Case Study — BRUNT
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Case Study — BRUNT
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Case Study — GTM · Content Strategy · Paid Social
DTCo partnered with BRUNT prior to the business launching in September 2020, crafting a simple and comprehensive GTM strategy across Facebook and Google. Together we unlocked what differentiates BRUNT from the rest of the pack.
Within the category, BRUNT is positioned to win on relatability — from the specifics of product development to their first office being in a garage to the models they use being friends. We built a strategy to own that positioning from Day 0.
The Starting Point
BRUNT had standard assets: product photography of boots, lifestyle shots of guys on the job, and testimonials from early adopters. Performance out of the gate was solid, particularly heading into a competitive Q4 period, but the main focus was setting the business and brand up for success heading into its first full year.
In the workwear boot category, every brand looks the same — polished product shots, generic "built tough" messaging, brand pages without a face. BRUNT had something competitors didn’t: a founder with a story, a real community, and an authentic connection to the customer.
The Category Gap
In-market users were seeing ads from multiple boot brands marketing from their brand pages — without a face to relate to. A strategy of marketing from Eric’s personal Facebook page would cut through the noise. When your competitor is a faceless brand page and you’re a founder talking to workers like a peer, you win the attention battle before you even start.
The Strategic Insight
As we workshopped strategies to move the needle, an old Facebook play of creating vanity pages came to mind. We lobbed the idea over to Eric (the Founder), asking if we could turn his personal profile into a page to advertise from.
Our thought process was to leverage the brand’s relatability and position BRUNT through a personal platform to reach new customers. We hypothesized that marketing as Eric — not as BRUNT the brand — would create the kind of trust that converts cold audiences at scale.
“Eric owns brand strategy, started producing the first post, and we haven’t looked back.”
Eric embraced the approach completely. He started producing content that felt like a real person talking to real workers — product walkthroughs, behind-the-scenes moments, stories about building the company from his garage, friends from the job site wearing the boots. The ads didn’t feel like ads.
What Made It Work
The growth chart tells the story. From September 2020 through November 2021, BRUNT’s revenue curve didn’t just grow linearly — it stepped up in inflection points that mapped directly to breakthrough content moments. Each high-performing personal post from Eric created a new wave of customers who then became community members who then created social proof for the next wave.
The strategy worked because it solved the cold-traffic problem at the root: instead of convincing strangers to trust a brand they’d never heard of, we gave them a person to connect with. Workwear buyers are tribal. When they see someone who looks and sounds like them vouching for a product, conversion economics change entirely.
The Flywheel
Personal content from Eric drove cold-traffic acquisition. High-engagement comment sections acted as real-time social proof and product education. Community built from those interactions created organic word-of-mouth. That organic reach lowered CAC. Lower CAC funded more spend. More spend meant more eyeballs on Eric’s next post. The brand became profitable on the very first order and never stopped compounding.
The Outcome
From launch in September 2020 to Series A readiness — built on a GTM strategy rooted in authenticity and community.
Revenue Curve — Sep 2020 to Nov 2021 — Four Inflection Points
■ Orange dots = content inflection points · Each spike driven by a breakthrough Eric Girouard post
The curve doesn’t lie — BRUNT didn’t grow by spending more. It grew by finding the unlock that made spending more work.