Remarkable Content with Ian Faison

Look closely at your competitors. Is there anything they do better than you? 

Maybe it’s their messaging, their branding, their logo. Whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt to “borrow” ideas from them. We won’t call it stealing. 

That’s just one of the things we’re talking about in this episode as we take marketing lessons from Fortnite with the help of special guest, VP, Head of Content at GreenSlate, Chris Anderson. Together, we chat about borrowing ideas from your competitors, providing opportunities for customization, and making pleasingly digestible content.

About our guest, Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is VP, Head of Content at GreenSlate, a best-in-class software that simplifies and streamlines payroll and accounting for TV and film productions. With over 15 years of experience in digital content, content strategy, and digital media, Chris has built and led teams, created and executed regional and global strategies, and launched and managed multiple brands and products across various industries and platforms.

Previously, Chris was a Managing Editor at Gong.io, a revenue intelligence platform that helps sales teams win more deals. There, he oversaw the editorial process of content creation and distribution across the marketing department, working with various stakeholders and using tools like Asana, Marketo, and Salesforce. Before that, he was a Managing (and Senior) Editor for Asia at LinkedIn News, where he continued to grow a strong personal brand with over 100k followers after previously being selected as the #10 Top Voice in Media on LinkedIn in 2016. He also has experience in banking, gaming, education, and journalism, working for organizations like HSBC, Hong Kong Esports, Hong Kong Baptist University, Turner Broadcasting, HuffPost, and Business Insider.

About GreenSlate

GreenSlate advances the business of content production by seamlessly integrating people, process, and technology to meet the essential business needs of content producers. GreenSlate builds the industry’s most intuitive production accounting software, paperless payroll processing, and digital workflow solutions, with more innovative applications and products on the way. From budget to delivery, GreenSlate technology, tax credit management, and benefits services enable production teams to focus more on what they do best - creating inspiring content. GreenSlate. Evolving the industry, one production at a time.

About Fortnite

Fortnite is an online video game that was launched by Epic Games in 2017. It has six game modes: Fortnite: Save the World, Fortnite Battle Royale, and Fortnite Creative, Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival. It’s available across platforms like Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS and some Android devices. It’s incredibly popular with over 500 million registered users, and around 230 million active players each month. The game has generated around $26 billion since it launched.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Fortnite:

• Borrow ideas from your competitors. If your competitors are offering a product or service you don’t have and it’s doing well, build it out for your brand too. Chris says, “In 2017 PUBG (a game called PlayerUnknown’s Battleground) was the big battle royale, and Fortnite was primarily focused on their pay-to-play model, which was Save the World. But they recognized in their competitor that there was a mode that they did not have that was very good and popular. And they understood that if they changed course and put it out as a free-to-play model, that was worth it. They were flexible and they adapted and they put something out that was fun and engaging for a different audience.”
• Provide opportunities for customization. Ian says, “One of the ultimate B2B lessons is making the customer feel like they're getting exactly what they want and none of the features that they don't want.” Fortnite lets players choose what game mode they want to play, what they want their character to look like, and what emotes they want to use. It gives players ownership of their character and how they feel about the gaming experience.
• Make it short and sweet. Whether it’s a newsletters, blog post, article, email, whatever…make your content pleasingly digestible. People should be able to consume it easily and in a short amount of time. Ian says Fortnite is super addictive because of “the speed in which the rounds happen. If you're out, you're out for a little bit, but then you can go back in and do something else. It's just got this built-in super fast pace that makes it really engaging.” And Chris added that he can knock out a game in a matter of minutes.

Quotes

*”Epic Games is really good at understanding their audience as well as their potential audience that they don't have. They capture these different audiences across the board in these different categories. And they're pulling in all these people from different places because they have this platform that's flexible enough to build on top of it. It's quite brilliant.” - Chris Anderson

*“There's a difference between what you think people want, what you want them to want, and then what they actually want. In B2B you can put a ton of effort into building a new feature because maybe you've done some market research and you think that, ‘Oh, people definitely want this. This is something that they're interested in.’ You build it, spend the time, you put it out there and it bombs, or for whatever reason, it just doesn't resonate. It's hard for people to pull back from these sometimes because you put all that energy, all that effort into creating that product.” - Chris Anderson

*”It's hard to bullshit people.  You could be really good at content marketing and really good at pushing narratives. But if the product itself can't back it up, you're going to forever be chasing a dream.” - Chris Anderson

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Chris Anderson, VP, Head of Content at GreenSlate

[1:12] Discussion about Fortnite in B2B Marketing

[1:17] What does Chris’ role at GreenSlate entail?

[1:17] What makes Fortnite remarkable?

[4:21] What are some B2B marketing’ takeaways from Fortnite?

[38:57] What is Chris’ content strategy?

[50:03] What can we learn about content calendars from Fortnite?

[57:45] What advice would Chris give other marketers?

Links

Play Fortnite

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn

Learn more about GreenSlate

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your audience should be stumbling upon your brand. They shouldn’t have to go looking.

That means putting out content they’ll encounter on their TV, on their drive to work, in their email, on Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn. It also means they’ll think about your brand multiple times a week, maybe multiple times a day. That’s what you want.

And that’s what we’ve got in this episode of Remarkable. We’re talking about marketing lessons from Bravo TV with the help of special guest, Head of Communications at Vanta, Erin Cheng. Together, we chat about taking a multi-platform, multi-channel approach, connecting your messaging with trending topics, and giving your brand a spokesperson.

About our guest, Erin Cheng

Erin Cheng is Head of Communications at Vanta. She joined the company in November of 2022, and previously served as Head of Public Relations & Analyst Relations at Asana. She is a comms leader with 15 years of experience in creating and executing multi-dimensional internal and external communications programs, including executive thought leadership, business momentum, product and category innovation, third-party and influencer validation, and next-gen technology. Deep experience in B2B and B2C with a reputation for cross-functional collaboration aligned with business objectives.

About Vanta

Vanta is the leading trust management platform that helps simplify and centralize security for organizations of all sizes. Thousands of companies rely on Vanta to build, maintain and demonstrate trust in a way that's real-time and transparent. Founded in 2018, Vanta has customers in 58 countries with offices in Dublin, New York, San Francisco and Sydney.

About Bravo

Bravo is a TV network like HBO or PBS. It’s owned by NBCUniversal, and is known for reality TV shows like Top Chef, The Real Housewives franchise (Beverly Hills, Atlanta, Dallas, Dubai, etc.), Below Deck, and more. It’s been around since 1980 and was originally dedicated to independent film and the performing arts. Now its target audience is 25-54 year old women and the LGBTQIA community. The network’s first big show was Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which launched in 2003. And that was a turning point that led the network to focusing on reality TV. According to Entertainment Weekly, “Bravo's quirky reality programming mixes high culture and low scruples to create deliciously addictive television."

