Marketing Operators

“If you’re not staying unhinged, you’re not building a memorable brand.”
What happens when a two-time Emmy-winning TV anchor walks away from the newsroom to help build one of the most talked-about baby formula brands in the country? 
Kim Chappell (Chief Brand Officer at Bobbie) sits down with Cody Plofker (CEO at Jones Road Beauty) and Connor MacDonald (CMO at Ridge) to explore what it means to build a purpose-driven brand in a highly regulated, deeply emotional category. Kim shares how a journalism career shaped her instinct for storytelling, why trust is her team’s most important metric, and how Cardi B landed in Bobbie’s inbox because she was already a customer.  
From navigating the 2022 national formula shortage — and the $300M in revenue Bobbie deliberately walked away from — to launching the first breastfeeding billboard in Times Square with Molly Baz, Kim breaks down how bold creative decisions get made inside a fast-moving startup. She also digs into Bobbie’s partnership philosophy, the brand values that guide every campaign, and why celebrating customer cancellations has become one of their most powerful retention moves.  
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Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 
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Rivo
https://www.rivo.io/operators 
Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators 
Richpanel 
https://9ops.co/richpanel 
Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 
Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/

Are you exhausting your audience, or just exhausting your strategy?
Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) dig into the mechanics of reaching net-new audiences on Meta, breaking down which lever moves the needle most: creative diversity, signal engineering, or landing page strategy. They also revisit a Ridge case study showing how optimizing for the wrong purchase event quietly cannibalized an entire product category’s growth.
The conversation shifts to building a DTC marketing function from scratch, what the first senior hire should look like at a $30M consumable brand with deep retail roots, what to pay them, and how to think about the lifecycle marketing role that follows. They close on a standout YouTube incrementality test result where Amazon captured more than half the revenue lift, and what that pattern reveals about upper-funnel channels and where customers actually convert.
Powered By 
Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026  
https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Haus
https://www.haus.io/operators
Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators
Richpanel
https://9ops.co/richpanel
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/

Are you exhausting your audience or just exhausting your strategy?
Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) dig into the mechanics of reaching net-new audiences on Meta, breaking down which lever moves the needle most: creative diversity, signal engineering, or landing page strategy. They also revisit a Ridge case study showing how optimizing for the wrong purchase event quietly cannibalized an entire product category’s growth.  
The conversation shifts to building a DTC marketing function from scratch, what the first senior hire should look like at a $30M consumable brand with deep retail roots, what to pay them, and how to think about the lifecycle marketing role that follows. They close on a standout YouTube incrementality test result where Amazon captured more than half the revenue lift, and what that pattern reveals about upper-funnel channels and where customers actually convert.
Powered By 
Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 
https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast
Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Haus 
https://www.haus.io/operators
Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators
Richpanel 
https://9ops.co/richpanel
Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/

This episode is brought to you by AppLovin. Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here:
https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth 
Or, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://axon.ai/en/9operators 
“Growth can actually kill a business that’s not prepared for it.” 
Bryan Cano (fmr. Head of Marketing, True Classic) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) for a conversation that spans the full arc of his career. Bryan breaks down the stair-stepping method for scaling without blowing up operations, what it looks like to rebuild a marketing org ahead of Black Friday, and how True Classic became one of the earliest brands to scale AppLovin to $100K per day in spend. 
Still an advisor to True Classic, Bryan also shares what he’s building next — an AI-first brand consolidator with a founding team he describes as an executive AI stack + a first product just weeks away.

It’s a MOps Hotline special episode! Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) answer your most pressing questions. Especially how to get started. Connor MacDonald shares what he’s learning in real time from launching a new supplement company from scratch — no Ridge halo, no shortcuts.
The trio breaks down why organic distribution has become the non-negotiable foundation before touching paid, and how to think about scaling a Meta account from $500 a day to $1,000 and beyond. They also dig into the evolution from demand capture to demand creation, how to read the signals in your ad account, and why onsite CRO (conversion rate optimization) might be the most underrated lever in your whole growth stack.
Powered By 
Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026
https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast
Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators
Richpanel
https://9ops.co/richpanel
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Rivo
https://www.rivo.io/operators
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/