Brilliantly Wrong: Marketing. Creativity. Startups.

What if loyalty programs weren’t about points, but about people?
In this episode of Brilliantly Wrong, Alex Stonehouse sits down with Regan Jayne Plekenpol, Co-Founder of rediem, to explore how brands can transform customers into active communities that have a positive impact on the world, and why co-creation is the next frontier in brand loyalty.

They dive into Regan’s transition from public policy to tech entrepreneurship, the moment she and her co-founder, Sarah Ganzenmuller, realized they could replace loyalty programs altogether, and why behavior change is more powerful than any discount code.

If you’ve ever felt uninspired by the way brands "reward" loyalty, this conversation will change your perspective.

Topics Covered:

• The death of transactional loyalty
• Why community and co-creation are the future
• How rediem empowers customers without asking them to spend more
• The pivot from consumer app to B2B SaaS
• What brands like Olipop and Sun Bum are doing differently
• Regan's entrepreneurial journey of founding and growing rediem

In this episode, I sit down with Renee Lopez-Cantera, SVP of Sales at EKN Solutions, a performance media agency specializing in multicultural audiences and programmatic strategy.

We dive into what most marketers get wrong about multicultural marketing, and how to get it right. From targeting with nuance to building campaigns that reflect the complexity of real audiences, Renee shares insights on what’s working today, what’s changing fast, and why performance marketers need to pay more attention to audience identity, geography, and cultural context.

We talk about:
– Why multicultural isn’t just a “special project”
– How media buying is evolving with AI
– Why agencies are getting more niche
– The power of curated publishers
– Why Miami is a growing business hub

If you're trying to reach 100% of your market, not just 75%, listen up!

In this episode of Brilliantly Wrong, Alex Stonehouse sits down with Kathleen Lucente, CEO of Red Fan Communications, to talk about why brand narrative is the most overlooked growth lever in B2B tech.

Kathleen shares how companies can turn what feels like a marketing “sinkhole” into a revenue engine by crafting a compelling story that breaks through silos, builds trust, and drives real business outcomes.

We explore:

• Why most startups misunderstand PR and how to fix it

• The difference between experts and true thought leaders

• The role of narrative in M&A, IPOs, and fundraising

• Why memory-bait beats clickbait in the AI era

• How internal comms can make or break growth

If your startup is scaling and you think “we’ll get to brand later,” think again.

In this episode of Brilliantly Wrong, Alex Stonehouse sits down with Kathleen Lucente, CEO of Red Fan Communications, to talk about why brand narrative is the most overlooked growth lever in B2B tech.

Kathleen shares how companies can turn what feels like a marketing “sinkhole” into a revenue engine by crafting a compelling story that breaks through silos, builds trust, and drives real business outcomes.

They explore:

• Why most startups misunderstand PR and how to fix it

• The difference between experts and true thought leaders

• The role of narrative in M&A, IPOs, and fundraising

• Why "memory-bait" beats clickbait in the AI era

• How internal comms can make or break growth

If your startup is scaling and you think “we’ll get to brand later,” this episode will convince you otherwise, and if you're approaching a sale or IPO, you should call Kathleen today!

In this episode of Brilliantly Wrong, Alex Stonehouse sits down with SEO expert Kristan Bauer—former SEO leader at Zillow and Amazon Web Services, agency founder, and coach to freelancers and agency owners.

We dive into:

• How she went from entry-level SEO to building (and selling) her boutique agency, Conifr.

• What it’s really like running SEO at enterprise scale (160M+ visits/month at Zillow).

• Why the rise of AI search, AEO, and GEO is the biggest shift in 15 years, and how to adapt.

• Why traffic is becoming a vanity metric and what brands should really measure.

• How to build a resilient brand that survives search algorithm turbulence.

If you’re a founder, marketer, or consultant trying to navigate the new SEO landscape, this episode is packed with insights you can use right away.

Too many startups treat brand as an afterthought. Leads first, brand later. But according to Ashley Johnston, founder of Moonshot Marketer, that mindset is exactly why so many startups plateau.

