Your product is a life hack. Or maybe it’s technically a work hack. Use that to your advantage.Because everyone wants work to be easier, to go more smoothly, to be more efficient. So if you can serve them up a shortcut that feels like a secret and looks pretty too, they’ll be easy to convert. That’s why we’re taking lessons from Stanley and how they unlocked a whole new audience with the release of their life hack: the Quencher. Together with Celigo’s Content Director, Leah Westfall, we chat about marketing your product as a lifehack, tapping into the FOMO, and offering aesthetic options.About our guest, Leah WestfallLeah Westfall is Content Director at Celigo, a leading integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS). She joined the company in August 2024. At Celigo, she is building a team of content strategists and writers, and working to bring their    platform to market through full-funnel integrated campaigns. Prior to her current role, she co-founded innovative software platform Moxie. There, she also shaped the go-to-market and content strategies. She has also previously served as Director of Content Marketing at RingCentral and Content Manager at Connect First, Inc.About CeligoCeligo is the leading enterprise-grade integration platform that blends cutting-edge AI with technology, enabling organizations to discover, automate, and optimize every business process. ​​The Celigo platform is called “Integator.io.” About 1000+ customers use it. Celigo’s customers use it to set up integrations to and from NetSuite, Salesforce, Hubspot, and 100s of other connectors.About StanleyThe company has been around since 1913. It was founded by William Stanley Jr., who was an inventor. And he created a vacuum-sealed steel bottle that would keep whatever was inside hot or cold, longer. Stanley has become known for making long-lasting functional products. For the longest time, their hammertone green steel thermoses were what your grandfather or dad would take camping or to work. Now, the Stanley Quencher has become really popular among women primarily. It’s now less of a purely utilitarian object, and more of a fashion accessory. The Quencher is a steel bottle with a lid and straw. The bottom is tapered so it fits in a cup holder. It comes in different sizes, but it was originally a 40-ounce bottle. And you can get it in tons of different colors, and even customize it with different designs. It retails for $45 dollars and up.The popularity has been credited to various blogs and sites over the past few years. But it’s mainly thought that sisters Ashlee LeSueur and Taylor Cannon along with their cousin, Linley Hutchinson who run e-commerce blog The Buy Guide, were the ones responsible for its recent surge in sales. The Quencher was one of the first products featured in 2017.What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Stanley Quencher:Market your product as a life hack. Let your audience into a little secret: Your product will make their lives easier, save them time, and streamline their workflow. Leah says, “People want to do their jobs better, faster, smarter, more efficiently. So are we able to provide a hack or a tool that allows people to go and solve their pain point or solve the thing that's so annoying in their day to day business? It's like, is there a way to do this better?”Tap into the FOMO. Leverage your superfans with a large social audience to evangelize your brand and amplify a sense of FOMO, or likewise, inclusivity. Leah says, “It’s like, ‘Oh, I see somebody with this and they look like me. So if they're using that, I should probably use that too,’ or like, ‘We're similar because we both appreciate the same things and live this active lifestyle and want to be healthy. So if she has it, I should probably have it also.’ Because we buy the same things. We have a similar mindset. We have the same goals. We have the same pain points. So people are drawn to this feeling of inclusivity.” Ian adds that Stanley also creates demand by releasing limited runs of their tumblers. He says, “The constrained nature of the supply and demand aspect is always interesting. Like, that there's a limited number and they would keep selling out. Everybody always wants something that's sold out.”Offer aesthetic options. It could be as simple as letting customers choose their color, or customizing what their product looks like. Ian says, “the colors [of the Stanley Quencher] are really cool, and they do 100 percent stand out. And I think there's just a great marketing lesson here about variety being the spice of life. People like to accessorize. Not just to accessorize their bodies or their appearance, but people just like having options.”Quotes*”A water bottle doesn’t have to be just red or blue anymore. You can get matte orchid or ice cream pink. And it's flipping the idea that it has to come in a really outdoorsy kind of color. What use to be red, blue, or green now comes in pale pink. It's like, ‘Oh, that was made for me.’ It gives people the option or chance to have their identity tied into your product a little bit.” - Leah Westfall*”One thing that’s so important is this idea of the influencer. Finding them and using those channels. Then you need to find a way to accelerate them. Once they're out there and they're doing their thing, the secondary piece is getting your customers in the same room as your prospects. That's a big thing for B2B marketing. Use your influencers, use your key customers, help accelerate their stories, let them tell it in an authentic way, and then put them in virtual rooms or physical rooms, in digital spaces with prospects so that they can then share their stories organically.” - Ian Faison*”We are all consumers by nature. But we can tell when we're being marketed to, and that's such a turnoff, especially to younger generations. So tell that story in a really authentic way, like in a case study or a customer success story, allowing the people to be like, ‘We didn't know what we were doing. We just went out and we had this major problem,’ being really honest and raw. That's good marketing and good storytelling because of the authenticity.” - Leah WestfallTime Stamps[0:55] Meet the Content Director at Celigo, Leah Westfall[1:49] Why are we talking about the Stanley Quencher?[3:04] What does Leah’s role at Celigo entail?[4:04] Tell me more about Stanley and the Quencher tumbler[12:28] What makes the Stanley Quencher remarkable?[22:26] What marketing lessons can we take from Stanley and the Quencher?[41:42] What’s Leah’s content strategy?[43:54] What upcoming projects is Leah working on at Celigo?[45:22] What advice would Leah give other marketing professionals?LinksGet a Stanley QuencherConnect with Leah on LinkedInLearn more about CeligoAbout 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.

It doesn’t take magic to make content that resonates. You just have to be real. Show your audience that you “get” them by catering to their cares, frustrations, and the reality of their day-to-day lives.But to do this, you really have to know your audience and their lived experience. Just like how Jeff Kinney wrote a runaway hit inspired by his lived experience as a boy. The key is that though the main character, Greg, wasn’t a hero, he was believable…and maybe a bit wimpy at times.That’s right, we’re talking about Diary of a Wimpy Kid today with Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting, Anna Furmanov. Together, we talk about making a comic, entertaining before educating, and writing in your audience’s language.About our guest, Anna FurmanovAnna Furmanov is Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting, aka the Marie Kondo of startup marketing, helping clean up early stage startups. She has more than 12 years of marketing experience at big name brands like Groupon, Blistex, Del Monte Foods, and startups. She has also led marketing at two venture-backed Series A/B tech startups. She is the host of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.About Furmanov Marketing ConsultingAt Furmanov Marketing Consulting, Anna acts as a Fractional Head of Marketing, helping VC-backed early stage startup founders and marketing leaders implement marketing programs that drive revenue. She helps startups in industries like  e-commerce, ed tech, higher ed tech, food tech, security tech, sales tech, martech, innovation tech, developer tech and more.About Diary of a Wimpy KidDiary of a Wimpy Kid is a children’s book series about a boy named Greg Heffley. It’s his journal about navigating middle school and his relationships with his friends and family. It was created by Jeff Kinney based on his own experience growing up. Jeff Kinney started working on Diary of a Wimpy Kid in 1998 as a nostalgic book for adults. And it wasn’t until 2006 when he brought a sample manuscript to New York ComicCon when it was picked up by the publishing company Abrams. He signed a multi-book deal with them for a series and the first one was published in 2007. Now there are 17 books in 84 editions and it’s been translated into 69 languages. More than 275 million copies have been sold globally. There are three spin-off books within the Awesome Friendly Kid series, four live action films, two animated films on Disney+, and a musical as well as tons of licensed products. There are even emojis and a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon of Greg.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Diary of a Wimpy Kid:Make a comic. Literally just turn your next blog post or ad into a comic. The style says anything BUT boring B2B marketing. Anna says, “This could really flip blog posts on their heads, right? Or case studies. If we would mimic something like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and how they lay things out with words and pictures to tell a story, that's essentially what Diary of a Wimpy Kid is. You could mimic that and create something that looks so different from a typical blog post or case study or any long form content. Because that's the beauty of marketing, right? It's about trying out new ideas and seeing what sticks.”Entertain, then educate. Prioritize sharing content tailored to your audience’s interests, attitudes, and values. It shows that you “get” them. And your audience is more likely to re-share it.  Anna says, “A lot of content strategies are focused on educating and not as many are focused on entertaining. Kids want to get entertained. Adults want to get entertained, too. So don't forget about the entertaining side when you think about the purpose of your content. Like the absurdity of sales, the absurdity of marketing, the absurdity of your target buyer’s workday experience. That could be entertaining, too. It could be funny. It hooks you in. It keeps you coming back.”Write like your audience talks. Use “wanna” and “gonna” instead of “want to” and “going to.” Show that there’s a human behind the content by writing like you talk. At least in the formats that allow for a casual tone, like on LinkedIn or on your blog. Anna says, “You're not here to just be fake. You're here to be real. Creating a space for other people to be real with you. Which creates connection, which creates likability. So I use “wanna,” and “gonna,” and I think people connect to me much easier because of that. They like the posts I put out on LinkedIn, and I use those words when I post on LinkedIn. Sometimes I use it in my monthly newsletter. I never use that in my client contracts because I think that's going too far. But in my content, I'm going to use words like “wanna,” and “gonna,” because I think there's a place and a space to do that, and I pick that as my vibe. And Ian adds, “the message is not necessarily that you should use conversational language all the time. It's that you should use the conversational language of who you're selling to.”Quotes*”I've seen a lot of case studies that just look the same. They're boring. How can you weave more emotion into case studies? I know it's possible. Because one of the questions I like to ask in my Voice of Customer research work is, ‘How has this tool, platform, whatever, changed your life?’ And that's a big deal. That's emotional. When you hear the answers, maybe it's something that you can blow up a little bit more, make people laugh, make people cry. Overall, how can you make people feel more connected over the emotional stuff?” - Anna Furmanov*”What is your personality? What's your vibe? A security startup might not want to use “wanna” or “gonna”. That's fine, but at least figure it out so that you have a direction and a roadmap for what you want your content to look like, sound like, feel like, because it's a package. You put it together, and the way that you show up online is a package of who you are and whether people will want to connect with that or not.” - Anna Furmanov*”When you live with children, you're in those moments and I think it's easier to write about. But tying back to B2B though, you don't live with your target buyer, right? But somehow you have to mimic that knowledge of what they're feeling, what they're frustrated about. So that's why it's so important to check in with them and to have these Voice of Customer research conversations. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to do that. You can't write a book about something from that perspective if you're not in it. You can't write content if you're not in some way in it, right? And super in the community, talking to people, understanding their goals and challenges and emotions and frustrations and what they're worried about and what they're excited about. You just can't. So since you don't live with them, you have to kind of artificially create that.” - Anna Furmanov*”Start with the foundational stuff like voice of customer research. Having these conversations with five to ten of your customers or prospects, understanding them, understanding how they relate to you, why they picked you, what's your differentiated value, all that is really important. And then tie that back into your content strategy.” - Anna Furmanov*”What's my wedge? What is my point of view? What point of view will I own? What's that unique insight that only I have, or very few people have, very few people are talking about? What are the stories that are not being told yet that should be told?” - Anna FurmanovTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Anna Furmanov, Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting[2:16] Why are we talking about Diary of a Wimpy Kid?[5:29] What does Anna’s work at Furmanov Marketing Consulting entail?[8:16] What is Diary of a Wimpy Kid about?[12:09] What’s remarkable about Diary of a Wimpy Kid?[22:36] What marketing lessons can we take from Diary of a Wimpy Kid?[38:02] What advice would Anna give other marketing professionals?LinksRead Diary of a Wimpy KidSubscribe to the Modern Startup Marketing podcastConnect with Anna on LinkedInLearn more about Furmanov Marketing ConsultingAbout 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.

