Lunch & Learn: Andrew Case
Why Creative Strategy Is the Biggest Lever for Scaling DTC Brands
Andrew Case explains how creative strategy and research-driven creative strategists drive growth on Meta and beyond.
Connor Gross
October 2, 2025
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Every DTC founder wants to scale. At first, growth feels simple: launch some Meta ads, test a few creatives, and watch revenue climb. But when you’re spending $10,000 or $100,000+ per day… performance gets hard.
The reason is ad fatigue.
The truth is, scaling on Meta or TikTok isn’t about optimizing Meta targeting anymore. The algorithm is too broad, and media buying has been commoditized. The brands that keep growing are the ones that build a creative engine that never stops producing.
This was the focus of our recent Constant Hire Lunch & Learn with Andrew Case, founder of Surround Sound (and previously of Moon Brew). Below are the lessons every DTC leader should take into Q4 and beyond.
Media buying used to be about tactical tricks like lookalike audiences, attribution settings, cost caps, etc. Those days are gone.
Now, creative does the targeting.
If an ad resonates with one segment, Meta finds more people like her. The ad itself becomes the signal. That’s why the same creative that scales at $5K/day crumbles at $30K/day. Without a steady stream of fresh insights, growth hits a ceiling.
The strongest brands don’t rely on one type of creative from one single ad account. They build what Andrew calls surround sound:
Think of Athletic Greens. You’ll see them in your feed from their branded account, in a top-five roundup, in influencer content, and in a gift guide. It feels like they’re everywhere because they are.
This multi-channel creative system is how DTC brands cross from eight to nine figures.
At high spend, brands need both volume and diversity:
Most brands under-invest here. They run one internal team or a single agency. The result: creative fatigue, rising CAC, and stalled growth.
The best creative strategists don’t live in Meta’s Ad Library. They go deeper:
This research-first approach creates insights that feel original and allow creative teams to build the 1-2 punch for problem-solution ads.
AI won’t replace creative strategy, but it accelerates production:
AI lowers the cost and speed of asset creation. But the winning ideas still come from human insight and research (but if you are reading this in 2030, that could change).
For DTC brands, the hardest role to fill right now is a Creative Strategist. But not all candidates are equal.
Red flags:
Green flags:
DTC leaders heading into Black Friday and Cyber Monday can’t rely on media buying tricks to scale. The playbook has changed:
As Andrew Case put it: “Creative is what Meta thrives off of. Creative does the targeting now.”
If you’re serious about scaling past the wall, start by rethinking your creative strategy, and hiring people who can fuel it.
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