In this episode, Ashley shares why brand isn’t just a “nice-to-have," it’s the foundation that makes everything else in marketing and sales work better. We talk about:

• Why brand has to come before leads and performance marketing.

• The difference between brand-driven growth and “throw spaghetti at the wall” tactics.

• Ashley’s Brand SPACE Framework (Survey, Pinpoint, Articulate, Connect, Evaluate).

• How trust, consistency, and perception shape the entire customer journey.

• Real-world brand campaigns that cut through the noise.

This conversation will shift how you think about brand as the growth engine of your startup.

When Natalie Marcotullio joined Navattic, most people had never even heard of an “interactive demo.” The category was new, the brand was unknown, and there was no giant marketing budget to buy attention.

Instead of chasing competitors with splashy spend, Natalie focused on building trust with marketers, with prospects, and with the market itself.

In this episode, we unpack how she:

• Grew a category from scratch with consistent, useful content.

• Became the human face of the Navattic brand.

• Launched a freemium plan without killing pipeline.

• Uses her “unique + valuable” filter to decide what marketing is worth doing.

• Creates content marketers can use to win internal battles with their CEOs.

Whether you’re building in a new category or trying to make your brand memorable without deep pockets, Natalie’s advice will change how you think about growth.

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Brilliantly Wrong helps early-stage startups clarify their brand, positioning, and go-to-market strategy to get traction, accelerate growth, and raise capital without unnecessary complexity. We are challenging the safe, incremental, play-it-by-the-book mindset in marketing and startups.

To be "brilliantly wrong" is to take a bold, unconventional shot, not because it’s safe or certain, but because it’s original, intuitive, and driven by conviction.

What’s the difference between product marketing and commercialization? According to Nicole R. Ferrera, Owner and Chief Commercialization Officer of NRF Media, it’s the difference between launching a product and building a business.

In this episode, Nicole shares her journey from running departments and major accounts at Paramount and OMD to launching her own consultancy, where she helps companies bridge the gap between product and revenue.

We talk about burnout, the rise of fractional leadership, bloated MarTech stacks, and why attribution-obsessed marketing is killing creativity.

Nicole doesn’t mince words, so listen up if you’re a founder, CMO, or product marketer wondering how to make your marketing efforts actually drive growth.

"Just because you're not a trillion-dollar company doesn't mean you don't have a great story to tell."

After more than a decade in the PR trenches at Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, Pete Voss walked away from Big Tech to start his own PR firm and hasn’t looked back.

In this episode of Brilliantly Wrong, Pete shares why he left the corporate world to help startups in AI and cybersecurity tell their stories, how he landed his first clients, and what founders consistently misunderstand about PR. We explore the difference between earned media and advertising, why a press release isn’t a strategy, and how Pete built a thriving solo business in one of the fastest-moving spaces in tech.

Give this one a listen to learn what it takes to go freelance, or how to actually get your company noticed by journalists.

Writing the Stories Only You Can Tell with Camille Tuutti

In this episode of Brilliantly Wrong, journalist-turned-ghostwriter, Camille Tuutti, joins Alex Stonehouse for a wide-ranging conversation on writing with purpose, honoring your unique voice, and navigating between personal expression and commercial storytelling.

Camille shares how she knew she wanted to be a writer from the age of five, how growing up as a Finnish girl in Sweden shaped her creative worldview, and why she’s now helping tech leaders tell better stories—often from the shadows.

We also dig into:

• Why exceptional writing sometimes isn’t what companies want (and what to do about it)

• The difference between writing with soul and writing for SEO

• How Camille approaches ghostwriting for founders, executives, and brands

• The rise of AI slop and what it means for quality content

• Her upcoming novel that blends Southern Gothic with Nordic Noir

Whether you’re a founder, marketer, writer, or just someone trying to share more honestly, give this one a listen.

You can learn more about Camille at: https://tuuttifrutti.com/