Don’t try to sell your product. Sell your story.Your audience mentally unsubscribes from you if you try too hard to just sell your product. Instead, tell a compelling story around the product that people will want to share with their friends.That’s what we’re talking about in this episode with the help of special guest, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari, Devin Reed. Together, we talk about creating a piece of fiction, painting a “before” and “after” picture, and including a moment that resonates emotionally with your audience in every piece of content.About our guest, Devin ReedDevin is a sales pro turned marketing leader. He built and scaled Gong's content strategy, one of the most successful B2B SaaS brands, and now he's Head of Content at Clari. He's also an advisor, newsletter author, and writer for his consulting firm, TheReeder.co.About ClariClari’s Revenue Platform improves efficiency, predictability, and growth across the entire revenue process. Clari gives revenue teams total visibility into their business, to drive process rigor, spot risk and opportunity in the pipeline, increase forecast accuracy, and drive overall efficiency. Thousands of sales, marketing, and customer success teams at leading companies, including Okta, Adobe, Workday, Zoom, and Finastra, use Clari’s execution insights to make their revenue process more connected, efficient, and predictable.About niche sports documentariesNiche sports documentaries are by definition about a small, specialized segment of the sports world. And “niche” can be considered as a relative term. So for instance, instead of being about football, baseball, basketball, or soccer, it’s about golf, tennis, boxing or even more niche like rock climbing, fencing, Formula 1 racing, skydiving, etc. These documentaries attract and retain viewership because they focus on the drama behind the sports to appeal to more viewers. There’s an emphasis on high stakes, and the character-driven drama helps viewers connect more deeply with the competitors. The documentaries also take the time to teach you about the sport, including the rules, jargon, major competitors and their relationships.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Niche Sports Documentaries:Create a piece of fiction. The storytelling in your campaign doesn’t have to be true. Ian says, “You control the narrative, you control the characters, you control everything, and you can tell the exact story that you want, rather than finding the story.” It gives you control to craft a great narrative around your product. Devin says - though it’s not about a sport - The Queen’s Gambit was a piece of fiction and it sold a ton of chess sets. He says, “The best way to promote chess boards is not to tell me about chess boards.” It’s to share the human stories that viewers will relate to and draw them to the product.Paint the “before” and “after” picture. Show your prospects the benefits of your product by showing them the struggles and frustrations the product will solve. Make the case for doing business with you by juxtaposing their life before the purchase, and the improvements after. Devin says, “Typically, the execs are so obsessed with their product that they want the case study just to say all the good things that the customer got once they started using the tool, but that's only half of the story. What people really want is conflict, tension, and controversy, because that's what makes a good story. Most case studies don't have the ‘before.’ Who was the customer before? What were the struggles before? What were the feelings that they had before? And then what was the catalyst or the climax of like why decided something had to change? All of that needs to be in your customer stories.”Is there an “Oh, sh*t” moment? Devin says when he’s editing content, there needs to be a moment of revelation or relatability or surprise. In other words, you need to make your audience think and engage more deeply about the topic. To feel something. Devin says, “where their eyebrows move because there's something emotional, whether it's confusing - and when I say confusing, I'm thinking like, ‘Oh, I'm not sure I understand that all the way. Let me think through that,’ or it excites them. It has to have some sort of moment like that, because that’s what makes it shareable. That's what makes people want to talk about it. And that's what gets people in the pocket that you want to sell to.”Quotes*”There's not really such a thing as ‘too long.’ Because it's not about length; It's about potency and pace. How much value, insight, and actionable tips are in as few words as possible. And is it kind of a breeze to read or a breeze to watch where you're not checking your watch? Like, ‘Oh crap, there's still an hour left in this movie.’” - Devin Reed*”That hook and that compelling untold story, that's what I like to hear. It infiltrates my head and then I can start to use that in my marketing. We're like, ‘How can I use suspense? How can I use a hook in 30 seconds? How can I shock people and move their eyebrows every two minutes so they stick with me?’ And then when the show's over, they're like, ‘So when's the next thing Devin's putting out? Cause I need more of this.’” - Devin Reed*”If you press product on people, they don't want to hear it. They mentally unsubscribe.  You’ve got to create content in some way that does what's happening right now, where we are all excited to tell each other about what we're watching or we consumed and how we feel about it.” - Devin Reed*”When I'm editing content, video, written, pod, whatever,  I'm like, ‘At what point is the payoff?’ When I click that link, there's an automatic timer that starts in your head, even if subconsciously, of ‘When do I get the payoff? When do I get what was promised to me?’” - Devin ReedTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Devin Reed, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari[2:04] Learn more about Devin’s role at Clari[2:57] Tell me about Devin’s newsletter, The Reeder[5:41] Why are we talking about niche sports documentaries?[8:03] Why are these documentaries remarkable?[18:36] What are niche sports documentaries?[26:24] What are marketing lessons we can take from these documentaries?[33:08] How does Devin get executive buy-in on his content?LinksCheck out niche sports documentaries like Losers on NetflixSubscribe to Devin’s newsletter, The ReederConnect with Devin on LinkedInLearn more about ClariAbout 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.

Your next campaign is going to go viral. That is, if you use the marketing lessons we’re sharing in this episode of Remarkable.There’s a recipe basically guaranteed to get you eyeballs, likes, comments…pure and fevered engagement from your audience. And we’re taking that recipe from Solo Stove’s viral ad featuring Snoop Dogg. That’s what we’re talking about in this episode of Remarkable with the help of special guest, Chief Evangelist at purple cork, Corrina Owens. Together, we talk about collaborating with an A-list celebrity, creating buzz, and timing your campaign just right.About our guest, Corrina OwensCorrina Owens is Chief Evangelist at purple cork. She has over a decade of experience driving revenue for high-growth B2B SaaS organizations and B2C organizations with integrated and multi-channel marketing strategies, building and scaling demand generation and account-based marketing departments, programs, and campaigns from the ground up. She also co-hosts Direct, a podcast that features unsung GTM heroes who make magic happen for their organizations. Corrina is also a GTM Advisor at Navattic, GTM Partners, and Postal.io. Prior to purple cork, Corrina was Senior Manager of ABM and Enterprise as well as podcast host at Gong.About purple corkPurple cork was started by former CMOs and go-to-market specialists offering end-to-end event management. They create fun, fresh and professional virtual tastings designed for business value. They’re helping hundreds of leading SaaS and other companies create unique and memorable experiences no matter where they are. They’ve driven over $3 million in closed won revenue from accounts who’ve attended their Taste of Qualified events.About the Solo StoveSolo Stove makes a suite of portable, smokeless fire pits and camp stoves, along with a pizza oven and grill, and all the accessories. The unique thing about the Solo Stove is that it’s smokeless. The company explains that it works more efficiently than a traditional fire pit by funneling air through the pit twice for a second burn. So not only is there no smoke, but it also burns hotter. Solo Stove was started by brothers Jeff and Spencer Jan in 2011 as a Kickstarter campaign that raised $15,000. It now has an enterprise value of nearly $500 million after going public in 2021 as Solo Brands. It has also since acquired the brands Chubbies, Oru Kayak and Isle.What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Solo Stove:Aim for the stars. Solo Stove took a big swing when they asked Snoop Dogg to partner with them. And it paid off big. Corrina says, “What we see with B2B brands is that the ones that take big swings and make big bets - those are the ones that are going to stand out from the noise. So what's the risk here when the upside is just so massive? If nothing else, at least Snoop Dogg knows about solo stoves, right?” She adds that “leveraging celebrities that have that kind of vast appeal, but don't have so many endorsements quite yet, I think is the way in for marketers.”Spark buzz. On November 16th, 2023, Snoop Dogg posted to his Instagram account that he was “giving up smoke,” and to “respect his privacy at this time.” The post sent his fanbase into pure pandemonium. That is, until four days later when Solo Stove launched their collab with Snoop Dogg. One Snoop fan then responded to his Instagram post, “Got me one and I love it!!! 🔥❤️.” So drop hints and build anticipation for new campaigns, products, features, and services to drive engagement and make your content so remarkable it goes viral.Time your campaign right. Solo Stove’s Snoop Dogg campaign launched just days before Thanksgiving 2023 when, Ian says, “everyone is going to be talking around the dinner table and your weird uncle is going to bring up something weird. And you can be like, ‘Hey, did you know that Snoop's giving up smoking? That's crazy!’ Time your campaign launch so that it drops right when people will be together and in the perfect situation to talk about it, whether It be around a holiday or an event.Quotes*”Until Solo Stove has some comparable competitors for price point and offering, they really have a unique moment in time to make these big investments and take these really big swings to corner the market even further before potential new competition can catch up.” - Corrina Owens*”Early into the pandemic, Conan was starting to get more creative with ads where you would hear him do ads, but it sounded like he was just doing a bit. They actually made a summer campfire series with him, his assistant, and his producer. They do it just for Solo Stove, Solo Stove is the only brand that sponsors it. And it's a unique part of their podcast. It's a video series, where it's after dark, they're not in their studio, they're all around the Solo Stove campfire, using it to make marshmallows, using it to keep themselves warm, like actually utilizing and showcasing the product in use, which is very cool.” - Corrina Owens*”People love events. Going in person and meeting people is always important. But what we learned is that virtual events democratize information and access if you can't be there in person or you can't afford it. Like, if budgets are tight, then you can't go. That's not great. We see this with these massive events and conferences. Budgets are freaking wild for these events. They’re really expensive. And so virtual is one way to solve that.” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Corrina Owens, Chief Evangelist at purple cork[1:21] Why are we talking about Solo Stove?[1:54] Learn more about Corrina’s role at purple cork[2:20] What is the Solo Stove?[10:51] About Snoop Dogg’s ad for Solo Stove[14:10] How did the Snoop Dogg ad come about?[16:17] Marketing lessons from the Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove ad[25:20] Engagement results from Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove ad[36:38] About how purple cork hosts virtual events[37:44] What is Corrina’s marketing strategy at purple cork?[44:22] How does Corrina think about the ROI of content?LinksCheck out the Solo StoveSee Snoop Dogg’s Instagram post about “giving up smoke”Watch Solo Stove’s ad with Snoop DoggConnect with Corrina on LinkedInLearn more about purple corkAbout 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.

