May, 2026.- In the 2026 marketing landscape, the age-old dispute between brand building and performance marketing has become obsolete. Gabrielle Schweickart, who recently joined Hyperquake after a successful career leading the rebranding of iconic brands like Vera Bradley, arrives with a clear mission: to build the ultimate bridge between emotion and metrics. For Schweickart, the biggest weakness of traditional agencies is the disconnect between the conceptual phase and market execution. Her approach at Hyperquake breaks this pattern by bringing the growth team to the table from day one, ensuring that every dollar invested not only tells a story but drives a tangible result. According to Gabrielle, competitiveness today lies not in the number of channels, but in the ability to make data-driven decisions that translate creative ambition into commercial impact across the entire funnel.
In this exclusive interview with Roastbrief, Gabrielle Schweickart breaks down the challenges of driving an upper-funnel brand identity toward lower-funnel efficiency, emphasizing the importance of a structured test-and-learn roadmap. With the unique perspective of having been a Hyperquake client before leading its growth team, Gabrielle brings unparalleled empathy and a holistic view of the pressures facing today’s CMOs. Discover how the unification of media, analytics, and growth strategy is allowing brands to navigate channel fragmentation and why, in a world driven by automation and constant change, the ability to connect brand storytelling with performance is the most potent competitive differentiator of our time.
Brands are now demanding stronger connections between storytelling and measurable growth. What excites you most about your role with Hyperquake and the opportunity to bridge brand and performance more holistically?
I have worked on the client side my entire career up to this point, and I’ve consistently seen a disconnect in agency support between brand campaigns and how they actually make it to market. There are experts within each discipline, and often toolkits are handed off to performance teams, but I haven’t experienced a truly seamless brand campaign carried through performance channels.
I worked with Hyperquake as a client a few years back and recognized the strength we bring to brand campaigns. I believe that building the bridge between campaign and growth is our competitive differentiator and how we can best serve our clients. The growth team is at the table at the beginning of every project or RFP—whether growth is part of the deliverable or not. In order to compete today, brands need to consider performance from the start, and bringing that perspective early helps us deliver stronger outcomes.
Having led a company-wide rebrand at Vera Bradley, what were the biggest challenges in translating a refreshed brand ethos into performance-driven marketing that actually moved the business?
I was part of a significant rebrand at Vera Bradley led by brilliant leaders Jackie Ardrey (CEO) and Alison Hiatt (CMO), who recognized the importance of bringing the brand to life across the full funnel- across every product, asset, touchpoint, and journey.
The biggest challenge was translating something inherently upper-funnel focused on lifestyle, emotion, and meaning, into low-funnel performance. It required rethinking our performance messaging and creative, and building a strong test-and-learn roadmap to understand which formats and messages could effectively drive the results those dollars needed to deliver.
You’ve scaled complex digital programs across search, paid social, CTV, affiliates, and programmatic. How do you decide where to invest as channels fragment and accountability becomes more critical?
I approach investment decisions the same way in every situation, but each one is unique to that moment or organization. The first question is always: where is our next dollar best spent? And what does “best spent” actually mean in that context—is it traffic, revenue, awareness?
From there, it’s about breaking down performance across multiple measurement sources to understand which channels are best suited for those goals. It can sound complex, but with strong and consistent measurement, the data is already there to support smart decisions. This is how we’re approaching investment strategy at Hyperquake, especially as we build the bridge between campaigns and performance.
Many organizations still struggle to align brand marketing with lifecycle and acquisition efforts. From your experience, what are the most common gaps—and how can agencies help close them?
The most common gap I’ve seen is the lack of performance marketing representation at the very beginning of a brand campaign kickoff or concept phase. Execution and go-to-market strategy are critical, but they can’t be fully realized without the right experts in the room from the start. There’s a common misconception that growth or performance marketers only focus on the lower funnel. While they often specialize there, they bring valuable insights that can shape the campaign from the beginning and ultimately strengthen the final output.
Hyperquake emphasizes collaboration and translating marketing performance into clear business outcomes. What frameworks or metrics do you rely on to keep creative ambition and commercial impact aligned?
I focus on aligning around a shared definition of success early, before creative development even begins. That means clearly identifying what business outcome we’re driving toward and mapping metrics to each stage of the funnel. From there, it’s about creating a measurement framework that connects brand and performance signals: things like incrementality, conversion efficiency, and engagement quality, not just surface-level metrics. I also believe strongly in building structured test-and-learn roadmaps so creative ideas aren’t just executed, but continuously optimized. The goal is to ensure that creative ambition isn’t separate from performance, but a driver of it. When both are grounded in the same measurement framework, they naturally stay aligned.
You’ve worked both client-side and now agency-side, including as a former Hyperquake client. How does that perspective shape the way you lead teams and partner with clients today?
I believe it gives me a deeper understanding of client needs, priorities, and pressures. I’ve been in situations where I didn’t feel heard by an agency, not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of alignment or understanding. Having that client-side experience allows me to lead with empathy and clarity. It helps me ensure our teams are not only delivering strong work, but also truly partnering with clients in a way that makes them feel supported and understood.
How do you see the role of growth marketing, media, and analytics evolving—and what capabilities will brands need to build to stay competitive across the funnel?
Growth marketing, media, and analytics will become even more interconnected, and less siloed than they’ve traditionally been. The expectation will be that every marketing effort, whether brand or performance, can be measured, optimized, and tied back to business impact in some way. At the same time, the landscape is only getting more complex. Channels are fragmenting, data signals are changing, and automation is becoming more central. Because of that, brands will need stronger foundations in measurement, a more unified view of the customer, and teams that can think across the full funnel—not just within one discipline. The brands that stay competitive will be the ones that can move quickly, test intelligently, and connect storytelling with performance in a way that feels seamless to the consumer but is highly intentional behind the scenes.
