The Rockstar CMO F'in' Marketing Podcast

This week, former Forrester Research Director Jeff Clark is back in the studio and joins our host Ian Truscott to test whether a new trend, technique, buzzword, or technology is a one-hit wonder or a Wonderwall. In other words, is this something we should pay attention to, or a fad?

This week, they focus on causal analytics: whether it is the answer to the challenge of attribution and our dependency on vanity metrics, or a new buzzword we can safely ignore.

They discuss:

• The concept of causal analytics and its components
• Differences between correlation and causation in marketing
• Challenges of implementing causal analytics in B2B
• The role of data quality and analyst skills
• Barriers to mainstream adoption in B2B marketing

Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear. 

Over a drink that is not a cocktail this week, Robert shares a trick for sales and marketing alignment from a recent article he wrote for his Rose Colored Glasses series for The Content Marketing Institute. 

Enjoy!

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The Links

The people:

• Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 
• Jeff Clark on LinkedIn
• Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

• Causal AI for chief marketing officers | Alembic
• A Practical Guide to Causal Inference in Marketing Channel Analytics | by Brian James Curry
• Robert’s article: This Test Fixes Marketing and Sales Misalignment

Rockstar CMO:

• The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday
• Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn
• Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

• We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube
• Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license
• Oasis - Wonderwall (Official Video)

You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify.

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

This week, Ian and Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver at Seventh Bear, dive into her “Bear Essentials” article series to discuss whether we are curating a martech museum and avoid overbuying while staying up to date.

They discuss:

• The analogy of Martech stacks as museums rather than systems
• The importance of operating technology, not just owning it
• The high cost of tech debt and how to address it
• The dangers of redundant tools and conflicting data sources
• How to conduct a comprehensive tech audit and ownership assignment
• The debate between monolithic and composable solutions
• The impact of AI and data hygiene on marketing success
• Practical steps for aligning technology with organizational goals

Then Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, who gives a sneak peek of his presentation for Content Marketing World next week: “Nobody Knows: Thought Leadership in the Era of Prompts”.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

• Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 
• Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn
• Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

• Bear Essentials: Your Martech Stack is a Museum, Not a System
• Content Marketing World
• Robert’s CMW Session: Nobody Knows: Thought Leadership in the Era of Prompts”
• Robert’s article: Why AI Demands That Marketers Have Industry Expertise
• Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Rockstar CMO:

• The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday
• Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn
• Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

• We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube
• Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

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

This week, our host Ian Truscott goes solo, comparing the electrification of the automobile industry with AI for marketing. 

Ian sees a parallel for marketers: as electric engines in relatively inexpensive cars make performance numbers like 0-60 times and horsepower less relevant indicators of desirability for exotic cars, they need to lean on the brand experience. 

An obvious analogy there for marketers, with all the horsepower of AI, we can either do more with slop or do something differentiated. 

Thirsty after all that talking, Ian then joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, and over a refreshing cocktail, they discuss our industry's dependency on jargon.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

• Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 
• Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

• Tuesday 2¢ - Horses for More Us
• My personal website and blog
• Robert in CMI Newsletter - AI-native full-funnel GTM motion (WTH?!)
• Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Rockstar CMO:

• The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday
• Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn
• Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

• We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube
• Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

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

This week, Mark Demeny, Senior Director, Product Marketing at OpenText, joins our host Ian Truscott in the Rockstar CMO studio to discuss the changes in content technology and where the industry is headed as the term DXP, or Digital eXperience Management, is being dropped, and how our enterprise marketing technology platforms need to work with AI.

They then move on to the question many B2B tech marketing organizations ask: should product marketing sit under product or marketing?

They discuss:

Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, to explore some fresh research from Andy Crestodina at Orbit Media, following an annual survey of over a thousand content marketers.

The headline number in the post was that, after consistent performance over several years, “The percentage of respondents who report 'strong results’ dropped to an all-time low of 14%” and Ian and Robert discuss what that means for content marketing.

Does this mean the death of the corporate blog as traffic is down, or are we measuring the wrong things, and has the purpose of our content now changed?

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify

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

This week, Ian and Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver at Seventh Bear, discuss some research that she’s just published covering the State of Content Operations in 2026.

But first, they discuss Optimizely's recent retirement of the Digital Experience Platform (DXP) label, a prominent vendor in this category, but is the switch to an agent platform any better?

They then dig into Cathy’s research and discuss five key points:

Then Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, to ask about something he heard Dr. Margaret Heffernan on the Uncensored CMO say: “AI is a very expensive way to be stupid.”

This leads them to explore the nuances of AI's impact on decision-making, industry knowledge, and marketing strategies. They discuss how AI can both enhance and hinder critical thinking, the importance of industry expertise, and the risks of over-reliance on technology.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

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

This week, former Forrester Research Director Jeff Clark is back in the studio and joins our host Ian Truscott to discuss a research project from the B2B CMO Project called The New Rules of B2B Marketing in 2026 - How the Best B2B CMOs Are Rewriting the Role.

The B2B CMO Project, is a research and community initiative founded by Jon Miller (best known as the co-founder of Marketo) and Sydney Sloan (former CMO of Salesloft and G2) and the report is based on interviews with more than 50 B2B CMOs at companies including Zoom, Salesforce, Nutanix, Snowflake, PagerDuty, and Sprout Social.

Jeff and Ian give it their 5 f’in’ things treatment, pulling their favorite points from the research, including:

Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear. They share their horror at an AdAge article that newsjacked Dolly Parton's passing with a very poor piece about what we marketers can learn from her.

So Ian asks: if this is bad newsjacking, what is good newsjacking, and is it still an effective tool for content creators and marketers?

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify.

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

This week, former Forrester Research Director Jeff Clark is back in the studio after his summer break with our host Ian Truscott to discuss an article in The New York Times called “I Helped Run Lululemon. Companies Need to Stop Kidding Themselves About A.I.” written by Julie Averill, the former chief information officer of Lululemon, and some interesting research from McKinsey that supports her experience.

The article discusses A.I. wishing and A.I. washing, and Jeff and Ian discuss how to get A.I. working and share 5 tips:

Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, to discuss what else we marketers should be talking about, if not AI, and Robert suggests three classic marketing moves that can cut through, while everyone else focuses on digital and A.I.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify.

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

This week, our host Ian Truscott goes solo to share some work from Jon Evans, host of Uncensored CMO and experienced B2C CMO, and digs into what he calls the 4 P’s of the CMO - what marketing leaders need to pay attention to beyond Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Jon suggests it’s Politics, People, Planning, and Persuasion, and Ian digs into these 4.

Thirsty after all that talking, Ian then joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, and over a refreshing cocktail, they discuss an idea that Joe Pulizzi shared in their podcast (This Old Marketing) that perfect content may come down to two questions: Does creating it take care of you, and does it take care of someone else?

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

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

This week, Ian and Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver at Seventh Bear discuss a recent post from her Bear Essentials series on the Seventh Bear blog: Your Marketing Org Chart Is Fiction.

They discuss:

On the topic of getting shit done, Robert Rose had to go do that and was not able to join Ian in the bar, but he should be back next week.

.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

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

This week, our host Ian Truscott is joined by Ken Schwartz from Peer Survey Professionals, an expert on win/loss analysis.

They have a fascinating discussion about the value of having a good win/loss program, speaking directly with customers, avoiding the blame game, and the surprising insights Ken has found doing this over the years.

Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, to discuss GEO and SEO, drawing on data and experience from the Content Marketing Institute website, and how being top of the search results does not equate to being recommended by an LLM.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Mentioned this week:

Rockstar CMO:

Track List:

You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify.

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