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 AndersonChris 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 GreenSlateGreenSlate 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 FortniteFortnite 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 AndersonTime 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?LinksPlay FortniteConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about GreenSlateAbout 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.

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 ChengErin 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 VantaVanta 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 BravoBravo 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 ChengTime 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?LinksWatch shows on BravoConnect with Erin Cheng on LinkedInLearn more about VantaAbout 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.

What does it take for your customers to:Recommend your brand to all their friends, family and coworkers?Take pictures of your product and post it on their personal social media?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 KuehnleSam 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 LoxoLoxo 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 YETIYETI 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 KuehnleTime 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 MarketingLinksCheck out YETIConnect with Sam on LinkedInLearn more about LoxoAbout 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.

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 BrunetteKatie 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 SeismicSeismic 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 BlindLove 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 BrunetteTime 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 SeismicLinksWatch Love is BlindConnect with Katie on LinkedInLearn more about SeismicAbout 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.

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 PetrovicMariah 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.aiPeople.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 DeathOur 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 PetrovicTime 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?LinksWatch Our Flag Means DeathConnect with Mariah on LinkedInLearn more about People.aiAbout 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.

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 HillisonTim 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 1Entry 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 MoneyballMoneyball 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?LinksWatch MoneyballConnect with Tim on LinkedInLearn more about Entry Point 1About 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.

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 HowardShannon 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 IntellumIntellum 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 PaperWho 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 HowardTime 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?LinksCheck out Who Gives a Crap Toilet PaperConnect with Shannon on LinkedInLearn more about IntellumAbout 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.

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 DarocaCristina 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 RiverbedRiverbed 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 AcapulcoAcapulco 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 DarocaTime 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?LinksWatch AcapulcoConnect with Cristina on LinkedInLearn more about RiverbedAbout 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.

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 MarieJessica 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 GroupOmnia 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 CampaignIBM’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 MarieTime 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?LinksSee IBM’s Outthink CampaignConnect with Jessica on LinkedInLearn more about Omnia Strategy GroupAbout 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.

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 SwensonKylee 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 AutodeskAutodesk 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 BarbieBarbie 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 SwensonTime 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?LinksWatch BarbieConnect with Kylee on LinkedInLearn more about AutodeskCheck out Design and Make with AutodeskAbout 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.

There’s nothing like a B2B event. Right?…. Right? [[ *crickets* ]] That is, there won’t be anything like a B2B event after you apply the lessons in this episode of Remarkable to your events. It’s like how Deadheads say “There’s nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.” That’s because the Grateful Dead were selling the experience. It was a place to go with people to meet, and all of the sights, sounds, and good vibes that made it an experience of a lifetime. So in this episode, we’re listening to the Grateful Dead with our guest, Director of Content at LeanIX, Matthew Grant. Together, we talk about giving away content to build an audience, selling the experience, and recording the event. So grab your tie dye tee for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Matthew GrantMatthew Grant is Director, Content Marketing at LeanIX. Over the last 14 years, Matt has created content focused on a wide range of B2B technologies including cloud management, cloud security, content management, product lifecycle management, data center cooling, generative design, quantum computing, and edge computing. He has also written and spoking on user experience design, content marketing strategy, social media strategy, and patent law, among other things. Matt has hosted podcasts on data in the enterprise, B2B marketing, and cloud computing. He has a PhD in German Studies.About LeanIXLeanIX’s Continuous Transformation Platform® offers SaaS solutions to help IT architects, IT asset managers, business leaders, and DevOps teams achieve transparency and control over their enterprise architecture, SaaS, and microservices landscapes. They offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for managing Enterprise Architecture and multi-cloud environments to enable organizations to take faster, data-driven decisions in their IT. About the Grateful DeadThe Grateful Dead is a psychedelic band that got together in California in 1965. The founding members included Jerry Garcia (vocals, guitar), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (vocals, organ, harmonica), Bob Weir (vocals, guitar), Bill Kreutzmann (drums), and Phil Lesh (vocals, bass). Their home stomping grounds were the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. And they got their musical careers started off around the time of the Summer of Love and the counterculture movement.About the Grateful Dead Europe 72 Record AlbumThe Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 Album is a triple album (17 songs split across three vinyl records) that was recorded in 1972 while the band was touring in Western Europe (England, Denmark, Germany, etc.)  It was recorded in April and May of that year, and released in November. The hope was that proceeds from the sale would help them recoup what they spent while on tour. Especially since they toured with an entourage of 43 people. Most of the songs were new, but it also included some live renditions of songs from studio albums. It has songs like “Brown-Eyed Woman,” “China Cat Sunflower,” and “Cumberland Blues”. Notably, it marked the last time Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, one of the original members, would play with them before passing away from an autoimmune disease that affects the liver. The album charted in the U.S. for 24 straight weeks after its release, and it was one of the first triple-record rock albums to be certified gold, and has since been certified double platinum.What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Grateful Dead:Give away content. Your content provides value to your audience while driving brand awareness. So when the buyer is ready, your brand is the one they think of. Matt says, “You could argue that the model for content marketing comes from the Grateful Dead. Which is, you give away content to build an audience. ‘Hey, Deadhead, send us your postcard!’ And then you get them to pay for something that can't be commodified, like an in person live experience that's only happening once.”Sell the experience. Create a unique experience for your audience around the product. When talking about the Grateful Dead, Matt says, “Music on some level is a commodity. There are better musicians than the people in The Grateful Dead, there are better songwriters than the people in The Grateful Dead, especially now when you have Spotify and all those other things, your access to music is unlike anything I had in my earlier part of my lifetime. So you've got to give people something else. The music is almost secondary. What they're really selling is an opportunity, or a space, for you to be yourself, or do your own thing, or be a freak, or be weird, or whatever, and it’s a non-judgmental zone.” So sell your audience an experience. Especially if it has good music.Record the event. So people who missed out can see it, and fans can re-live it. Ian says, “It’s a fan service to create a live album. It’s like a time capsule. And the idea that at any point in time, you could transport someone back to this moment is really interesting. Even if you weren't there, you still get to have that moment.”Quotes*“It was more about the cult than it was about the actual music.” - Ian Faison*“When people say they like The Grateful Dead, what they're remembering is this show they went to. And that time, you know, in Southern California, and it was outside, and it was at night, and everyone was chill, and we had a lot of fun. That's why they like it.”  - Matt Grant*”It's this experience. You have to give people more if you want them to come back. If you play the same songs every time and it's a cookie cutter thing, maybe they'll see you once. But why come back?” - Matt Grant*”In B2B tech, you can focus on content and the message. But if you don't have a product that can deliver on it, it doesn't matter.” - Matt GrantTime Stamps[0:56] Meet Matt Grant, Director of Content at LeanIX[2:11] What makes the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 album remarkable?[27:41] What can the Grateful Dead can teach us about authenticity in marketing? [28:35] How did the Grateful Dead build a community of Deadheads?[30:50] Where did the Grateful Dead bear come from?[34:25] What do the Grateful Dead and HubSpot have in common?[38:51] What we can learn from the Grateful Dead about knowing your audience? (And more marketing lessons)[46:32] How does Matt think about content at LeanIX?[56:04] What does Matt think about AI when it comes to building content?LinksListen to the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 albumBrowse the Grateful Dead Collection on Archive.orgRead Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead by Brian Halligan and David Meerman ScottConnect with Matt on LinkedInLearn more about LeanIXAbout 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.

