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Indie Thinking: Tough Love as Strategy — The Conversation Most Agencies Skip With Founders
February 23 @ 9:30 am – 10:00 am PST
Roughly 90% of new CPG brands fail. In beverages, only 3% ever reach $10 million in revenue.
Walk the floor at any Expo West or BevNET Liv,e and the pattern is everywhere: passionate founders with beautiful packaging, compelling origin stories and marketing budgets — but fundamental gaps in distribution strategy, unit economics or market positioning that no campaign can fix.
When those founders hire an agency, the easiest thing to do is take the brief and execute. The hardest — and most valuable — thing an agency can do is tell them the truth first.
Sydney Tomasello is the Director of Strategy at Fortnight Collective, the Boulder-based brand accelerator whose beverage and CPG portfolio includes Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar, Solely (whose Fortnight-led rebrand drove a 296% sales boost and a 2025 Designalytics Effectiveness Award) and Mortal Kombucha. She brings a decade of brand-building experience across e.l.f. Beauty, Lyft, Dominos and PepsiCo.
Her topic: the toughest conversation in advertising — when to push back on a client’s brief before spending their budget. She will break down the warning signs, how to deliver tough love without losing the relationship and why this capability is becoming the most important differentiator for indie agencies.
Monday, Feb. 23 on Indie Agency News TV (Part 1 of a Double Feature — 9:30 AM Pacific).
indiethinking #indietv #indieswork #agencystrategy #beveragebrands #clientrelationships #strategicpartnership
