Imagine getting your shot on Shark Tank, attracting multiple offers from these celeb investors, including the prospect of lucrative licensing deals...and then walking away. The founder and CEO of puffy blanket and outdoor gear brand Rumpl, Wylie Robinson, walked away from the Shark offers to pursue his own source of funding and even an NFL licensing deal. And he learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Americans love drinking, but apparently we will do just about anything to avoid tap water. The soft beverage shelves are overwhelmed with new entrants and ideas - like non-alcoholic "hop-infused water." We explore with category pioneer HOP WTR and its VP of Marketing and Innovation Ryan Haggerty the challenge of explaining an unfamiliar brand and an unknown category in ways that break through market clutter.

Brand partnering has been a key theme recently at MediaPost's Insider Summits. As customer acquisition costs soar, it makes sense that companies try to draft off of one another's existing customer bases. In fact a few curious co-brand combos have been hatched at our retreats. One of them aligned the sleep, wellness and beauty brand Overnight Beauty, with the vitamin and supplements company OLLY.

A lot of brands use Super Bowl advertising to launch a new brand or campaign push. In the case of Ferrara's Nerds Gummy Clusters, however, a Super Bowl ad this year culminated a remarkable business growth story that started several years ago at the grass roots of candy fandom.

The Pure Leaf iced tea brand wants to make a believer of me and you. A believer that a zero sugar version of Pure Leaf can still carry the brand's signature brewed tea, subtly sweet flavor. Pure Leaf Zero Sugar Sweet Tea launches this week with an artful campaign that channels both the recent Ghostbusters movie release and old school X-Files fandom. The "Unbelieveably Sweet Files" campaign leads with a video starring Emily Alyn Lind and Celeste O'Connor, who happen to be co-starring in last weekend's box office winner Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Unlike many other drink brands, Pepsico's Pure Leaf …