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bravo:

• Take a multi-platform, multi-channel approach. Post content daily across social channels, on your website, blog, everywhere.  This increases brand awareness and keeps you top of mind for your audience while also giving them multiple chances to interact with your brand. Of Bravo, Erin says, “They've got BravoCon, which is in essence their user conference. They've got Watch What Happens Live. They have social. You don't just experience these characters and these stories once a week in a one hour format and then forget it. You're engaging with them all the time.”
• Connect your message to relevant and timely topics in the real world. By referencing trending topics, you strengthen the impact of your message, boost your search engine visibility and capture the interest and engagement of your audience. Erin says, “A lot of people falsely just assume that because something is interesting to them as a company or from a product that they're launching that it's going to be interesting to everyone. And the real magic happens when you marry it to the things that are going on in the world around them, and they can really feel that you're connecting that for them. That's really powerful.”
• Give your brand a spokesperson. This person is responsible for synthesizing your messaging as well as humanizing your brand. Ian says, “The synthesis of the information is oftentimes just as important in the presentation. Andy Cohen also acts as the calming, reassuring presence that brings consistency from show to show. Andy is the figure in the background waiting to come on to synthesize what you just saw. He’s a huge part of building a portfolio of content, building out a network, building out consistency and brand voice and all that. A human being can do that way faster than you can do that by waving your magic brand wand.”

Quotes

*”Nobody's sitting around and thinking about us or waiting for our news. Especially as you're growing a company, and you're not sort of a tech behemoth or consumer behemoth that people sort of wait for these regular news cycles around. And so you do have to make sure that you're not only cognizant of the world around you and the things that are happening, the things that are top of mind for your customers or those that you're hoping to turn into customers. But how are you knitting that story together with the value that you're delivering with what you bring to the table?” - Erin Cheng

“A big lesson for a lot of marketers and everyone in general is when to take honest stock of things and ask yourself, ‘Does this still work? Do we need to mix it up? Is this messaging still feeling compelling and relevant? Or is it not speaking to our audience anymore?’ Being really nimble and responsive to what your audience cares about is important.” - Erin Cheng

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Erin Cheng, Head of Communications at Vanta

[1:50] What does Erin’s role at Vanta entail?

[3:28] Why are we talking about Bravo?

[5:07] What is Bravo?

[20:24] Why is Bravo remarkable? And what are marketing lessons we can take away from it?

[43:35] What’s Erin’s content strategy?

[46:37] How does Erin prove the ROI of content?

[48:17] What new and upcoming projects is Erin working on?

Links

Watch shows on Bravo

Connect with Erin Cheng on LinkedIn

Learn more about Vanta

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What does it take for your customers to:

1. Recommend your brand to all their friends, family and coworkers?
2. Take pictures of your product and post it on their personal social media?
3. Wear your logo even if they don’t own the product?

All of these are signs your customers are superfans evangelizing your brand. And transforming customers into devoted superfans is a potent marketing strategy that drives business growth.

This is what we’re talking about today as we chat about the legendary outdoor gear brand, YETI, with the help of special guest, VP of Marketing at Loxo, Sam Kuehnle. Together, we chat about investing in storytelling, working collaboratively with sales, and being realistic about what constitutes a true lead.

About our guest, Sam Kuehnle

Sam Kuehnle is VP of Marketing at talent intelligence platform Loxo. He joined the company in January 2023. Prior to his current role, he served as VP of Demand Gen at Refine Labs, a demand strategy and research firm focused on growth-stage B2B SaaS companies, where he spent over 2 years. He previously worked at Blackbaud for over 7 years, culminating in his role as Digital Marketing Team Lead. He is based in Jupiter, Florida.

About Loxo

Loxo is the #1 Talent Intelligence Platform and global leader in recruiting software. Loxo is a horizontally integrated suite of data-driven and AI-powered products designed to manage the full recruitment life cycle through a single system-of-record software platform. The platform includes a best-in-class Applicant Tracking System, an AI-driven Recruiting CRM, Candidate Engagement (multi-channel outbound recruiting solution), a People Search Engine of over 1.2 billion people, with contact information including verified mobile phone, personal and work emails. The instant AI sourcing, ranking and matching makes identifying, engaging and hiring the very best possible talent easier than ever before. More than 13,000 Executive Search, RPO, professional recruitment and talent acquisition teams across the globe are using Loxo to become hiring machines.

About YETI

YETI is a maker of outdoor gear like premium ice chests, coolers, vacuum-insulated stainless steel drinkware, and more. They’re an American company based in Austin, Texas that was founded by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders in 2006. The brothers loved to fish and hunt but found that they needed to buy a new cooler every season because parts would break on them. So they decided to make a cooler that was super durable, effective at keeping stuff cold, and all-around practical. Their dad, who was a teacher by trade, had also become an entrepreneur, developing sealant for fishing rods called Flex Coat. So this kind of entrepreneurship runs in the family. And their idea really came from meeting their own needs while also seeing a need in the market.

So when they were developing a prototype, they realized that they would have to sell their coolers for around $300 to cover their costs, far above the $30 coolers you can buy at Walmart. And because of this, they decided to reach out to specialty outdoor retailers and to go to trade shows. (Speaking of knowing your audience). Now if you look on their site, the hard coolers range in price from $250 to $1500. 

And though they initially started with coolers, they expanded to cups and tumblers in 2014. 

The brand definitely has cachet. People will put a YETI sticker on their truck or wear a YETI t-shirt even if they don’t own a YETI cooler. The brand has been called “aspirational,” no doubt because of the price but also the idea of having time off to go be in the great outdoors, loading up a YETI with fish or elk meat or drinks. But Aaron Vom Eigen, who’s a principal at the Austin-based design firm Pushstart who studied YETI, said,“It’s less about being sexy and more about the function and being durable.”

Ice will last in a YETI cooler for up to 7 days, according to Springhill Outfitters. Though in hot conditions, it will last for a day or two. And they’re virtually indestructible. They’re made using the same process as white water kayaks. And they’re also tested against grizzly bears for bear-proofing (when paired with special YETI master lock padlocks.)

What B2B Companies Can Learn From YETI:

• Invest in storytelling. Create longform blog posts, videos and podcasts telling stories that exemplify your brand. They build brand awareness so you’re top of mind for buyers. Ian says, “Content is so important to [YETI]. If you go to their website, the navigation includes shops, gifts, customized, and stories. And in stories you have a bunch of stories that they've written and brilliant long form video content, which is amazing. They have ambassadors and they have podcasts. You have to have such strong content and advertising in order to be top of mind and to get your brand across.”
• Work in tandem with sales. Supercharge your marketing strategy by keeping communication open with the sales team. Each side will inform the other on what works or what doesn’t, so marketing and sales both work harder for the business. Sam says, “One of the bigger [lessons] is learning how to work with sales. Because they don't care if you get one lead, 10 leads, 100 leads their way, they need to close deals at the end of the day. So if you want a good relationship with them and you really want to grow as a company, you need to be working together.”
• Be realistic about what constitutes a true lead. It’s easy to convince yourself a contact will convert. But Sam says, “Whether leads are falling off, they're not qualified, or they're not closing for some reason, more often than not, it was because the leads weren't really leads. Like, we so conflated the definition of what a lead is. And we just said, ‘Oh, they downloaded an ebook, they're ready to talk to sales.’ It's like, ‘No, they just wanted to learn something or they wanted to watch this webinar. Stop calling them leads. Just give it away for free.”

