Born Primitive’s Claire Strohl on Merging Brand Storytelling with Performance Marketing

Forget the idea that direct-to-consumer is dead — it's just getting started. In this episode of Brilliant Commerce, Bryan Mahoney, Co-founder & CEO of Chord Commerce, explores how Born Primitive transformed from a garage startup making padded "snatch shorts" into an iconic fitness brand generating $11 million in veteran medical debt relief through purpose-driven marketing. 

Claire Strohl, Born Primitive’s SVP of Marketing & Brand Strategy, shares their internal agency model that outperforms traditional partnerships, their systematic approach to product innovation based on athlete feedback, and their framework for balancing data analysis with brand intuition. 

Born Primitive’s veteran-founded DNA permeates everything from their talent strategy to their marketing initiatives that create branded moments outside the traditional retail calendar, demonstrating how authentic community connection drives both social impact and business growth with customer cohorts showing equivalent LTV regardless of acquisition channel.

Topics Discussed: 

• Transforming traditional agency relationships through the internal agency model that combines intimate brand knowledge with rapid creative execution, reducing external dependencies while maintaining consistent brand voice across evolving product categories.
• Creating brand-owned shopping moments instead of competing with seasonal sales cycles through purpose-driven campaigns like the Veterans Day initiative that converted social impact into customer acquisition with equivalent 60-day LTV metrics to traditional channels.
• Systematizing customer feedback loops to drive product innovation and category expansion beyond initial market segments, resulting in specialized performance gear that addresses specific athlete pain points while deepening community connection.
• Implementing a data-informed rather than data-driven marketing framework that balances quantitative metrics with practitioner intuition, particularly when evaluating new channel performance and cohort behaviors around mission-driven initiatives.
• Restructuring marketing strategy around customer journey touchpoints rather than channel distinctions to create seamless brand experiences regardless of where customers encounter the brand, eliminating the artificial divide between digital and traditional marketing.
• Accelerating creative decision-making efficiency through structured internal communication protocols that give clear direction to creative teams without the ambiguity that typically plagues agency-client relationships.
• Developing talent through methodologies that identify natural strengths and reallocates responsibilities to maximize both efficiency and career satisfaction while systematically challenging established processes even if only months old.
• Combating content volume challenges through strategic implementation of AI for baseline optimization of routine marketing processes, creating bandwidth for the human-driven storytelling and emotional connection work that drives brand differentiation.

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