“A logo doesn’t equal a brand”

This week’s guest on Growth@Scale is MAVAN’s own Kyle Shields, award winning art director, designer, branding expert, and Creative Director. Kyle shares his experiences working on big brand campaigns from the agency world, coming from McCann, Innocean, and Bensimon Byrne and joins Matt Widdoes for an enlightening talk about how to balance creative with performance, the importance of testing, and the unknown frontier of the use of generative AI.

Key Takeaways 

  • For sustainable growth, your creative approach should balance flashy advertisement with effectiveness and audience alignment
  • Your company’s perceived audience may differ from your actual audience, thus insights into audience behavior can lead to unexpected opportunities
  • Isolating variables in creative testing is crucial for clean data and actionable insights, which influence effective marketing strategies
  • Brand consistency is key for building consumer trust and recognition, and developing an early brand guide is instrumental for scalable businesses
  • AI’s rapid advancement in creative fields and how this presents both opportunities and challenges, urging creatives to adapt and harness new tools for continued relevance

Dive into the episode and discover how creativity and AI converge to fuel growth or read the transcript!

🎧 Listen Now!

🌟 Never miss an episode! Subscribe here for a front-row seat to more illuminating discussions on scaling success. Let your growth journey begin!  

Book a complimentary consultation with one of our experts
to learn how MAVAN can help your business grow.

Let’s Talk

Want more growth insights?

[hubspot type=”form” portal=”20951211″ id=”9c538ed2-fb12-45f1-a573-ad7953c058cc”]

Related Content

  • Wide MAVAN featured graphic on a dark navy-to-black background, framed by thin coral arcs on the left and right edges. A coral eyebrow reads “The Problem” above the white headline “After A PE Firm Buys A Consumer Brand, Growth Often Falls Short.” At center, a horizontal progress bar labeled “Planned value” is filled about three-quarters in coral and marked “Captured,” and a bracket under the empty remainder reads “Shortfall.” A caption cites Alvarez & Marsal’s 2026 finding that 41% of PE investors and operators captured less than three-quarters of their planned value over the past year. A second line cites FTI Consulting, 2026: the gap costs sponsors at exit, where buyers now rank margin growth as the top driver of value. The underlined answer recommends fixing the growth system before adding spend, so revenue grows faster than the cost of winning it. A coral MAVAN logo sits at the bottom.

    How Do PE Firms Accelerate Revenue And EBITDA Post-Acquisition?

    PE firms accelerate revenue and EBITDA at consumer brands by fixing the growth system before adding spend. They reconcile the numbers and cut spend that never pays back. They lift conversion and repeat purchases, and they judge growth by contribution margin. Growth operating partners such as MAVAN diagnose that system in 28 days, then help execute the fix.

    Read More
  • MAVAN featured graphic asks, “The deal assumes growth. Can the business deliver?” A white bridge separates diligence, labeled “Find the opportunity,” from execution, labeled “Build the capability.” A coral section marked “Growth Operating Partner” sits beneath the missing span, illustrating the connection needed between assessing growth potential and delivering it. Subtle blue lines sweep inward from both sides against a navy-to-black background. The closing message reads, “Connect the diagnosis to the team that delivers.”

    Who Does Growth & GTM Due Diligence for PE Deals?

    Four kinds of provider run growth and go-to-market due diligence for private equity deals. Strategy consultancies test the market. Specialist commercial diligence firms audit the pipeline. Go-to-market boutiques rebuild the sales motion. And growth operating partners examine the full revenue engine from inside the business, then stay to operate it after close.

    Read More
  • Private equity portfolio company growth framework showing how disconnected media and finance reporting can hide unprofitable spend, why channel vendors fail to own company revenue, how an embedded growth operating partner connects data, acquisition, retention, creative and conversion, and the five-step process for choosing a growth partner that can execute against the value-creation plan.

    Who Is The Best Growth Partner For PE Portfolio Companies?

    The best growth partner for a private equity portfolio company behaves like an operating partner you deploy, not an agency you brief. It reads the whole growth system before it spends, owns a revenue number alongside management, and leaves the capability behind so the sponsor can redeploy it.

    Read More
View More