of the four, and next year you're no longer starting from zero.
Stops, editions or nights a year.
Over four years. Year one costs the same as rebuilding, to own the build and bring the files in-house. From year two, about 40% of the rebuild cost with all four kept (50% with three), falling as the team learns. Income isn't counted. Illustrative, from the Compounding Workbook.
Keep it at the same budget
Keep it at the same programme
Rebuilt every timeKeptThe gap
04 Building consensus
It isn't a marketing problem.
It takes a mindset shift, from leadership down. A business built on rent has that mindset built into its culture and its KPIs. To evolve, it has to remove these six blockers.
What's missing
What it sounds like
Frame
"We can't agree what we'd never do."
Permission
"Everything needs three sign-offs."
Capability
"Our agencies know the brand better than we do."
Measurement
"Show me the ROAS."
Proof
"Fine in principle. Show me it works here."
Rituals
"We tried this before and it didn't stick."
04 Building consensus
Buy-in, from the top down.
It's a mandate bigger than marketing. Every seat here shapes whether the business keeps what it builds.
CEO
What do we stand for, and how can we build durable, long-term value?
CFO
Can we see what we're building, not just what we're spending?
CMO
What's worth keeping, what are we happy to rent, and what would we never do?
CHRO
Who do we hire, and what do we reward?
COO
How fast can a good idea get a yes, and how do we remove the blockers?
04 Building consensus
What happens when you solve them.
Solve the six blockers, and this is what changes.
Blocker
What it takes
What you get when you solve it
Frame
A tight set of non-negotiables
Everyone knows what the brand stands for and would never do, so they can act without asking.
Permission
Clear decision zones
Reversible calls get made where the work happens. Only the big ones go up.
Capability
Bringing the know-how in
The learning stays in the business, and agencies are used by choice, not by default.
Measurement
A ledger beside the P&L
What you're building shows up in the quarterly numbers, next to what you're spending.
Proof
One protected first format
Something built and measured here that everyone can point to.
Rituals
Briefs, reviews and promotions that reward what lasts
The change outlasts the people who started it.
05 Proof
Our approach: measured in numbers finance already trusts.
The backbone of the transformation is a ledger that treats what you build like any capital asset: a cost, a useful life, and a return every time it's used.
How the ledger works
01
Baseline
Twelve months of spend, line by line, sorted into rent and own. Rules agreed with finance in week one.
A baseline signed off by finance
02
Log
Every reuse of an owned asset, priced against what renting the same thing would cost.
Cost avoided, use by use
03
Read
Every quarter, beside your existing reports. It sits next to ROAS, not instead of it.
A quarterly reading for the board
04
Audit
Real invoices or quotes only. Every asset has a useful life. Anything unused gets flagged.
Numbers that hold up to scrutiny
What you keep
Share of spend kept · reuse rate · cost per use
What it builds
Price premium · direct demand · format income
How fast you move
Time from idea to yes · formats paid back · stale assets flagged
06 How we work
The approach.
1
The diagnostic
Eight weeks, fixed fee. Credited if you continue.
01
Spend
Twelve months of brand and marketing spend from your invoices, line by line, sorted into rent or own. Rules agreed with finance.
Your ratio and a baseline ledger
02
People
Interviews across the leadership team, and a survey of the people doing the work, scored against the six blockers.
Your blockers, scored
03
Model
What could shift within the same budget, line by line, and what that shift is worth.
Your budget bridge
04
Recommend
The most urgent, highest-impact, lowest-cost place to start, costed and with conditions for stopping.
Your first move
2
The first move
Whatever the blockers point to first. It could be a small fix, an innovation brief, a skunkworks or a first format.
3
A plan for scale
Paced to your appetite and urgency. Start with one business unit, one country or one marketing vertical, then roll out.
Everything from the diagnostic comes back in the Compounding Workbook, and it's yours to keep.
06 How we work
We share the upside.
Fixed fee
Share of the gap
A fixed fee for the work, and a share of what the ledger shows. If it doesn't deliver, we don't share in it.
Savings first
The gap we share in is, first, the saving against rebuilding, measured from real invoices on a baseline finance signs.
Upside later
Income from formats only enters the picture once the business is meeting its core sales and profit goals.
07 Who we are
Two people. Thirty years. No juniors.
Hella builds the operating systems behind brands that compound, from the top floor to the shop floor.
From the inside
Years inside Red Bull, Apple and Google, and as founders, investors and strategists in the Silicon Valley venture ecosystem, building the rules that made them work.
Brand and operations
We build the brand playbook and the internal system that lets people act on it.
Senior throughout
The people in this room are the people who do the work.
Next
Deepen cultural value.Build spend that compounds.Create durable commercial value.