When does your “audience” become a “community?” The word “community” might make you think of the relationship you have with your neighbors; a sense of friendliness and having something in common. It’s a word that relates an emotional closeness or bond, even loyalty. We’re talking about how to build that bond with your audience today.And who better to talk about it with than Automation Anywhere’s SVP of Community and Learning, Kristen Engelhardt. Together, we’re chatting about driving content to one part of your TAC (and what the heck is TAC anyway?), arranging a forum for deeper audience listening, and starting small. So get ready to upgrade your growth strategy with this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Kristen EngelhardtKristen Engelhardt is SVP of Community and Learning at Automation Anywhere, having joined the company in September, 2021. Prior to her current role, she served as VP of Trailblazer Marketing and Community at Salesforce. She has also worked for companies like PeopleSoft, Cisco and Gartner.About Automation AnywhereAutomation Anywhere is the leader in intelligent automation solutions that put AI to work across every aspect of an organization. The company’s Automation Success Platform is infused with generative AI and offers process discovery, RPA, end-to-end process orchestration, document processing, and analytics, with a security and governance-first approach. Automation Anywhere empowers organizations worldwide to unleash productivity gains, drive innovation, improve customer service and accelerate business growth. The company is guided by its vision to fuel the future of work by unleashing human potential through intelligent automation.About Community in MarketingThe idea of community in marketing suggests that customers are more deeply engaged than just purchasing from a company. These customers are aligned with the company’s brand values, mission and brand promise. They are loyal to the brand, recommend it to friends, family and colleagues, write reviews, post about it on social media, and generally evangelize the brand. Like the Apple community where users offer suggestions and answers to customer questions separately from Apple Customer Support. What is a community flywheel? It’s a community-centered approach to building a brand, in which your brand joins or creates relevant communities that promote amazing experiences and engagement, translating into sales.To use the community flywheel approach to building your business, there are five key techniques:Know your communitiesMake your brand story talkableZoom in on hero productsFuel the conversation across channelsMake transactions effortlessAccording to McKinsey, when you’re successfully leveraging the community flywheel approach…More than 75 percent of content about the brand is user generated.The influencer engagement rate—that is, the percentage of viewers who go on to like, comment, or share the content—is greater than 2 percent.More than 4 percent of online traffic is converted to sales.Brand-related posts by either the brand or a consumer go viral at least twice a year (triggered, in some cases, by marketing support).What B2B Companies Can Learn From Automation Anywhere’s Community-Building Strategy:Focus on driving content to one part of your TAC. You get better payoff with a focused approach to community-building. Kristen says, “The most successful communities we've seen are when you identify what part of the TAC you need and want to focus on to drive transformation together. It may be we're going to focus, like in Salesforce on the administrator, and we are going to surround them with the input into the product and the career support and the peer ecosystem to make them wildly successful in their role. And we found out by listening, by hearing what they're trying to solve for, that we could advance their careers and their companies through an investment in them. And in return, they share their expertise, they share their content, they speak on stage for us, they tell our brand story through theirs, but they also help us drive the business. And you get that magic flywheel.”Arrange a forum for deeper audience listening. Create a space to talk with customers and ask questions beyond your product. At Automation Anywhere, they created their Pathfinder Workshop, which is now scaled globally and has had a massive payoff. Kristen says, “We have a bright, hard line between that program and our upsell, our pipe gen, and our version of the ACV. And all of that came about the community workshop as our number one go-to-market lever because we took the leap and listened beyond the product: ‘What are you trying to do as an automation leader?’ So I love that example and the team did a phenomenal job listening, building, iterating together.”Prioritize the four pillars of community building: Destination, programs, content, and learning. These depend on how mature your business is. Kristen says, “For an early stage company, don't go out and build a destination right away. Start with the product tour or the dinner series. If you are already mature and you have so many connections and your community, your part of the TAC is saying, ‘Where do I give and get help? Where do I connect with more thought leaders? Where do I get that content?’ That's when you want to invest in the destination. So make sure you're prioritizing your pillars based on where you are and where your community is.”Quotes*“Community is a category creator and an enabler that allows a company like Salesforce, like Automation Anywhere, to build an ecosystem and a job economy. And whether it's in CRM, or it's in automation, or AI, at the end of the day, community is essentially your constituency of people, regardless of role, region, market, title, that you want to use more of what you have to offer, buy more of it, and tell others to do the same, and that's the magic of community. ” - Kristen Engelhardt*“Who you go and talk to and invest in will be different in an early stage than when you are in hyper growth and you are scaling and you want to make sure that you have a nurtured relationship with your most strategic partners and your most strategic customers. It’s a growth spectrum.”  - Kristen Engelhardt*”The key is just to know when you're starting out, ‘What problem am I trying to solve, for which stage of growth I'm in, and which sliver, slice, piece of the TAC do I most need to invest in, understand, know, and serve?” - Kristen Engelhardt*”You do need to invest in yourself first to create that reach. It's just that the level of investment is much lower. It's very low lift and you can pick and choose some very easy start by starting strategies before you have to go and build a 15 million member trailblazer community to drive the type of impact that McKinsey statistics are sharing.“ - Kristen Engelhardt*”There's a push and a pull. So like, your content is supposed to push your community to react and engage and to talk to each other and to spur conversations. Whereas for community, you have to be listening, you have to be responding, you have to be doing those sort of things.  And it's a very different sort of emotion. ” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Kristen Engelhardt, SVP of Community & Learning at Automation Anywhere[2:55] Learn more about Kristen’s work at Automation Anywhere[4:54] Why are we talking about building community?[6:17] What is TAC?[17:02] Tell me more about building community in marketing[30:41] How do you engage with your customers beyond asking about the product?[41:40] What is Kristen’s playbook to building community?[48:25] What’s the ROI of community?[52:01] Who are the critical hires in building community?LinksJoin the Pathfinder CommunityConnect with Kristen on LinkedInLearn more about Automation AnywhereAbout 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.

If a friend of yours said, “There’s a new show you have to watch about a mid-size paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania,” would you want to watch it? The crazy thing is we’re talking about the most popular sitcom of all time. But it sounds boring as heck. So what makes it so good? The actual content.The Office was relatable, cringey, absurd, and lucky for us, chock full of B2B marketing lessons. And that’s what we’re talking about today with our guest, VP of Content Marketing at Crayon, Sheila Lahar. Together, we’re chatting about B2B marketing lessons from the U.S. version including holding a writers’ room, recognizing when your marketing playbook is stale, and making every word count. This episode of Remarkable is sure to leave you satisfied and smiling. That’s what she said.About our guest, Sheila LaharSheila Lahar is Senior Director of Content Marketing at Crayon, responsible for making sure that everything they publish is unique, compelling, and valuable. Prior to joining Crayon, she built successful content marketing programs at a number of B2B SaaS companies, including Flatfile, Datto, and Eloqua.About CrayonCrayon, the leading competitive intelligence platform for mid-market and enterprise businesses, brings a complete, real-time picture of what competitors are up to—delivering valuable insights to key departments in a range of formats that can be easily accessed and acted on. So companies can quickly see and seize opportunities, and build a sustainable business advantage.About The OfficeThe Office is an Emmy Award-winning mockumentary about the employees of a paper company called Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was originally a U.K. series created by British comedian Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. But we’re covering the U.S. version, which was adapted from the original by SNL writer Greg Daniels. It was co-produced by Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille Productions in association with Universal Television. Members of the original cast included Steve Carrell as the Scranton regional branch manager, Michael Scott. Assistant to the regional branch manager, Dwight Schrute, is played by Rainn Wilson. John Krasinski is Jim Halpert, Jenna Fisher is secretary Pam Beasley, and B.J. Novak is the temp, Ryan Howard. The 9 seasons aired from 2005 to 2013.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Office: Hold a writers’ room. Brainstorm ideas with your colleagues. Sheila says, “This works really well in person. One person will have an idea that’s funny. And then you just build off that. By the end of it, you're suggesting the craziest, wackiest things, which seem like The Office in some of the scenarios and situations. I've seen that play out in B2B marketing when you just get a creative group together and you're kind of like, ‘All right, this is what we've got, but what can we do here to make it funny or more appealing?” It’s how you elevate your product or service with great content. Recognize when your marketing playbook is stale. And pivot fast to give your audience something new and better than the last. Sheila says The Office just wasn’t the same once Steve Carrell left, that it felt like the show ran out of funny ideas. She says it would have been better to pivot to a spinoff after five seasons to give their audience something new. So when it comes to marketing, it’s important to always think critically about your content strategy. To ask “Is my content stale?” And move on. Sheila says, “It's like we've got these playbooks that we've developed and we just go to the same thing. And we're all doing the same thing just because it worked.” Go on to experiment and find new things that work better than the last.Make every word count. When you’re writing ad copy with a 1,000 character limit, each word has to pack a punch. Sheila says, “It has to be so impactful or funny or something. You have to get that emotion. I think back to the writers for The Office. They were so good at writing one-liners, whether it was for Creed or Ryan.” So think about the impact of every word when writing your next copy.Quotes*”For so much of the stuff that's out there, whether it’s billboard ads or other types of ads, there's just such a lack of enthusiasm to be bold, to say something funny or interesting. Let's get back to the Creed joke where he's like, ‘I sprout mung beans on a damp paper towel in my desk drawer. Very nutritious but they smell like death.’ It’s that absurdity that makes his character so freaking hysterical. And that absurdity is also the stuff that stands out in your mind.” - Ian Faison*”We're in this noisy world where everyone's just scrolling really fast. You’ve got less than a second, you just have no time. The bold and the funny and anything that stands out, that's your chance. That's your only chance to get noticed.” - Sheila LaharTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Sheila Lahar, VP of Content Marketing at Crayon[2:02] Why are we talking about The Office?[4:15] What is The Office about?[7:34] Why is The Office remarkable?[14:12] What are some marketing lessons we can take from The Office?[28:28] What’s Sheila’s content strategy at Crayon?[30:38] How does Sheila prove the ROI of content?[34:55] What are some initiatives Sheila is working on for the future?LinksWatch The OfficeConnect with Sheila on LinkedInLearn more about CrayonAbout 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.