Quotes

*”How do we create champions? How do we get repeat buyers? How do we keep people from never wanting to leave us? In B2B, it's an experience. You make sure that they get the results they want. But in B2C, you don't have YETI people calling you. How do you like your YETI? Rate it out of 10. Would you buy YETI again? They've just ingrained it. I think part of that is the marketing side of it is just how they've done and accomplished that.” - Sam Kuehnle

*”KPIs are indicators. They are not goals. We need to stop treating them like goals. You can get tens of thousands of visitors if you want to show up for some random phrase. You can go to some content syndication website. You can gamify all that to hit your goals, but then you're doing a disservice because you're refocusing all of your team's energy on hitting these things that don't actually matter for your business because they want to justify their salary or their position within the company.” - Sam Kuehnle

*”How'd you hear about us? Just ask people when they come in and put it on the form. This is usually like the most memorable thing, or sometimes recency effect comes into play where it's like, you know, ‘The last thing I heard was a podcast with the CEO.’ That's another touch point for you to know if your content is working.” - Sam Kuehnle

*“Are we generating more pipeline as a result of the people coming in? Are the deals closing faster? Are we seeing higher win rates as a result? All of those are lagging indicators to doing that initial upfront work of building your content engine, but you can't be so obsessed with having that engine drive results on day one, on day 30, on day 60. It is a long game that you have to play.” - Sam Kuehnle

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Sam Kuehnle, VP of Marketing at Loxo

[0:25] Discussing Yeti's Marketing Strategy

[2:42] Sam’s Role at Loxo and Marketing Objectives

[48:27] The Yeti Effect in B2B Marketing

Links

Check out YETI

Connect with Sam on LinkedIn

Learn more about Loxo

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Marketing is an act of love. 

The marketer puts out content like little thirst traps. We want to dazzle with our beautiful pictures and words. And we definitely didn’t lay awake at night trying to think of the perfect thing to say. 

We marketers are gently wooing our audience from their first glance to becoming a dedicated customer. We are working to build everlasting relationships. And today, we’re learning about doing just that from the hit reality show that explores what it takes to go the distance.

In this episode, we’re talking about Love is Blind with the help of special guest, Senior Director of Brand & Events at Seismic, Katie Brunette. Together, we chat about breaking the ice, wooing your audience, and using cliffhangers.

About our guest, Katie Brunette

Katie Brunette is Senior Director of Brand & Events at Seismic. She joined the company in November 2021 as Senior Director of Global Events. She is an experiential marketing professional specialized in strategic corporate events and large-scale sporting events. Prior to Seismic, Katie previously served as Associate at Revenue Collective, Director of Marketing Strategy & Brand at Lessonly, and Event Marketing Coordinator at Salesforce.

About Seismic

Seismic is the global leader in enablement, helping organizations engage customers, enable teams, and ignite revenue growth. The Seismic Enablement Cloud™️ is the most powerful, unified enablement platform that equips customer-facing teams with the right skills, content, tools, and insights to grow and win. From the world’s largest enterprises to startups and small businesses, more than 2,000 organizations around the globe trust Seismic for their enablement needs. Seismic is headquartered in San Diego with offices across North America, Europe, and Australia.

About Love is Blind

Love is Blind is a reality show in which people who are looking for love get engaged before actually meeting each other in person. So how it goes is 15 men and 15 women who live in the same area come to live in pods. And they can “date” by talking to each other through speakers but never see each other. Participants can propose at any time. If and when a participant says “yes,” then they can meet their fiance in person. The show follows their relationship right up to the altar in some cases. For each season, there’s a reunion episode, and “after the altar” episodes.

Production-wise, the first season filmed for 38 days. And then some couples got married. They started on October 9th in 2018 and weddings were held on November 15th. Participants do get paid $1,000 a week, and the rings, resort stays, wedding, etc. are paid for by the show. However each person is responsible for their own hair, makeup, and clothing.

The series was created by Chris Coelen, produced by Kinetic Content and streams on Netflix. It premiered in February of 2020, and got tons of viewership, especially because of the pandemic. 30 million households watched the series within four weeks of its launch, and according to the Netflix 2020 viewing trends summary, it "stayed in the US Top 10 for 47 days straight after its release – the second-longest run of any title that year behind Cocomelon.” (64 days). It got some really funny reviews, the best being from Lucy Mangan of The Guardian, who said, “Love is Blind is, basically, crack. Or meth. It’s crack-meth. You will decide to give it five minutes before bed one night and find yourself still on the sofa as the sun rises on another day. You will be bleary-eyed and shattered from all the shouting you have done, the emotional investment you have made, the WhatsApp messages you have typed to a specially formed group and the heartfelt contributions you have made to various internet forums on the subject. It’s that good, is what I am saying.” But then she goes on to say that it’s not good from a moral sense.

It now has 5 seasons out.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Love is Blind:

• Break the ice. Introductory content meant to build awareness about your company or product is a great place to use humor. It’s attention-grabbing, light, and memorable. Plus, it starts you off with a positive brand association that will help build your relationship with them. Ian says, ”Long-term commitment is scary for most people, and it's very serious. And so you need to start with an icebreaker. So much of our content or our marketing stuff is so serious. We don't have good icebreakers. So much of the stuff that we create has so little levity, when even just showing a little bit of that allows you to break the tension.”
• Woo your audience. Commitment takes time. The content that will resonate with someone who just found out about your company will be different than someone who is ready to buy. Create touchpoints in your content that speaks to them at different phases of your relationship. Katie says, ”I kind of equate getting engaged to taking the demo. So how do you get your audience to the demo? You have to talk about the values. You have to talk about the things that mean the most to them, so that way you can connect on that human to human level, but also connect on their business outcome.” 
• Use cliffhangers. Save the good stuff for the end of your blog post, your video, your podcast. Ian says, “Choose your best stuff and just put it at the bottom of the article. That stuff is so powerful and we don't do it enough.” When relationships hang in the balance on Love is Blind at the end of an episode, you know people are going to tune into the next episode. It’s how you keep people engaged and even improve viewership.

Quotes

*”If you knew that you had 30 hours to try to attract somebody to take a demo with you, what pieces of content would you put all your efforts into? Is it a webinar that you can get some live engagement? Is it an in-person event that you're trying to get them to? Is it a really great designed ebook? Is it a blog post? If you know that you have 30 hours of their attention, what is that high quality content that you're going to produce?” - Katie Brunette

*”It's so important to make that investment in your voice early on, especially when you're trying to set yourself apart from your competitors. Your voice is the easiest way to relate to people, and the easiest way to set yourself apart from competitors who essentially have the same product. Maybe some of the features are different. It might look a little bit different. It might work a little bit different. But you're selling the same thing. So how do you differentiate yourself? It's through your voice.” - Katie Brunette

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Katie Brunette, Senior Director of Brand & Events at Seismic

[2:24] What does Katie’s work at Seismic entail?

