Shruti Khatod on Why Growth Channels Are Now Brand Amplifiers

Growth Channels Are Brand Amplifiers, Not Separate Silos

Most growth marketers treat brand as something that happens on the side. Shruti Khatod did too, for years. Then she joined Nutrafol and watched the entire strategy flip.

The shift wasn't philosophical. It was practical. When your advertising looks cohesive from upper funnel to lower funnel, when your color scheme and storytelling connect across touchpoints, performance changes. The measurement changes too.

Growth channels have to be the brand amplifiers. They need to amplify what your voice is, what your experience is, what you want the consumer to take out of.

— Shruti Khatod

The secret is connecting brand KPIs to growth KPIs. Aided awareness, unaided awareness, brand favorability—these aren't vanity metrics. They impact cost per acquisition. When you track them together instead of separately, you can actually use brand health to optimize daily performance.

Cracking Linear TV: Creative, Audience, and Leadership Buy-In

Four and a half years ago, TV was a tiny channel for Nutrafol. Shruti spent those years testing creative relentlessly. The first attempt didn't work. The second somewhat worked. The third time, they nailed it.

Premium brands face a unique TV challenge: finding programming watched by people with higher household income. That means taking bigger risks on spots. It means leadership needs to understand TV won't deliver overnight success.

There has to be a buy-in at the leadership level where TV is a channel that everybody understands this is going to take time. It's not an overnight, it's not going to be an overnight success.

— Shruti Khatod

The good news? Measurement tools for TV have evolved dramatically. You can do bite-sized testing now. You can see performance right away. That makes TV more sustainable and scalable than it's ever been.

Then the hair category on TV exploded. In the last year alone, competitors flooded the market—collagen powders, serums, prescription drugs. Everyone claims they can grow hair. That explosion impacts everyone, not just Nutrafol. The brands that survive have balanced channel portfolios. They don't put all their eggs in one basket.

Problem-Solution Creative That Builds Believability

Problem-solution is the oldest trick in advertising. Everyone uses it. What makes Nutrafol different is authenticity.

Most of their content creators use the product. Their influencers use the product and tell real stories. Their TV ads feature actual customers, not actors. People ask Shruti all the time if they hired talent. The answer is always no—those are genuine brand lovers.

The authenticity at which we have invested in our partnerships with influencers, our partnership with content creators, our partnership with our brand team and our creative team, our customers, we really, really try very hard to make sure that all the stories that you see in the ads are real stories.

— Shruti Khatod

Hair loss is deeply personal. It impacts self-confidence and self-esteem. Problem-solution could easily go wrong in this category. Nutrafol's leadership made a clear call: don't lead with fear. Lead with solution. Lead with excitement. Lead with giving back self-confidence.

That choice matters when competitors smear your brand and play on consumer fear. Shruti isn't interested in playing in the mud. The strategy remains consistent: empathy, believability, and no fear-mongering.

Tracking Brand Impact with Growth Metrics You Already Have

Brand measurement doesn't require exotic tools. Go back to basics. How's your Google search volume doing after a TV spot? Can you trace influence from a specific celebrity endorsement or influencer partnership to search spikes?

Your retargeting pool is another tangible brand metric that growth marketers overlook. Where does that pool come from? People looking for your brand and visiting your website. It's table stakes for performance, but it originates from brand awareness.

Shruti balances immediate metrics with long-term ones. Search volume and retargeting pools give you real-time feedback. Brand favorability and unaided awareness tell you if you're building a brand people can rely on for years, not just an internet brand.

Last-click attribution still dominates, but it tells an incomplete story. Shruti prefers marrying MTA and MMM to understand how channels work together for short-term and long-term gain. When you connect brand measurement to growth optimization, you stop treating them as separate corners of your strategy. You start taking advantage of brand KPIs in your next quarter, your next year, your next budget conversation with your CFO.