You may be sitting at your computer in sweats right now. But it doesn’t mean B2B marketers like yourself aren’t fashion conscious. There’s actually a lot the fashion industry can teach us about marketing.You were likely marketed those sweatpants. So think about what made you want them. Why did you buy from that particular company? And what was the deciding factor that made you purchase them?It’s likely the company understood their industry, personalized their message, and created original content. Those are a few of the things we’re talking about today with Edgio’s Director of Corporate Communications, Brand and Strategic Content, Sally Winship Comollo. Together, we’re looking at B2B marketing lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. So put on your Chanel boots (they’ll go great with your sweats) for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Sally Winship ComolloSally Winship Comollo is Director of Corporate Communications at Edgio. There, she leads the development and execution of strategic content and communications programs that drive awareness for the company's innovative edge platform. Previously, she led content and communications at Equinix. She has over 15 years of experience in marketing communications, content marketing, PR, and events, spanning various industries and sectors, from consumer electronics to cloud computing to legal services.Her core competencies include branding and positioning, content creation and distribution, experiential marketing and events, media and analyst relations, internal and employee communications, and social media. About EdgioEdgio is a globally scaled edge-enabled software solutions provider that helps companies deliver extraordinary digital experiences — faster websites, more responsive applications, the highest quality streaming, and more consistent game and software downloads, to any device.About The Devil Wears PradaThe Devil Wears Prada is about new college grad Andy Sachs who lands a job at a prestigious fashion magazine in New York City, working as an assistant to the editor. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andrea “Andy” Sachs, Meryl Streep as the editor, Miranda Priestly, Stanley Tucci as art director Nigel Kipling, and Emily Blunt as Miranda’s other assistant. The movie came out in 2006 and is based on the book by Lauren Weisberger. It was directed by David Frankel and produced by Wendy Finerman. The screenplay was written by Aline Brosh McKenna. The book was inspired by Lauren Weisberger’s experience as an assistant to Vogue editor Anna Wintour.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Devil Wears Prada: Know and understand your industry. As Andy is just learning about the fashion industry, she makes an offhand comment about clothing being “stuff.” Miranda Priestly is quick to remind Andy that she is, in fact, the target audience for that “stuff.” Miranda points out that Andy is wearing a cerulean sweater, a color blue made popular by the fashion industry. So knowing your industry means being able to make the discerning and nuanced choices that will speak more effectively to your target audience. So your message resonates with them above all others. You’ll even be so effective, your audience won’t even know they’re being influenced by your “stuff.”Personalize your message. Andy memorizes the guest list for the Met Gala so she can be Miranda’s reference when meeting them. So Miranda was able to personalize her greeting for each person. This small but critical tip is something we can apply to marketing. Sally says, “How do you personalize your message for your different customer segments or your different stakeholders?” You want each customer or each stakeholder to feel important and like they matter to your business. Personalization is a simple yet effective way to do that.Be agile. As Miranda says, “By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.” Marketers have to be moving quickly and working to stay ahead of the every-changing industry landscape. Ian says, “Just pacing in general is really important. How quickly you're doing sprints or project delivery, whether or not something is good enough to go out, versus how long you spend on it. Like that, to me, is the hardest part of marketing, is ‘How much time do you spend on the thing?’”Create original content. In other words, don’t recommend florals for your spring line of clothing. As Miranda says, “Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.” It cuts to the core. Sally says when it comes to B2B marketing, “How do you break away from things that may seem easy? Like, ‘Oh, everybody's doing video now, so let's do video’. Well, video might not work for your audience, or how do you make videos, but better?” So don’t follow the crowd, but fashion your own content.Quotes*”Our sales team is going through a very similar transition from just selling solutions or selling the product to value-based solution selling and transparent selling. So being honest about what we can do for them and what we can't do for them. Because that creates that trusted advisor type of role. Our marketing is mimicking that. So not just creating content that shows the value that we bring to the customer, but then also creating content that's valuable to the potential customer.” - Sally Winship Comollo*”Ultimately, the intangible ways of tracking ROI are also important. With analyst relations, when you get to the point where analysts come to you and say, ‘Hey, we've got a report coming out on edge platforms and we want you to be in it,’ Then that to me shows that what we're doing is working.” - Sally Winship ComolloTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Sally Winship Comollo, Director of Corporate Communications, Brand and Strategic Content at Edgio[1:48] Why are we talking about The Devil Wears Prada?[2:48] What does Sally do at Edgio?[3:31] What’s The Devil Wears Prada about?[6:59] Why is The Devil Wears Prada remarkable?[13:52] What can Miranda Priestly teach us about leadership?[19:19] What B2B marketing lessons can we take away from The Devil Wears Prada?[23:18] What’s Sally’s content strategy at Edgio?[28:49] How does Sally prove the ROI of content?[33:49] What advice would Sally give others in content marketing?LinksWatch The Devil Wears PradaConnect with Sally on LinkedInLearn more about EdgioAbout 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.

Changing your content strategy is - in business speak - “scary.” The market is ever shifting and it’s hard to know what platforms to be on, whether to make static images, videos, audio, or blog posts. What do you invest in? Don’t worry, we have answers for you. We’re giving you steps to shift your content strategy in a way that is grounded in research so you can build brand awareness, drive demand, and still sleep at night. In this episode, we’re learning from a company that’s already well into their content strategy transformation - HubSpot. Kyle Denhoff, Director of Marketing at HubSpot, is sharing with us how to use market research to drive demand, how to experiment to see what’s working, and about all the nuances to building a portfolio that gets people to your website and across the finish line. So get ready to dip your toe into new content in this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Kyle DenhoffKyle Denhoff is Director of Marketing at HubSpot. He joined the company in January 2019 as Group Manager of Marketing (Acquisition). Before he became a Marketing Strategist, Kyle played 7 years of professional lacrosse. He has also served as Director of Digital Marketing and Communications at Fresenius Medical Care North America, and held other marketing roles at Xerox and Haley Marketing Group.About HubSpotHubSpot is an innovative cloud-based CRM platform designed to help align sales and marketing teams, foster sales enablement, boost ROI and optimize your inbound marketing strategy to generate more qualified leads. HubSpot has over 184,000 customers in more than 120 countries around the world. About the benefits of putting content on YouTubeNext to Google, it's the second largest search engine—and the number one for video.YouTube has more than 2.70 billion active users as of 2023. Youtube Premium has 80 million active users worldwide in 2023. 52% of internet users access YouTube at least once a month. Over 122 million people visit YouTube every day via its Website and Apps.Videos are 12 times more likely to be watched than text is read.A survey by Unbounce found that videos on landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 80%. A survey by Digiday found that 64% of consumers made a purchase after watching a branded social media video. A survey by AdWeek found that 85% of consumers find video helpful when making a purchase decision.YouTube is free to use.You can post cell phone videos - they don’t need to have high production value.YouTube is a Google product, so your videos are more likely to rank in search results. There’s a definite boost to your SEO strategy.YouTube allows users to add captions and transcripts for greater accessibility.What B2B Companies Can Learn From HubSpot’s shift to YouTube:Use market research to drive demand. And create media in the format and location your audience prefers. If they’re listening to podcasts on Apple or watching videos on TikTok, follow suit. Kyle says, “When we look at the market itself, most folks are moving to new channels and new mediums to consume news and education and entertainment. And so you have research companies like Nielsen sharing that YouTube is now the top streaming platform in the United States ahead of Netflix. And so there's this shift happening where folks are going from these traditional media companies to some of these independent media properties to get their information. And so we want to make sure that we are there and meeting our audience and providing them value.” Instead of relying on traditional marketing like buying ads, make a strategic investment in building channels and content that supports your audience’s media appetite to drive demand more effectively.Run experiments to see what’s working. You don’t have to go all in on a marketing strategy. Instead take a tactical approach and experiment on a new channel. Kyle says HubSpot started their shift to YouTube by investing some in video production and seeing if they can convert viewership into demand for the business. So they ran conversion rate optimization experiments, and he said, “We inched into it. We did that for a month or two, and then we built a big enough data set where we said, ‘We really think this can be a meaningful channel for the business and that's when we can build that business case to invest all in on YouTube and build out that network.” What they’ve found is not only does YouTube build brand awareness, but that they’ve figured out how to get people from YouTube over to the HubSpot website. Cultivate a portfolio of talent. We hear again and again on Remarkable that humans buy from humans. So enlist trusted people within your company as well as external creators as brand ambassadors. Kyle says, “There are personality driven brands and institutional brands. We’re all going to end up in a house of personal brands. There's going to be people within your organization or that you build partnerships with that are trusted sources of information. And they're going to be on camera. They're going to be on mic. And they don't have to have the full TV studio production. They can have some good at home cameras and mics and help support your prospects and customers to get more conversions for your business. And so I do think that's where we're headed is folks want to trust other people and brands are going to need to figure out, ‘Okay, who internally is going to be a great representation of my brand?’” It humanizes and lends authenticity to your brand.Assign a key value metric to each channel. Kyle says, the way HubSpot thinks about this is that ”each one of our media programs can serve really two objectives. One is it can support the business's goals of reach and influence. Can we create demand for HubSpot in the market by driving brand impressions to our target audiences? The other thing our media properties can do is they can convert audiences into leads for the business.” So for YouTube, for example, they track new, unique, organic views. For podcasts, they look at reach or listenership. And they’re able to use these metrics to decide where to invest in more content.Quotes*“The framework we go through is, What's the objective? Who's our audience? What channels are we going to use to reach that audience? And then what content can we make for them?’” - Kyle Denhoff*“You could have a podcast, turn it into a video podcast, put it on YouTube, and the audiences are very different. So even though you've built a show for a given persona, the people who listen to podcasts in the car or at the gym are very different than people who are on YouTube and browsing on their laptop or on their phone.”  - Kyle Denhoff*”Most brands need a mix. Like, I'm going to invest in these core media properties for the audiences I know I'm going to want to reach long term. And then if there are these brand building or spike plays where we want to reach a target audience during a given set period of time, let's talk about advertising.” - Kyle Denhoff*”You don't necessarily need a ton of money. Get something out there, get the data points, build the case. And then go back to your business leaders and say, ‘I believe that if we continue investing in this podcast or in this YouTube channel, we can hit these business goals and here's the budget I'll need.’“ - Kyle Denhoff*”Going in cold is the mistake I've seen from a lot of folks, which is I have this big vision, I have this big budget ask, and then it doesn't happen. And then you're like, ‘Oh man, I'm kind of defeated.’ Just start. I mean, you can go to Best Buy and get a Logic cam and a Blue Yeti microphone, and you can deliver value to your audience right away. And you'd be surprised at how many people are going to watch that video and then ultimately take an action.” - Kyle DenhoffTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Kyle Denhoff, Director of Marketing at HubSpot[1:30] Learn more about HubSpot’s content network[3:25] How is the market shifting?[5:52] What is HubSpot’s content strategy?[8:00] What are the benefits of putting content on YouTube?[9:58] How does HubSpot experiment with putting content on a new platform?[11:33] How does Kyle’s team decide what kinds of videos to make?[15:10] Why are personality-driven brands more effective than institutional brands?[17:56] How do you build a network of creators?[28:02] How does HubSpot appeal to different target personas?[30:32] How does HubSpot track what’s working and what’s not?[33:15] How does HubSpot know when to increase or decrease their investment in a particular channel?[34:47] How does Kyle prove the ROI of content?[36:52] The importance of creating evergreen content[38:39] Do you need a big budget to make effective content?[46:56] What’s next for HubSpot?LinksCheck out HubSpot’s YouTube channelConnect with Kyle on LinkedInLearn more about HubSpotAbout 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.