[3:07] What is Love is Blind about?

[19:27] Katie on the Impact of Love is Blind on Marketing

[36:44] Reflections on Brand and Content at Seismic

Links

Watch Love is Blind

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn

Learn more about Seismic

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Muscle memory is killing your marketing strategy. It’s time to get off autopilot and take the helm.

It’s tempting to repeat marketing tactics that worked once. But if you do the same thing over and over, those tactics can lose effectiveness over time. So we’re bringing you fresh marketing ideas inspired by a show that explores the benefits of navigating uncharted waters. 

In this episode, we’re talking about Taika Waititi’s hit romantic comedy, Our Flag Means Death, with the help of special guest, Director of Content & Communications at People.ai, Mariah Petrovic. Together, we chat about hiring a crew that’s better than you, ditching muscle-memory marketing strategies, and humanizing your content. So all aboard for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Mariah Petrovic

Mariah Petrovic is Director of Content & Communications at People.ai. She joined the company in May 2023. Prior to her current role, she served as AI Messaging & Thought Leadership Lead for Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) at Dell Technologies. She has also worked as Senior Content Marketing Writer at Esri. 

Mariah is a B2B and B2C marketer with broad experience in developing and executing go-to market messaging and strategy for leading companies like Dell and Esri (location technology). She also excels in leading content marketing strategy including content audits, content optimization, and development of assets including ebooks, whitepapers, articles, blogs, social content, videos, podcasts, and targeted ABM assets. She spent five years working for a membership organization for C-Suite executives and helped plan and execute events ranging from intimate dinners to national conferences.

About People.ai

People.ai is an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform that helps customers win more revenue by providing sales, RevOps, marketing, enablement, and customer success teams with valuable insights. Companies such as Verizon, IBM Red Hat, Snowflake, Zoom, and Palo Alto Networks rely on their enterprise-grade, patented AI technology. Their unique dataset, consisting of 1 trillion+ sales activities, millions of deals, 160 million business contacts, and 69 approved patents related to AI-based business insights, sets us apart. They use this data to train their models and provide our customers with tailored business predictions and unique buyer insights. They’ve also received validation via Gartner Market Guide for Revenue Intelligence Platforms, the 5000 fastest-growing companies list, named a strong performer and the only enterprise-grade data management platform by Forrester Revenue Operations and Intelligence Wave, listed on the Y Combinator Top Companies List, and the Forbes AI 50 list in 2022.

About Our Flag Means Death

Our Flag Means Death is a show about an aristocrat in the 18th century named Stede Bonnet who decides he’s going to become a pirate. So he buys a ship named “Revenge”, hires a crew, and sails off on the high seas. So it’s about him trying to hold together his crew who are constantly at the brink of mutiny. And in the meantime he runs into Captain Blackbeard and they fall in love. 

It stars Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet and Taika Waititi as Blackbeard. The series was created by David Jenkins and premiered in 2022. It’s now in its second season, and is available on HBOMax. 

Our Flag Means Death is loosely based on the true story of Stede Bonnet, who was called the “Gentleman Pirate.” He was born to a wealthy English family in Barbados and in 1717 he decided to become a pirate. He did meet Captain Blackbeard whose real name was Edward Teach in the Bahamas. And they did team up to pillage and plunder other ships along the eastern coast of the U.S. Whether he had a romantic relationship with Blackbeard or not is uncertain.

David Jenkins, the creator, said that pirates weren’t really his “bag” but the idea of someone in what he called “existential freefall” like Stede Bonnet was fascinating to him. The fact that Stede was a wealthy landowner in an unhappy marriage who just wanted to leave it all was really appealing.  

About it being a love story, Jenkins said, “It’s show about falling in love more than it’s a show about people’s reaction to gayness in that era.” And he added that so often, shows about gay romance are really about gay trauma. And Our Flag Means Death is more about romance.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Our Flag Means Death:

• Hire a crew that’s better than you. Get people on board who have skills and knowledge your company needs. Even if - and especially if - they’re better or more experienced than you. They will only be an asset to your growth. Mariah says, “Stede is completely incompetent as a pirate, and he hires a crew that is marginally better than him. But they all come together and they get the job done.”
• Muscle memory is killing your marketing strategy. Yes, it’s good to market in a way that you know works. But after a while, it just gets stale. Mariah says, “So many times, we kind of get this muscle memory and do things the same way over and over again. It's hard to break out of that. Be brave and try new things. And if something's not working, it's okay to start over.” Though Stede Bonnet was not always brave, it’s in starting his new life as a pirate that he goes on a journey of self-discovery. And that’s pretty brave, in the end.
• Fly your human flag. Drop the high tech facade, and be human. Write like a human, and include pictures of your customers and employees. Mariah says, “Being vulnerable and authentic is something that we don't do enough of and B2B marketing in general. We don’t humanize our companies. I'm in the AI space, and it's all these super high tech terms. We can talk about productivity and all this stuff, but really we're speaking to human beings. And so I think that that ability to be vulnerable and really speak to people is something that we can learn from this show.” Our Flag Means Death shows the vulnerable side of their male characters, which you would have never seen in something like Treasure Island, which was all swashbuckling machismo. In this show, the crew read each other stories and are encouraged to talk about their feelings. It sucks viewers into the story and results in their investment in the characters.

Quotes

*What are the stories we're telling that are building that trust? Where are we helping people right now when they really need it without asking anything else of them in that moment? And being patient and knowing that the efforts that we're putting into it right now are leading to that moment and of change, of making that purchase and influencing those decisions?” - Mariah Petrovic

*”Messaging is the foundation of everything at a company. It's the way we talk about ourselves. It's consistency in storytelling. It's your website and your social and everything else. So getting it right, putting it out into the world, and really defining who we are as an organization is something that is really exciting.” - Mariah Petrovic

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Mariah Petrovic, Director of Content & Communications at People.ai

[2:09] Why are we talking about Our Flag Means Death?

[2:35] What does Mariah’s work at People.ai entail?

[3:00] What is Our Flag Means Death about?

[7:30] What makes Our Flag Means Death remarkable?

[21:03] What marketing lessons can we take from Our Flag Means Death?

[25:21] How does Mariah think about content?

[26:43] What’s Mariah’s content strategy? How does she prove the ROI of content?

[29:22] What will Mariah be working on and investing in in the future?

Links

Watch Our Flag Means Death

Connect with Mariah on LinkedIn

Learn more about People.ai

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Data is going to help you up your marketing game. We’re showing you how.

Right off the bat, “data analysis” probably doesn’t stir the soul. But it’s how you tune into your target audience so you can tailor your campaigns to them. Your messages will be more relevant, you’ll boost engagement, and not only convert leads but create lasting customer relationships. In other words, it’s by leveraging data that you graduate from bush league to pro. And what better way to show the benefits of leveraging data than talking about how sabermetrics shaped the world of baseball.

