Editor’s Note:
This article is part of a Digital Summit Collective series where we’re turning standout live sessions from recent Digital Summit events into actionable, on-demand insights for our community. Each piece is adapted from a real stage presentation—capturing the ideas, examples, and strategic thinking that resonated most with attendees.
Brady Josephson didn’t open his session with tactics. He opened with a gap.
Only 6% of people in the U.S. have heard of Charity: Water—a $100M organization with a global mission and years of strong performance.
That disconnect—between impact and awareness—is the real problem.
Because the issue isn’t whether marketing is working.
It’s whether it’s working for the right timeline.
The Problem Isn’t Performance. It’s Imbalance.
Josephson reframed marketing into two distinct jobs:
Both are essential. But they don’t behave the same—and they shouldn’t be managed the same.
When brands try to do both at once, effectiveness drops. Campaigns designed to serve both goals simultaneously are consistently outperformed by those that separate them.
And yet, most teams are still heavily skewed toward the short term.
Josephson shared that Charity: Water’s mix was closer to 5% brand marketing and 95% performance marketing—far from the balance needed for sustainable growth.
The result wasn’t failure. It was plateau.
The Shift From Lasers to Chandeliers
To explain the difference, Josephson used a simple analogy:
You don’t light a room with lasers.
And yet, that’s how many brands are operating—over-optimizing for precision while underinvesting in scale.
The takeaway isn’t to abandon performance. It’s to recognize that growth requires both reach and repetition.
Growth Comes From People Who Aren’t Buying Yet
One of the most counterintuitive ideas came from Byron Sharp’s research:
Growth doesn’t come from your most loyal customers.
It comes from people who aren’t buying at all.
Most targeting strategies focus on:
But that approach limits reach.
Josephson’s point was simple: if you only market to people already in-market, you cap your upside.
Charity: Water approached this by analyzing donor data, identifying a core audience, and then expanding beyond it—not narrowing further.
The goal wasn’t precision.
It was penetration.
Creative Isn’t a Lever. It’s the Multiplier.
If there was one thing Josephson made clear, it’s this:
Creative is the biggest driver of effectiveness.
Research shows it can act as a 12x multiplier on campaign performance.
But most brands still over-index on targeting and media efficiency.
He broke strong creative down into three components:
Not differentiation, but recognition.
The brands that win aren’t always the most unique, but they’re the most memorable.
If people don’t notice it, nothing else matters.
Only 15% of ads generate enough attention to create memory, which means most media spend is doing very little for long-term brand building.
Happiness and surprise are the core emotions you are trying to achieve.
These are the strongest drivers of recall. Neutral creative, no matter how polished, is often forgettable.
The Real Risk Is Being Forgettable
Josephson put it plainly:
Dullness is a form of exclusion.
If your creative doesn’t engage people, it doesn’t just underperform—it prevents them from ever connecting with your brand.
One practical way to break through is to challenge assumptions.
Take what your audience expects, and flip it.
That tension creates attention, and attention creates memory.
Where You Show Up Matters More Than How Cheap It Is
Not all impressions are equal.
When channels are evaluated based on attention—not just reach—the hierarchy changes:
Even within the same platform, context matters.
On YouTube, Charity: Water saw significantly higher engagement when ads were viewed on TV screens versus mobile, despite similar costs.
Same content. More attention. Better outcome.
The takeaway: cheap reach isn’t efficient if no one is paying attention.
Brand Building Takes Longer Than You Think
Brand doesn’t operate on campaign timelines.
This creates tension in organizations built around short-term metrics.
But the brands that commit to duration—and consistency—are the ones that see compounding returns.
What to Do Right Now
The Bottom Line
charity: water— didn’t have a performance problem.
It had a future demand problem.
And that’s the risk for many brands right now.
Because when you only optimize for what’s working today, you quietly undermine what will work tomorrow.
Watch the Full Session
This article was adapted from the live session Unlocking Brand Growth: 3 Key Concepts from charity: water presented by Brady Josephson at Digital Summit Chicago 2025.
Watch the full video:
https://resource.digitalsummit.com/resources/material/unlocking-brand-growth-chi25/