Your audience is like a fickle love interest. We’re going to show you how to romance them.That’s to say that your audience could be at any place in their buyer’s journey. So it’s important to meet them wherever they are and woo the heck out of them.So in this episode, we’re going straight to the heart of the matter by talking about B2B marketing lessons from 500 Days of Summer with the help of our guest, April Weber. April leads integrated marketing at Infobip. Together, we’re talking about how to meet the customer wherever they’re at in the non-linear buyer’s journey, the importance of presenting your products honestly, and incorporating real stories in your marketing. So brace your tender heart for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, April WeberApril Weber is Director of Integrated Marketing at Infobip, having joined the company in 2022 as CX Expert. Prior to joining Infobip, April served as Director of New Demand Solutions at INFUSEmedia. She has also held marketing and demand roles at companies like QuinStreet and HID Global.About InfobipInfobip is a global leader in omnichannel engagement powering a broad range of messaging channels, tools and solutions for advanced customer engagement, authentication and security. They help their clients and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications, grow their business and enhance the customer experience – all in a fast, secure and reliable way. Over the last 15 years, they’ve grown into an Engineering Powerhouse with 70+ offices in 6 continents and over 3,700 experts, aiming to change how the world communicates.About 500 Days of Summer500 Days of Summer is a love story about a relationship that lasted 500 days with a girl named Summer. And the story plays out in flashbacks to memories of the relationship. The main character, Tom, meets Summer after she becomes the new hire at his job, a paper greeting card company. They start seeing each other, but Summer says she doesn’t believe in love and so it’s casual even though Tom wants more than that. They end up arguing and breaking up and Summer quits her job at their company. The next time they see each other, Tom notices an engagement ring, which raises all the questions about why she wouldn’t want to settle down with him, but felt true love with someone else. When Tom does meet someone new, he finds out her name is Autumn.The movie came out in 2009 and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom and Zooey Deschanel as Summer. It was directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and produced by Mark Waters. It’s an indie movie that premiered at Sundance, and was picked up by Fox Searchlight Pictures. It’s generally considered a sleeper hit, and brought in $60 million worldwide. It had had a $7.5 million budget.What B2B Companies Can Learn From 500 Days of Summer: The buying journey is often non-linear, so meet the customer where they are. Ian says, “People want that extremely organized fashion, and other people don’t. You as the marketer need to plan those different pathways and journeys, and to be able to tell stories in the moments that matter.” It’s like how in 500 Days of Summer, the story is told in flashbacks to Tom and Summer’s relationship. In the beginning, the viewer needs to see the positive parts of their relationship to understand Tom’s attachment to the relationship. And then as the story goes along, we see the disconnects and the miscommunications, the more negative parts of the relationship. That’s how the viewer understands that Tom is falling out of love with Summer and healing from the breakup. So as the marketer, you need to highlight the moments that matter for your customers and meet them where they are in their buying journey.Present your products honestly and transparently. Over-hyping your products in marketing is misleading, and ultimately leads to disappointment where customers aren’t likely to return. April ties this back to 500 Days of Summer when she says, “Tom idealized his relationship with Summer. We fall into that trap when we're over-hyping our products or solutions to potential clients, when honesty and transparency are crucial in building trust.” So though it’s tempting to play up your products to get higher engagement and sales, don’t do it. Present their real benefits and you’ll earn audience trust. Incorporate real stories. 500 Days of Summer was inspired by a real relationship screenplay writer Scott Neustadter was in while studying in London. April says that “because it was a real story, it was relatable to me. We should be doing the same thing. We should be doing this with our clients, with our content. It adds a human touch. It resonates deeply, I think, when you can actually incorporate real stories behind it.” So add that human touch to your marketing by including real stories in it. It makes your content more relatable and more human.Quotes*”We should always focus on emotional connections and relatable storytelling, whether that's B2B content or B2C content. To make an emotional connection with your audience no matter who they are.” - April Weber*“500 Days of Summer made us laugh. It made us feel sad. And it definitely makes you reminisce about your own experience, which is a great way to have any kind of content. If you can get in all the emotions at once, that's awesome.” - April WeberTime Stamps[0:55] Meet April Weber, Integrated Marketing Manager at Infobip [1:40] Why are we talking about 500 Days of Summer?[4:13] What is April responsible for at Infobip? [5:14] What is 500 Days of Summer about? [10:32] Why is 500 Days of Summer remarkable?[12:28] What marketing lessons can we glean from 500 Days of Summer?[32:58] What’s April’s content strategy at Infobip? [38:44] How does April think about the ROI of content?LinksWatch 500 Days of SummerConnect with April on LinkedInLearn more about InfobipAbout 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.

If you don’t want to just create content, but you want to create iconic content, this episode is for you.  Though your brand might not be identifiable by the color pink, swirling font and long blond hair, there’s so much we can take away from Barbie, the movie. Because Mattel created branded content that has lasted for over six decades - and the new movie with Margot Robbie has rejuvenated the brand appeal. Barbie, the movie, was part of a power play that would transform Mattel from a toy company into an IP company that manages franchises. With that in mind, we’re taking a look at the movie that sparked so much anticipation around the world and brought in over $1.4 billion dollars globally.We’re talking about B2B marketing lessons from Barbie with the help of the Director of Content Marketing at Mach49, Angelica Valentine. Together, we’re discussing why you should market your brand literally everywhere, how to deliver your content the “right” way, and utilizing and leveraging product placement. So put on something pink for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Angelica ValentineAngelica Valentine brings a decade of marketing experience to her role as Mach49’s Director of Content Marketing. She focuses on telling impact stories about the client outcomes and builds thought leadership programs to champion Mach49’s expert perspectives. From international event management to customer stories to social media campaigns, Angelica leverages traditional and experimental channels to help the world's best firms accelerate growth that matters.Prior to Mach49, Angelica worked on the editorial team at fintech unicorn, Carta. She has also held marketing roles at several other B2B and B2C SaaS startups. In those positions, she focused on exponentially growing qualified leads by managing organic content marketing programs, securing media placements on sites like TechCrunch, and developing partnerships. Over the course of her career Angelica’s work has appeared on Forbes, VentureBeat, SAP, Hacker Noon, and more.Angelica is an Oakland, California native and holds a BA in sociology and race and ethnic studies from Columbia University in New York City.About Mach49Mach49 is a growth incubator for global businesses. They partner with global businesses to build their growth engines through venture building, venture investing, strategic partnering, and targeted M&A. About Barbie, the MovieBarbie is about the classic toy having a wonderful time in her perfect world, Barbie Land, until she has an existential crisis. So she goes on a journey to experience the real world, and discovers the complexities of what it means to be truly human. The movie came out in 2023. It was directed by Greta Gerwig from a screenplay by herself and her partner, Noah Baumbach. It was produced by Margot Robbie’s production company, LuckyChap, for Warner Brothers in association with Mattel. It stars Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, as well as Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Issa Rae, Will Ferrell, and more. The movie has broken many records, being 2023’s biggest opening weekend; the largest opening for a female director ever; Warner Bros.' highest grossing domestic release in history. Barbie has also become the highest-growing movie of this year - 2023 - having brought in $575.4 million in the U.S. as of this week, according to Variety. It has already grossed $1.3 billion globally. It was expected to make $55 million its opening week, but it made $162 million. Mattel has recently launched Malibu Barbie cafés and announced partnerships with Bloomingdale’s, Crocs, and Hot Topic.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Barbie: Market your brand everywhere. Barbie was marketed so pervasively before its release in theaters that it was hard to simply exist without seeing a Barbie ad, toy, billboard, meme, you name it. Ian says, “It was brilliant marketing, but it also enhanced the actual day of activity because you had so much emotion and excitement for the thing. And I think that's a lot harder to do in B2B. But if it is something really exciting and you are generating a lot of anticipation, then that's worth it.” Especially for a re-brand or a product launch, put your ads across channels and even in unexpected places, so your audience just stumbles across them.Deliver your content the right way. Marketers are usually under pressure to get content out quickly. But instead of rushing it out and saying “good enough”, make sure that it’s done right. The right images, the right words, the right video clip, the right edits. Barbie wouldn’t be Barbie if it had been directed by someone other than Greta Gerwig, or played by anyone other than Margot Robbie. Ian says, “The fact that they did wait, and they did it the right way, and they brought in the right writer and creator, they brought in the right lead, and the right cast, and doing it the right way, rather than trying to rush it out is a lesson too. it worked in their favor. That it was a standalone, massive, huge launch that is befitting of Barbie's legacy in America and the world.”Utilize and leverage product placement. Birkenstocks were featured in Barbie, which Angelica says was 1) very relatable, since she’s a Birkenstock wearer. And 2), she says, “There’s all the news about Birkenstock having an IPO. These product placements really work. I don’t know the cause and effect relationship between the IPO and the movie, but clearly something had been in the works for a long time, and it definitely helped.” And Ian added that “women's Birkenstock sandals reportedly saw a 346 percent surge in sales after the movie.” So work with partners to have your products featured where they will gain a larger audience to improve brand awareness and increase sales.Quotes*”Barbie was a movie that had something for everyone. Children could go, my fiance's nieces went, and they're five and eight and had a great time. Their mom went and cried, probably at the same point that I did. So I mean, there really was just something for everyone.” - Angelica Valentine*”The holistic aspect of the marketing for this film definitely stood out to me. It seemed like there was no stone unturned. Like, if you like Birkenstocks or if you go to Burger King, there is something for you in this marketing campaign. I really feel like they thought of everyone.” - Angelica ValentineTime Stamps[1:14] Meet Angelica Valentine, Director of Content Marketing at Mach49[2:55] What does Angelica do at Mach49?[5:46] What’s the Barbie movie about?[8:51] Behind the scenes: The making of Barbie[12:32] How is Barbie, the movie remarkable?[14:31] Discussion on Barbie's cultural impact[19:52] What marketing lessons can we take from Barbie, the movie?[26:46] How do you build anticipation in marketing?[28:12] The power of experiential marketing: The Barbie movie experience[29:47] The impact of brand collaborations in marketing[31:15] The power of product placement in marketing[35:20] The role of nostalgia in marketing[46:35] How does Angelica approach the challenge of measuring ROI in content marketing?LinksWatch BarbieConnect with Angelica on LinkedinLearn more about Mach49About 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.