So In this episode, we’re talking about the Academy Award-winning movie, Moneyball, with the help of special guest, Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, Tim Hillison. Together, we chat about tuning into your marketing data, doing market research to understand your ICP, and tying statistics to human stories. So batter up for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Tim Hillison

Tim Hillison is the Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, a growth advisory consultancy for B2B SaaS & Technology startups and scaleups.  He has 25 years of global marketing experience, has led marketing three times on two continents, and has worked for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Visa, Microsoft, and PayPal. Tim’s expertise spans Fortune 500 enterprises and fast-moving venture-funded technology startups from series A - E. 

About Entry Point 1

Entry Point 1 connects marketing strategy to business outcomes across the customer journey. Helping it’s customers build launch, and run efficient marketing programs that transform their organizations and financial results.  

About Moneyball

Moneyball is based on a true story about the general manager of the Oakland Athletics trying to assemble a competitive baseball team on a tight budget. This comes after the A’s loss to the Yankees the previous year, in 2001, and as they’re losing their star players. So the GM, Billy Beane, teams up with player analyst and Yale economics grad, Peter Brand, and together they use sabermetrics to evaluate and sign undervalued players.

Sabermetrics are statistics of in-game activity, including batting, pitching and fielding. The term comes from the acronym SABR, for the Society for American Baseball Research. It’s a way to look objectively at player performance. In other words, Peter Brand says it’s a way to “find value in players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, and personality.”

So the movie is about challenging a traditional value system, where big city teams that have money can afford better players whereas small market teams have to be more strategic about who they sign.

The movie came out in 2011 and is based on a book by author Michael Lewis called Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand. It was directed by Bennett Miller and the screenplay is by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Moneyball:

• Tune into your marketing data. It will tell you objectively what strategies are most effective. Use that information to dial in your content. You’ll uncover new and overlooked ways of marketing that you wouldn’t have used otherwise. Ian says that It’s like in Moneyball, when “Billy Bean realizes that you can get a player who can't run, can't catch and can't steal bases; They can only hit home runs, but that’s super valuable. And while everyone else sees them as a bad player, you see them as a gem. So what are your marketing versions of that? Is it a channel? Is it a budget item? Is it a way to create something that is consistent and repeatable that won’t be perfect, but it will be consistent?”
• Do market research to understand your ICP. That is, your Ideal Customer Profile. This is how you know your product is meeting an actual need, not a perceived one. Tim says, “You have to do market research for this, to understand where your customers are and where to meet them and what different channels work better for those companies. If you don't spend the time aligning your revenue team to understand that at the beginning, and you just rush right into the tactics, that's where you miss the mark.”  
• Tie statistics to human stories. Along with the stats you use to prove value to your audience, tell customer success stories. Because it's those human stories that will seal the deal with your audience. Ian says, “Stats are pretty boring, but stats give you a story that is extremely compelling in which there are human beings at the end of the statistic.” It’s another way to humanize your brand, by sharing stories instead of just numbers.

Quotes

*”[The A’s] lose like 14 games before winning 20 games in a row, which beats the record. This is what B2B marketing is about because there are lead and lag times in marketing. Marketing is not something where you do it and instantly it happens. ” - Tim Hillison

*”In your marketing, you need to find those customer stories where it went above and beyond, where they tell their family and friends about it, where it changed someone's career.” - Ian Faison

*”People buy from others like them. And also we know that B2B buyers are not passive. They're out there scouring the internet to research your brand before sales even calls you. And so those that are authentic and have a strategy, meaning that they're talking with a consistent brand voice using the same story and relevant messaging, and they understand their ICP's frustrations and pain points, that is where you build future relationships.” - Tim Hillison

*”Helping people get to the next level. That's what they want. How is your software or how is your product going to help people achieve their goals? It's that level of authenticity people want to help them get there.” - Tim Hillison

*”Sometimes you try something new and it doesn't work out at first. Then you have to tweak it before it starts getting better and better and better, and then you're on a roll as a team. That energy is electric, and all it does is bring you together as a team. It’s an amazing wave of emotion that’s created in the film, too.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Tim Hillison, Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1

[2:01] Why are we talking about Moneyball?

[3:26] What does Tim’s work at Entry Point 1 entail?

[3:48] What is Moneyball about?

[11:39] What makes Moneyball remarkable?

[17:53] What marketing lessons can we take from Moneyball?

[42:43] What’s Tim’s content strategy?

[46:58] How does Tim prove the ROI of content?

[49:22] What are some of Tim’s favorite pieces of content or campaigns?

[51:16] What advice would Tim give to marketers today?

Links

Watch Moneyball

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn

Learn more about Entry Point 1

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

B2B marketers take themselves so seriously. A little more humor wouldn’t hurt.

Even if you’re thinking, “I already use humor in my content,” we’re going to convince you to ramp it up. Because today, we’re looking to a company that spends about a third of its content just on humor. And despite having "wasted" content on humor, it's thanks to their booming sales that they’ve raised over $8.6 million to fund sanitation projects around the world.

In this episode, we’re talking about the eco-friendly toilet paper brand, Who Gives a Crap, with the help of special guest, Shannon Howard. Shannon is Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum. Together, we talk about dedicating a third of your content to making your audience laugh, edutainment, paying attention to the details, and much more. So take a bathroom break then tune into this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Shannon Howard

Shannon Howard is Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum. She joined the company in March of 2023. Shannon is an experienced Customer Marketer who’s had the unique experience of building an LMS, implementing and managing learning management platforms, creating curriculum and education strategy, and marketing customer education. She loves to share Customer Education best practices from this blended perspective. Prior to Intellum, she served as Customer Marketing Manager at PeopleGrove. She has also held marketing roles at companies like Crowdvocate, Litmus, and The Predictive Index. 

About Intellum

Intellum is the learning management system powering the world's leading education programs. Intellum's scientific, data-driven approach is based on 20 years of industry experience, and the Intellum Platform includes all of the tools an organization needs to create, deploy, manage, track, and continuously improve highly personalized, engaging educational experiences. Large brands and fast-moving companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, Twitter, BeyondTrust, Randstad, AT&T, Verizon, Mailchimp, and many others rely on Intellum to improve product utilization, customer retention, and revenue. 

About Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper

Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper is a recycled toilet paper brand. They pride themselves on creating a product that’s better for the environment, as it has no inks, dyes, glues, chlorine or artificial scents. Their products can be delivered or picked up in store. And most orders ship free (over $25). But most importantly, they come with a mission to spread toilet humor and make the world a better place. They use 50% of their profits to build toilets and fund sanitation projects in developing countries. 

That money goes to a non-profit called WaterAid, which helps people in those countries access clean water, sanitation and hygiene education.

The company was started by Simon Griffiths, Danny Alexander, and Jehan Ratnatunga, who are engineers and product designers, in July 2012 after they found out that 2.4 billion people, or 40% of the global population, don’t have access to a toilet. Now, according to their website, that number is down to 2 billion. 

