In just eight years, it's grown to a billion-dollar brand by marketing the most basic product out there: water. But don't tell that to its cult-like following that has turned the beverage company into a full-blown cultural phenomenon.

In 1992, Gary Chapman, a Baptist minister from China Grove North Carolina, coined the Five Love Languages which outlines how people express and receive love. According to Chapman, these five languages are: Words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch.

Most retailers enhance the "IRL experience" with engaging store design, CX and occasional events. Gem Studio puts solder and a blowtorch in your hands. Created by Matt James in order to finance a Ugandan schoolhouse he had founded, this high concept retailer sells silver and turquoise jewelry, but only after the customer makes it herself. Matt and his co-founder (and wife) Lauren explored the lessons learned - about marketing, staffing and scaling - extreme experiential retail.

Why is a high-intensity workout gym chain partnering with a tequila brand, let alone Dyson, Netflix, lululemon or Christina Aguilera? Barry's has gone all in on the art of strange brand bedfellows. It is a deliberate effort to weave the company identity into customers' everyday lives. And to that end, the 90 Barry's locations have also become social centers, even party zones. Vicky Land, SVP of Brand & Comms explains how global brand initiatives and local activations reinforce one another.

To celebrate its 75th anniversary, Whataburger is taking things analog with in-person activations like weddings in Las Vegas, a museum of fan artwork, and a San Antonio Airport takeover for the Final Four. VP of Marketing Donna Tuttle shares how they're leaning into community engagement and storytelling to drive that brand love with their guests.

I think I have written this story ten times before. Playboy was one of the first magazines to go "Dotcom" on the "World Wide Web" in 1994, which is when I started covering Internet media. Since then, I have written about so many Playboy relaunches, pivots, near-deaths and mis-fired salvage operations in the past 30 years, it is a miracle the brand persists at all. And here we go again.

What is a chain of bubble tea shops doing partnering with Frank's Red Hots, let alone Charles Schulz's Peanuts or the Final Fantasy game series? Those unlikely combinations have paid off for the Gong Cha beverage store chain. Brand partnerships have become a popular marketing hedge against the fragmented attention economy and brand invisibility. Gong Cha's Missy Maio, VP of Marketing, explains how hot sauce and tea made a surprising brand win.

"Full Funnel" has joined the glossary of hackneyed marketing cliches we have added to the bingo cards at our Insider summits this year. But at MediaPost's recent Planning and Buying retreat, two different parts of the Hasbro media team joined to discuss walking the walk of full funnel. This great back and forth between Kristina Fields, Sr. Director, Global Media & Operations and her colleague Jennifer Burch, Sr. Director, Global Brand Media dug into how they are using solid metrics to chart "Brandformance" across the collage of media in the plan.