Is your brand strong enough that you can release logo-less content and people still know it's from your company? Are the visuals, the font, the tone and voice so clearly yours? Brand is so nuanced. But when done well, your name will be the first in the buyer’s mind when they’re ready to make a purchase. In this episode, we’re taking tips from a show that has super strong branding: White Lotus. We’re discussing Season 2 with Atlassian’s Head of Brand Content, Natalie Mendes. Together, we’re talking about how to cultivate a brand that will take you from season to season, investing in the heroes of your brand, and much more. Now, you can put on your bathing suit, but we wouldn’t recommend getting in the water for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Natalie MendesNatalie Mendes is Head of Brand Content at Atlassian. She is an award-winning marketing leader with a wealth of experience in content marketing spanning over a decade. At Atlassian, she started and grew the brand content team, with a track record of building successful content strategies that drive traffic, engagement, and conversion. She has  won several awards, including Best B2B Content Site from Digiday and Best Digital Publication from Content Marketing Institute. She has experience in SEO strategy and content development, paid and organic social media, email marketing, website development, and PR.At Atlassian, she leads strategy and execution of content on their website, blog, podcasts, video, and social media. She has grown a team of skilled and motivated content marketers that serve and support their brand and product marketing strategies, as well as managing external agencies for social media and web development. They have grown organic monthly pageviews by 1000% in the past 3 years and proved out paths for sales. She has grown a thriving and engaged following for Atlassian brand and won multiple excellence awards in B2B Content Strategy and Podcasting.About AtlassianAtlassian is a portfolio of products that enable teams, increase collaboration and communication, and help businesses obtain their desired business goals. They connect teams to share work and drive higher productivity and outcomes. The teams they support include software, IT, business, marketing and more. Their team of 7000+ Atlassians supports an international group of 250,000+ customers. They build tools like Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, and Trello to help teams across the world become more nimble, creative, and aligned.About White LotusWhite Lotus is about the guests and employees of a fictional resort chain of the same name, White Lotus. While initially everything is beautiful and picture-perfect on the surface, there’s a darkness underneath that reveals itself more and more as time goes on. The second season is set in Sicily and stars Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya McQuoid-Hunt, F. Murray Abraham as Bert Di Grasso, Michael Imperioli as Dominic Di Grasso, Adam DiMarco as Albie Di Grasso, Aubrey Plaza as Harper Spiller, and her husband, Ethan Spiller is played by Will Sharpe. It starts off with the death of a guest at the White Lotus resort and revolves around the sex lives of the characters from cheating to addiction. This is different from the first season, which focused on money and privilege. The series was created by Mike White for HBO and premiered in 2021. There are now two seasons and a third in production, which will reportedly be filmed in Thailand. Each season is set at a different White Lotus resort. The first season was set in Hawaii. It has won ten Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes.What B2B Companies Can Learn From White Lotus: Cultivate a brand that can carry you from season to season. And piece of content to piece of content. You should be able to use your brand voice across channels. The key is that your content has to be of high value to your audience. They learn to look forward to your content and trust the quality of it. Natalie says, “It's so much easier and efficient in a lot of ways to build on something that's working than to try to change up your story every single year and try new marketing formats just for the sake of it. When you can build on something over time, that's where you see the benefit and the growth, even from an organic SEO standpoint, we still see lots of great traffic coming to our old content. It's not all about the new stuff every time.” It’s like how we know that each season of White Lotus takes place in a different luxury resort. And it sets the stage for drama to unfold. So the audience learns to trust the quality of the storytelling and looks forward to a dark, complex plot that is undeniably White Lotus.Highlight the “heroes” of your brand. Whether it’s a character in your marketing or a fan favorite product, give your audience more. Natalie says, “Find your darlings and really invest in them.” She says, “Whether that's something that starts in your digital world and becomes an event in the real world, or your customers rally around one of your products or a new feature, letting that take off and knowing that that is gonna be good for your brand and good for your customers, while still having the regular cast of characters in the mix.” In White Lotus, it was Jennifer Coolidge’s character, Tanya, who became very popular. And references to her, including memes, are all over the internet. At Atlassian, they unleashed evangelists with resources and messaging to consult with customers. These evangelists, or heroes, strengthen their brand and accelerate the business.Quotes*”It's a show where there is no hero. Nobody really wins. And I think that's sort of what I like about it too, is it's more of a character study in these people and what's driving them to do things and what's holding them back and what are their secrets.” - Natalie Mendes*”Once I started watching White Lotus, I just got immediately hooked on the story and the intrigue. So it's a show where you know the ending but then the whole show is about figuring out how it happened. And so I love how that storytelling device hooks you immediately and then you become part of the show.” - Natalie MendesTime Stamps[0:53] Meet Natalie Mendes, Head of Brand Content at Atlassian[2:40] What is Natalie responsible for in her role at Atlassian?[4:31] What is White Lotus about?[8:11] Why is White Lotus remarkable?[23:02] How does Natalie think about brand?[25:54] What B2B marketing lessons can we learn from White Lotus?[34:59] What’s Natalie’s content strategy?LinksWatch White LotusConnect with Natalie on LinkedInLearn more about AtlassianListen to TeamistryListen to Work CheckAbout 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.

Marketing is a game. It has its own players, rules and rewards. And the stakes are high. So we’re here to help you win the battle for the Iron Throne. In this episode, we’re bingeing the epic HBO drama Game of Thrones to see what it can teach us about playing the game of marketing. Here to help us is Datadog CMO Alex Rosemblat. And together, we’re exploring how to win the battle by keeping your oath, using the rules of the game to your advantage, and putting your dragons to good use. So don your furs and prepare for battle as we charge into this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Alex RosemblatAlex Rosemblat is Chief Marketing Officer at Datadog. Prior to his current role, Alex served as the Product Marketer for Dell’s Cloud and Virtualization product family (via the acquisition of VKernel), bringing virtualization management and cloud monitoring software products to market. Alex has 15 years of experience with enterprise software and related technologies through product management, IT consulting, and pre-sales engineering with Symantec (via the acquisition of SwapDrive) and Epic Systems Corporation. He has spent the last 8+ years at DataDog, and helped lead the company to its successful IPO in 2019.About DatadogDatadog is a SaaS-based monitoring and analytics platform for large-scale applications and infrastructure. Combining real-time metrics from servers, containers, databases, and applications with end-to-end tracing, Datadog delivers actionable alerts and powerful visualizations to provide full-stack observability.About Game of ThronesGame of Thrones is a massively successful epic fantasy series with an impassioned following. It’s about a civil war among noble families who are fighting for control over the iron throne that rules the lands of Westeros. Meanwhile an ancient enemy - the Night King - returns after being dormant for thousands of years. There are three major plot lines: the first is about the fight for the iron throne among the families. The second is about the rightful heir coming back to claim the throne. And the third is about the incoming winter, as seasons don’t have a worldly timeline, and so the summer has lasted something like a decade. The winter also implies hard times and the threat from the North, where the wildlings and Night King live. It’s based on the book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin published in 1996. The series was created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for HBO. And it has a massive ensemble cast of over 500 characters. The show stars Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, Kit Harington as Jon Snow, Maisie Williams as Arya Stark, and more. It premiered in 2011 with eight seasons that wrapped up in 2019. That year, it was HBO’s most watched show and the most watched scripted show on TV, period. It had a total show budget of $1.5 Billion, and has earned $3.1 Billion through HBO subscriptions alone as of May 2019. It was filmed in the United Kingdom, Canada, Croatia, Iceland, Malta, Morocco, and Spain.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Game of Thrones: Keep your oath. And only market what you can deliver. It’s when you live up to your oath that you build trust and earn brand loyalty. Ian says, “If you say you're going to do something in your marketing, you better be damn sure that sales can deliver on that, that your product can deliver on it, and that customer success is going to be there if you fall short of that. Because so often we get out way over our skis. We're pitching a product that doesn't exist yet. And that's going to make people way madder than if you just didn't promise it in the first place.” So don’t break your oath like Jamie Lannister did when he killed the king. Ian says, “That follows him forever.” So keep your brand promise - or your “oath” - and deliver on what you market.Play the marketing game. Be strategic in your marketing tactics. Experiment and use what works. And don’t overthink it. Small, steady successes are how you win the game. Alex says, “In demand gen sometimes you set up ads that are kind of gimmicky, and it'd be nice to do something a little bit more cerebral. But hey, you know, people like the jingle or, you know, whatever it is. And I think that there's a fair amount of pragmatism If you stick to that and you don't have this big ideology or this grand picture that you're trying to fill the pieces on. You just keep on stringing together successes of what works even if they're very moderate and small scale. Everything is a stepwise function, and you build your way up pretty high, just like Bronn does in the show.”If you have dragons, use them. Don’t chain them up. Alex says that especially if you’re a startup, you need all the help you can get getting your brand off the ground. He says, “If you have any kind of secret weapon, you better use it. And you're probably going to want to use it pretty early on. You're not going to want to sit on it.” So call up your old classmates who are well connected. Leverage the talents and skills of your employees to make something great. For Alex, he said his secret weapon was that “I understood the persona we were selling to super well. And everything that went out the door was uniquely tailored to what a technical person would react well to. And the stats at the other end just kind of pop off the charts.”Quotes*”Being good at growth marketing is being scrappy. Trying things out, not being afraid to lean into something even if it is a little bit hacky if it works. Never overstepping your bounds, and understanding that the world works a certain way.” - Alex RosemblatTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Alex Rosemblat, CMO at Datadog[2:32] What is Datadog? And what is their marketing strategy?[5:03] What is Game of Thrones about?[7:59] What can Game of Thrones teach us about marketing?[18:56] Character analysis: Bronn as a growth marketer[25:00] How do you leverage connections and unique talents for success?[26:17] The power of positioning and unique selling propositions [29:33] What are the consequences of breaking brand promises?[45:48] The importance of quality over quantity in content creationLinksWatch Game of ThronesConnect with Alex on LinkedInLearn more about DatadogAbout 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.