So they started a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo and it took about 50 hours to meet their goal, and they raised over $50,000. They launched their first product in March 2013. Now they also offer paper towels and tissues. Each roll is also wrapped in recycled paper in color and playful prints for sanitation purposes. 

They’ve now raised over $13.3 million dollars (that’s Australian dollars) or $8.6 million US dollars.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper:

• Spend your time equally on creating content around product, impact, and humor. A third of the Who Gives a Crap blog is dedicated to bathroom humor. While that might seem like a lot of content that’s not dedicated to marketing or making a sale, Shannon says, “In B2B, we forget that there's not a company on the other side of our marketing. There's a person and they have dreams and aspirations and they have things that they struggle with and they have a sense of humor. Everybody's been asked to do more with less. We just need something to break through the noise and give us a little reprieve. And I think humor does that.”
• Edutain your audience on your mission. Who Gives a Crap educates their audience on their mission to provide access to clean water and sanitation around the world, but they make it fun. Shannon says, “They're talking about deforestation. They’re bringing things in that can be really heavy topics, but making them lighter. They do it in a way that's really organic and natural and funny.” Educate your audience on why what you do matters, and make it light, funny, natural and organic.
• Write like you talk. You’ve probably gone to a site where you have no idea what the business does, because the content is so dry and buzzword-heavy. Don’t write like that. Act like you’re explaining to a friend what you do and write it out. Shannon says, “This is something I try to think about for content when I'm writing for SEO. Okay, I'm writing for a search engine. But I'm also writing for humans. I can't write for search only, right? You need to write for real people who are going to read your content and give them a reason to want to read your content. If you can make it entertaining and maybe you're putting gifs in there or emojis, or you're breaking up the text, or you're giving some real life examples. Those are ways you don't maybe necessarily have to use humor. That's not part of your brand, but you can lighten it up a little bit.”
• Fit creative moments into the details. Every bit of real estate matters, whether it’s on your blog, in an email, or on a piece of packaging. Shannon says, “If you have an autoresponder, an email signature, real estate on your website, on your social media, are you paying attention to those details? Are you personalizing them? Are you speaking to your customers there?” The details and the little bits of space are opportunities to personalize, to be creative, and to speak to your customers.

Quotes

*”Surprise and delight is a big part of B2C companies. But it's not something we always think about in B2B. We think about, like, what is the thing that is going to provide the most value? But then you think about something like loading screens. Or in Asana, when you check off a task that needs to be done, you get a little unicorn, yeti or otter that flies across the screen. So just things like that, where it's small, it doesn't add value. No one's buying it for the unicorn, but it's a way to surprise and delight your customers. And that does make a difference. I think we forget those little things can mean a lot more to people. They can be really impactful moments.” - Shannon Howard

*”When it comes to brand voice, think about if you were to walk up to our brand at a party. What would they be like? Think about your brand and what would that brand look like personified in the real world.” - Shannon Howard

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Shannon Howard, Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum

[2:03] Why are we talking about Who Gives a Crap toilet paper?

[3:57] What does Shannon’s work at Intellum entail?

[5:24] What is Who Gives a Crap toilet paper?

[10:22] What makes Who Gives a Crap remarkable?

[13:15] What are marketing lessons we can take away from Who Gives a Crap?

[26:51] What is Shannon’s content strategy at Intellum?

[35:14] How does Shannon think about proving the ROI of content?

Links

Check out Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper

Connect with Shannon on LinkedIn

Learn more about Intellum

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Drop the technical jargon. Instead, speak your audience’s language.

Language has power. And talking to your audience not as “marketer” but as someone who understands your customer’s world is key. This means speaking to their cares, concerns and frustrations. Do this and your audience engagement will soar. 

In this episode, we’re looking at a show that literally speaks its audience’s languages: Spanish and English. It’s Apple TV’s first bilingual comedy, Acapulco, a show that has been recognized by the Imagen Foundation for its meaningful portrayal of latinos in the media. And together with the help of our special guest, Head of Americas Marketing, Cristina Daroca, we talk about showing the outcome first, speaking your audience’s language, choosing a visually stunning setting, and more. So grab your sunglasses for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Cristina Daroca

Cristina Daroca is Senior Director of Global Demand and Americas Marketing at Riverbed Technology. She joined Aternity in July of 2020 as Director of Global Demand Generation, and the company merged with Riverbed in December of 2021. She previously served as Senior Manager of Global Marketing Programs for DataRobot. She has also worked at companies like Mighty AI and LevelUp. She was born and raised in Spain, and now lives in Boston.

About Riverbed

Riverbed transforms data into actionable insights across the entire digital ecosystem and accelerates performance for a seamless digital experience. Riverbed is the only company with the collective richness of telemetry from network to app to end user, that illuminates and then accelerates every interaction, so organizations can deliver a seamless digital experience and drive enterprise performance. Riverbed offers two industry-leading portfolios: Alluvio by Riverbed, a differentiated Unified Observability portfolio that unifies data, insights, and actions across IT, so customers can deliver seamless, secure digital experiences; and Riverbed Acceleration, providing fast, agile, secure acceleration of any app, over any network, to users anywhere. They have thousands of partners, and market-leading customers globally – including 95% of the FORTUNE 100. Riverbed is headquartered in San Francisco, but they have lots of employees in the Boston area because of an acquisition.

About Acapulco

Acapulco is a TV show about a 20-something Mexican guy named Maximo who gets the job of his dreams working at a luxury resort in Acapulco. But then he finds out that it’s much more complicated than he expected. His new co-workers refuse to show him the ropes, the guests are super demanding, and he finds that it creates challenges at home. The story is told in flashbacks by an older Maximo who has clearly had a successful career, as he’s now living in a beautiful seaside house, looking back on his beginnings. 

The show stars Eugenio Derbez as the mature Maximo Gallardo, and young Maximo is played by Enrique Arrizon. Maximo’s best friend, Memo, who he works with at Las Colinas is played by Fernando Carsa. His boss, Don Pablo, is played by Damian Alcazar. And his love interest, Julia, is played by Camila Perez.

It premiered in 2021, with two seasons out on Apple TV, and a third on the way. And it’s been nominated for the Critics Choice Awards, Hollywood Critics Association Television Awards, Imagen Foundation Awards, and more. It’s Apple TV’s first Spanish bilingual comedy.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Acapulco:

• Show the outcome first. Customers want to hear about results. Then you can support those results with details of how you help them get there. It’s like how In Acapulco, we meet an older, wealthy Maximo who tells his story in flashbacks of how he became successful. Ian says, “A lot of times, we'll say 10 X ROI, here's your case study. But if we get the story element at the beginning part of it using flashbacks, you can tell a story that's gripping from the moment you dig into it.“ And Cristina adds, “Sometimes I think we get too hung up on, ‘What's the pain that the customer is feeling? What's the problem like?’ Let's paint a picture of what the end state looks like for them, and then walk them through, ‘This is how you get there.’” Give your audience a glimpse of their future after they’ve been using your product to grab their attention.
• Speak your audience’s language. Cristina says, “Especially in B2B, we tend to be very buttoned up and using fancy words. And hey, we're talking to humans. It's so important in marketing to know your customer's language, to use the language they're using to really speak the way they do.” She says that’s why Acapulco really resonates with her as a bilingual Spanish and English speaker. 
• Choose a visually stunning setting. 80s Acapulco was a beautiful and evocative place that had cachet as a celebrity vacation spot. This is hugely important, because Ian says, “If you were to tell the same story in Finland in the winter, for example, it would feel extremely different than telling the story in Acapulco in the 80s. It’s another piece that we often don't think of setting when we do our marketing stories, because we’re in an office. Setting is so important and we don't think about it enough in B2B marketing.”
• Capitalize on the resources you have. Everyone is working on tight budgets with limited resources. But Cristina says, “We can control what we have and what we can make out of it, and how we can make it a good experience for our customers, for our guests, for the audience that we're serving.” Maximo came from humble beginnings, having been raised by a single mother. But he used what resources he did have to find success. So focus on doing your best work with what you have.

Quotes

*”It's so important in marketing to know your customer's language. To use the language they're using to really speak the way they do. Especially in B2B. We tend to be very buttoned up and use fancy words. And hey, we're talking to humans. They're also humans. They're talking the same language. So yeah, just really understand your customers, know how they speak and use that same language with them.” - Cristina Daroca

*”This is what it is. The economy is what it is. It's all out of our control. We can't really control the budget cuts, the team cuts. What we can control is what we have and what we can make out of it. And how we can make it a good experience for our customers, for our guests, for the audience that we're serving.” - Cristina Daroca

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Cristina Daroca, Head of Americas Marketing at Riverbed

[1:50] Why are we talking about Acapulco?

[2:19] What does Cristina’s work at Riverbed entail?

[2:59] What is Acapulco about?

[6:05] Why is it important to speak your audience’s language?

[6:53] About the setting of Acapulco

[14:08] What are marketing lessons we can take from Acapulco?

[22:01] How does Cristina think about marketing at Riverbed?

[24:17] How does Cristina prove the ROI of content?

[25:08] What marketing strategy has worked well for Cristina in the past?

[26:10] Learn more about Riverbed’s roadshow

[32:12] What advice would Cristina give to other marketers?

Links

Watch Acapulco

Connect with Cristina on LinkedIn

Learn more about Riverbed

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your content has the power to reposition your brand’s place in the industry. It’s time for you to take the lead. 

So we’re sharing a story with you about a campaign that did just that. IBM’s Outthink campaign declared the beginning of the cognitive era; an era in which they were no longer a company that just sells technology. The campaign repositioned them as a thought leader in this new era.

And in this episode, we’re analyzing IBM’s Outthink campaign with the help of our special guest, Founder & CEO of Omnia Strategy Group, Jessica Marie. Together, we talk about capitalizing on the moment, venturing outside your branding, and taking high quality photos and videos. So put your thinking caps on for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Jessica Marie

Jessica is an accomplished visionary strategist and catalyst in the tech industry, renowned for her achievements within the B2B cybersecurity space. She's helped leading organizations in Silicon Valley, and played a pivotal role, from guiding companies through multiple funding rounds, to achieving notable successes and lucrative exits.

Her expertise in discovery, positioning, product marketing and thought leadership has driven multi-million dollar product launches, media campaigns, and helped transform organizational dynamics during times of uncertainty.

Recognized for her ability to think beyond conventional methods and bring a deeper perspective to any situation, Jessica's profound understanding of the technology industry and emerging trends has positioned her as a trusted advisor and industry influencer.

Jessica's personal philosophy is rooted in her manifold interests and experiences. As a writer, artist, and futurist, she delves into the complexities of societal patterns and trends, casting a visionary eye towards the potential futures of humanity. Her diverse areas of curiosity, including technology ethics, spirituality, ancient teachings, and economics, are colored by her personal voyage through depth psychotherapy, spiritual exploration, travel, and artistic expression.

As the founder of Omnia Strategy Group, she draws on both her personal and professional experience, leveraging her strategic insights to help companies and leaders create and maintain a positive impact in the world, while shaping the future of the technology landscape.

About Omnia Strategy Group

Omnia Strategy Group is a visionary guide for B2B tech startups poised to become market leaders. Their mission is to identify potential, fuel growth, and drive companies out of stealth mode and into the forefront of their industries. They specialize in product marketing, thought leadership, and strategic positioning, leveraging our unique insights to catapult tech companies to success. At Omnia, we redefine the future of technology, turning possibilities into reality, and startups into industry pioneers.

About IBM’s Outthink Campaign

IBM’s “Outthink” campaign was created by ad agency Ogilvy, and launched in 2015 to promote IBM Watson, a data analytics processor. Watson uses Natural Language Processing to understand a question, analyze tons of data, and come back with an answer based on the data. In other words, you ask Watson a question, and it returns momentarily with an answer based on data across the internet that it has analyzed. It’s named after former IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson, and became world famous after beating human contestants in Jeopardy in 2011. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says the goal was to “redefine the relationship between man and machine.” It’s been used in healthcare, finance, retail, and more. 

So the “Outthink” campaign promoted this idea of cognitive business through the use of Watson. In that by using Watson, you’re leveraging a tool that will enable employees to work faster and smarter. And give you a leg up on your competitors. It was considered an integrated media campaign, and consisted of a series of print, digital and video ads, the print versions which featured in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Each ad was different, so an example of what this looked like was an ad targeting the cybersecurity industry. It’s a full-color image of a network of connections lit up in the shape of an eye. And it says, “Outthink threats”. In smaller text, it says, “Seeing threats others might miss helps you respond to attacks before they endanger your business.” It goes on to explain how IBM Security and Watson scan blogs, forums and bulletins to gain security intelligence, while being able to search through unstructured data to find threats.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From IBM’s Outthink Campaign:

• Capitalize on the moment. Timing is everything. Jessica says IBM launched their Outthink campaign when “cognitive computing was just starting to enter the public sphere. AI was still this Star Trek concept. And IBM capitalized on that moment with a campaign that was both educational and inspirational. It set the stage for discussions about the future of technology in a way that was really accessible. And AI was suddenly a topic that we could have real conversations about.” So launch content that speaks to the moment in your industry and position your brand as a thought leader.
• Venture outside your branding. A standalone campaign is an opportunity to be adventurous in your marketing. Jessica says, “Creativity and design are incredibly powerful in helping to further messaging. Even when it's really out there and creative, it really stops you.” The Outthink campaign was a clear departure from the black and blue colors with stark geometric shapes normally used in IBM’s branding. And because it was, the campaign stood out. So create a campaign with its own unique look to grab attention.
• Take high quality photos and videos. The images in IBM’s Outthink campaign are captivating. They’re well-lit, sharp, detailed and vibrant. Ian says, “Get a photographer and take some really cool photos of your actual customers. It's always worth the money to take high quality photo and video.” It humanizes your brand, highlights your customers, and is visually compelling.

Quotes

*”With a lot of the earlier stage companies that I work with, there are so many priorities. And a lot of the time, unfortunately, what ends up happening is that their story isn't told. And so a lot of the time their messaging and positioning will suffer because of that. I don't think it's possible to really get to great content unless there is solid messaging and positioning. And you can't get to messaging and positioning without really diving deep into the story and the narrative of that company.” - Jessica Marie

*”There's a tendency to think that we have to be really technical about things to show the value. Like that's just not true. We can show value based on how we are solving a problem that no one else is in a way that no one else is. How is it making your life easier? Like, those things are compelling.” - Jessica Marie

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Jessica Marie, Founder & CEO of Omnia Strategy Group

[2:42] Why are we talking about IBM’s Outthink campaign?

[5:07] Tell me more about the Outthink campaign.

[9:22] What makes the Outthink campaign remarkable?

[16:32] What marketing lessons can we take from the Outthink campaign?

[26:00] How does Jessica think about marketing at Omnia?

[35:57] How does Jessica think about the ROI of content?

Links

See IBM’s Outthink Campaign

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn

Learn more about Omnia Strategy Group

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When new competition pops up, you gotta be ready to pivot in a fresh and sparkly direction. You’re adapting fast, staying relevant and realigning your content strategy to outshine competitors. 

Especially if you plan to stick around for nearly 80 years like Mattel, you’re bound to see new brands enter the market. And sure, Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! Dolls are cute and trendy. But they didn’t just release a record-breaking movie with an all-star cast that won the first ever Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement. 

But for Mattel, the Barbie movie was a big pivot. So in this episode, we’re helping you prepare to pivot and take on the competition with marketing lessons from Mattel and Barbie, the movie. And we’re doing it all with the help of special guest Kylee Swenson, Director of Content Development and Owned Media at Autodesk. Together, we discuss being ready to pivot, the importance of inclusivity, and expanding your addressable market. So reminisce about your childhood weird Barbie as we get into this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Kylee Swenson

Kylee Swenson is Director of Content Development & Owned Media at Autodesk. She leads a global team of writers, editors, designers, illustrators and video producers creating content in multiple languages for the Webby Award–winning publication, Design & Make with Autodesk (https://www.autodesk.com/design-make) for the global design-and-make technology company, Autodesk (Autodesk.com).

Her editorial vision is fueled by the awe-inspiring things people create with innovation and technology, from building resilient infrastructure that mitigates the impacts of climate change to designing 3D-printed skull implants that save lives.

Prior to joining Autodesk in 2012, she was a music journalist and magazine editor at publications where she interviewed artists such as Björk, Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Robert Smith (The Cure), and Del the Funky Homosapien (Hieroglyphics). She’s also the author of The Recording Secrets Behind 50 Great Albums; was once nominated for a Grammy as a collaborator with the group, Nortec Collective; and is a former Governor for the San Francisco chapter of the Recording Academy.

About Autodesk

Autodesk is a global leader in software for architects, builders, engineers, designers, manufacturers, 3D artists, and production teams. From greener buildings to smarter products to more mesmerizing blockbusters, Autodesk software helps their customers to design and make a better world for all. Over 100 million people use Autodesk software like AutoCAD, Revit, Maya, 3ds Max, Fusion 360, SketchBook, and more to unlock their creativity and solve important design, business and environmental challenges. Their software runs on both personal computers and mobile devices and taps the infinite computing power of the cloud to help teams around the world collaborate, design, simulate and fabricate their ideas in 3D. They are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area and have more than 10,000 employees worldwide.

About Barbie

Barbie is a live action movie based on the Mattel toy. It was released this year, and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. It’s about Barbie — who lives in an idealized, plastic world — having an existential crisis, which manifests as her feet going flat, getting cellulite and bad breath. And so she goes to see weird Barbie, played by Kate McKinnon, who tells her she has to find the girl who plays with her in the real world so that she can be cured. 

Director Greta Gerwig said with the movie, she “wanted to give people –- and girls — but people the sense of you’re okay and you have value, just as you are. It is not something you earn or you need to achieve. Symbols like Barbie are an important way to reflect back the enough-ness of just being a girl, being a woman, being a person. And that’s what I wanted to explore in this movie, because Barbie’s for so long has been a symbol of the thing you could never be.”

It’s become the highest grossing movie of the year with over $1.4 billion globally, making Greta Gerwig the most successful solo female director ever. There’s speculation that stock for Mattel may rise by up to 25% because of the movie. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Barbie:

• Be ready to pivot. Kylee says, “Companies can't wait to be disrupted by other companies. And CEOs like Ynon Kreiz need to be able to see around corners, so to speak.” So when Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. dolls became popular, Mattel decided to capitalize on their intellectual property to make the live action Barbie movie.
• Be inclusive. Barbie, the movie, has Barbies of all skin tones, shapes, sizes, abilities, professions, etc. And of course we can’t forget weird Barbie. Kylee says inclusivity is an important value at Autodesk as a global company. She says, “We have something called the culture code and every year people are evaluated not just on what they do, but how they do it. And they're evaluated on inclusivity as a value. So, part of this code is looking at ways to check our biases. To learn to work with people from all walks of life. I have somebody on my team who's in Tokyo, somebody in Munich, somebody in Detroit. We've got people all over the world, so that culture code is very important to the company.” That inclusivity in the makeup of your company will be reflected in your content, and resonate with more people.
• Expand your addressable market. Kylee says, “The Barbie movie doesn't just appeal to young girls and mothers. I was really surprised that grandfathers, dads, boys, non binary people [like it]. It's really meant to be universal for everyone.” Because the movie is about existence, it appeals to everyone. So create content that speaks to the human instead of to the customer.

Quotes

*“We can't outgrow this notion that we are the AutoCAD company if we can't become more of a known brand that people can equate with a broad set of capabilities across architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and media entertainment. We're a B2B company. We're probably not going to become a household name like Barbie, but we definitely have a lot of room to grow, and that's something that we always have to be mindful of.” - Kylee Swenson

*“What do we feel the audiences want to read about? We have to think about customers and prospects and what they care about. We also have to think about what Autodesk is. You know, what are our business goals? Connecting those things together is really, really important. But at the same time, you can't sacrifice quality, you can't sacrifice the journalistic integrity that we've been betting on for so many years.” - Kylee Swenson

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Kylee Swenson, Director of Content Development & Owned Media at Autodesk

[3:22] Learn more about Design and Make with Autodesk, formerly known as Redshift

[5:29] Why are we talking about Barbie?

[7:32] What’s Barbie, the movie, about?

[10:58] Why is Barbie remarkable?

[11:34] What are the marketing lessons in Barbie, the movie?

[18:21] How does Kylee think about and address the different customer personas at Autodesk?

[21:48] How does Kylee prove the ROI of content?

[33:37] What is Kylee working on now that she’s excited about?

[36:43] What advice would she give someone entering her position for the first time?

Links

Watch Barbie

Connect with Kylee on LinkedIn

Learn more about Autodesk

Check out Design and Make with Autodesk

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.