Have you ever daydreamed about running your marketing off the rails and blazing your own trail? A trail that feels so true to your company yet so outside the bounds of what B2B marketing normally looks like? It probably feels way too risky. You’ll think, “I’ll alienate my audience.” OR you might find your true audience. Your ride or die audience. And wouldn’t that be worth the risk? Today, we’re looking at the 1990 movie Wild at Heart starring Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern; the movie our guest, Steve Mudd, said was “the first movie that I ever saw that was unlike every other movie I had ever seen.” It’s a movie that has stuck with him ever since he first saw it that he returns to it again and again. Just like you want your customers to do with your brand. Steve is Founder & CEO of Talentless AI, and he’s here to guide our exploration of marketing lessons taken from the cult classic. Together, we talk about how to use a simple storyline to be creative elsewhere, and how to create a campaign unlike any other. So buckle up for this wild and viscerally thrilling episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Steve MuddSteve Mudd is founder and CEO of Talentless AI, a next-gen creative agency focused on creating good content at scale. Talentless AI is bringing together best-of-breed capabilities in GenAI, synthetic media, and digital production to help brands be more human in the age of AI. Previously, he led content marketing and messaging strategy for the Public Cloud Services business unit at NetApp, where he delivered provocative content that told complicated stories in creative and authentic ways.Steve has a long history as an IT storyteller, working for Ogilvy on brands such as IBM, Lenovo, Level 3 Communications, and Iron Mountain. He was also the host of the popular Ogilvy Podcast. Prior to Ogilvy, he marketed wind energy for Xcel Energy, helped transform sales and marketing for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and was a tour guide for the Coors Brewery. He also wrote, directed, and produced the feature film, Seclusion, now available on VHS at your local Blockbuster. He holds a BA in English from the University of Wyoming.About Wild at HeartWild at Heart is a movie about a young couple, Sailor and Lula, who run away together after Lula’s mom hires a hitman to kill Sailor. It stars Nicholas Cage as Sailor and Laura Dern as Lula. Sailor is a very romantic just-out-of-jail type that wears a snakeskin jacket and sweeps southern belle Lula away in his 1965 Thunderbird convertible. And they plan to run away to California, stopping at motels along the way. It was written and directed by David Lynch based on the book by Barry Gifford. When it came out in 1990, Wild at Heart was very controversial because of its sexual and violent content. The Guardian called it “a film of extreme violence and ugliness.” It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival where critic Dave Kehr said it was received with “the most violent chorus of boos and hisses to be heard in a decade.” Nevertheless, it became the controversial recipient of the esteemed Palme d’Or.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Wild at Heart: Create a campaign so wildly different from the rest. Which may take a bit of daring, but is actually not that hard to do, since B2B marketing tends to be serious, corporate and sterile. Instead, make it funny and playful. Draw inspiration from your favorite movie, TV show, B2C ad, whatever! Surprise your audience that they are, indeed, seeing a B2B campaign. It will stick with them. Steve says, “When we go to the movies, we have an expectation of what that movie's gonna be. When I see marketing, when I go on LinkedIn now, I have an expectation of what that's gonna be.  But if I see something that's really, really different, I'm going to be attracted to that. My eyeballs are going to be drawn to that and I'm going to go to that.”Use a simple storyline. It’s easier for your audience to get on board with and follow. Plus it allows your message to shine. Ian says that Wild at Heart doesn’t have “the craziest plot. It's not the craziest storyline. But the characters and everything else are crazy. David Lynch fills in the entire tapestry with the most ridiculous characters you could ever possibly imagine.” So using a simple storyline, like how David Lynch uses a roadtrip, gets your audience hooked while allowing for flexibility to be creative elsewhere. Include familiar elements in an unusual campaign. They act as a tether for the viewer, so they’ll still understand what you’re marketing. It’s like how David Lynch uses references to The Wizard of Oz as storytelling mechanisms. So viewers who are familiar with the story of Dorothy on the yellow brick road will draw parallels between what happens in  Wild at Heart, and all the trials Sailor and Lula face on their way. Steve says that David Lynch combines “the incredibly familiar” with his storytelling so that the viewer is “open to the weirdness of the world.” So in your next wild campaign, remember to tether it back to your brand, your message, and your known characters.Quotes*”The story is still king, the characters are still king. And so the thing that you haven't seen before may not be this explosive visual or violent thing. But it's going to come down to the strength of the character and the voice in the content that you create.” - Steve Mudd*”If it just looks different, it’ll stand out. It's something that someone has to stop scrolling and give three extra seconds to be like, ‘What is this? I don't know if I like it or not, but what is it?’ There's literally hundreds and hundreds of people that have a story of walking out from watching Wild at Heart. And like, that's better than nothing. It's better than being forgotten.” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:57] Meet Steve Mudd, Founder & CEO of Talentless AI[1:51] Why is Wild at Heart remarkable?[2:28] Learn more about Steve's career journey and storytelling[3:25] What’s Wild at Heart about?[4:57] Why was Wild at Heart so controversial? How was it received?[6:00] How was Wild at Heart in a league of its own?[14:01] B2B marketing lessons from Wild at Heart[17:47] The role of AI in content creation[27:53] The importance of unique and serialized contentLinksConnect with Steve on LinkedInLearn more about Talentless AIAbout 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.

Corner! Sharp! Behind! For anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant, you know these words mean a lot. It’s your language. For marketers, this is more like KPIs, ABM, ICP, Demand Gen. Using the lingo, the jargon, the correct terminology, is a powerful tool when you’re trying to reach and resonate with your target audience. You want to speak their language.This means doing some market research to learn industry terms and how they’re used. This will also tell you a lot about what your audience cares about. And when you get it right, you’ll know. Your engagement will rise and so will your ROI.This is what we’re talking about on today’s episode with JP Lespinasse, VP of Brand Marketing at Lightcast. JP and the Remarkable team are watching FX’s The Bear. Together, we’re talking about speaking the language of your audience, serving your audience what they crave, using familiar story recipes, and much, much more. So make yourself a sandwich and tuck in for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, JP LespinasseJP Lespinasse is VP of Brand Marketing at Lightcast. He has over 25 years of marketing, communications and partnerships experience. Previously, he served as Head of Content Marketing at PayPal and Executive: Director of Content Strategy and Management at IBM. He has also worked at companies like Gap/Old Navy, NOKIA, and the NBA.About LightcastLightcast, which is the merger of Emsi and BurningGlass, is the largest integrated data provider of jobs, skills, roles, and occupational data in the world.They are a global pioneer in the collection and big-data analysis of information on the labor market. Their data provides the world’s most detailed information about occupations, skills in demand, and career pathways. Their tools collect real-time data from over 40,000 sources every day, contributing to a database with over 1 billion job postings and billions of other data points. They combine that with curated input from dozens of other statistical sources, like government agencies, to provide the most complete view possible of the fast-changing labor market. They put that information to work for businesses, communities, and education providers by showing them the granular details and big-picture trends they need in their organizations.Whether you’re interested in software salaries in Seattle, need new skills in New Zealand, or looking for anything in between, Lightcast data can provide the insight you need.About The BearThe Bear is a show about an award-winning chef who leaves his Michelin star restaurant to go back to his hometown after his brother passes away to take over his brother’s sandwich shop. And so while struggling to keep the rowdy staff and messy kitchen running, he’s also trying to process and grieve his brother’s suicide. A lot of people who have worked in food service have said it’s a realistic depiction of what it’s actually like running a professional kitchen. At any moment it feels like it’s going to all fall apart, and it deals with the health inspections, payroll, dirty floors, plumbing and all of the tiny details that make it seem real. It stars Jeremy Allen White as “Carmy” Berzatto, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the restaurant manager, Ayo Edibiri as the new sous chef, and more. The show was created by Christopher Storer for FX and has two seasons out on Hulu. The first season received 13 Emmy nominations including outstanding comedy series.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Bear: Serve your audience what they crave. Do research to understand their wants and needs. Then aim for continuous improvement. In The Bear, JP says that the main character, Carmi, knows that he can’t keep making Michelin star-level food when he takes over his brother’s sandwich shop. The customers just want the sandwich they know and love from The Beef. JP says, “For us as marketers and for Carmi and the staff at The Beef, it’s so important that in those first few episodes, it wasn't about changing anything. It was just about really focusing and listening and understanding the audience. What do they want? What do they come back for? How do I continue to serve them that?” This is especially true for marketers joining a new company where you see room for improvement. Don’t try to change everything at once. But make small changes along the way that will raise the quality of your output without alienating customers.Use familiar story recipes. We know the rags to riches, or in this case, riches to rags storytelling recipe. Because it works. Using these known recipes reels in your audience more easily because it feels familiar. It’s something they can immediately relate to. Yet it doesn’t mean the rest of the story is formulaic or that the ending is obvious. It’s just a place to start and hook your audience. Plus twists and turns in the storyline later will be even more of a surprise. When it comes to The Bear, Ian says, “Everybody and their brother has been to Chicago. And everyone has been to a sandwich shop in Chicago. So this idea that is so familiar, which is like, ‘Person moves back home to Chicago and takes over a sandwich shop, even though they're Michelin star.’ We just all immediately are like, ‘Okay, I've been to a sandwich shop in Chicago and I totally know how that feels.’” Make it feel real by showing the good, the bad and the meh. You will speak most effectively to marketers by acknowledging the less glamorous and even mundane parts of their job. JP said it best when he said The Bear “took off because all of these folks who had worked at restaurants were like, ‘Yep, that's exactly how it is.’ It's just so important to speak authentically to your audience.” And Ian adds, “If you don't really care, if you want to do the Grey's Anatomy version of it, right? Like, that's fine too, and it probably will be really commercially successful. But you won't get the diehards. And in today's day and age where the diehards are so vocal, it's a much more valuable currency to get the little details right.” So The Bear doesn’t shy away from the feeling of losing sense of time when you’re in the weeds, swamped with orders, or the payroll, plumbing, and no-shows. That’s why it resonates.Quotes*”Marketers sometimes do ourselves a disservice. You’ve written 17 drafts of this webpage before it goes up. And so by the time it goes up, you're sick of it. And you're ready to change it immediately. The audience has never seen it before, right? The average person who comes to a webpage, they stay for a minute and a half, right? Like, so they're not going deep into all the individual words, the pictures and how you've architected it. So just let it sit. Let it breathe.” - JP Lespinasse*”Back when I worked at IBM, we canceled and reworked a whole campaign because we'd done all this due diligence and were going to put some messaging out to the developer audience. And then at the last minute, we're like, ‘You know what? We should show this to some developers before we put it out into the world.’ And so we invited them over for pizza and a chat, and they're like, ‘Yeah, that's not how we talk. That's how the movies show how we talk, but that's not really authentically how we talk.’ And so we used all their feedback to rework the campaign.” - JP LespinasseTime Stamps[0:54] Meet JP Lespinasse, VP of Brand Marketing at Lightcast[1:23] What’s remarkable about The Bear?[4:26] What does JP do at Lightcast?[7:54] What’s The Bear about?[20:11] How was The Bear created? Learn about its backstory.[26:03] What B2B marketing lessons can we take from The Bear?[30:57] How can you elevate your brand?[33:01] Why is it important to understand the language of your audience?[44:09] How does JP approach the challenge of measuring ROI in content and brand?[55:58] What role does brand play in B2B?LinksWatch The BearConnect with JP on LinkedInLearn more about LightcastAbout 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.

Selling to multiple customer personas is tricky. Can your marketing appeal to all of them at once? You probably think, “Well, each persona has different pain points and things they care about.” But once you start thinking about all of the personas as just being people, you realize that they do care about the same things. Success at work, their family, and their quality of life, to name a few. So when you can appeal to the things your prospects care about most, you unlock the secret to creating an emotional bond with your audience that will place you above your competitors.To explore this idea, we’re watching the hit animated series that The Guardian called, "arguably the best television series in the world," Bluey. It appeals to parents just as well as kids. And is a great example of how to market to multiple customer personas. Here with us is content master Nate Bagley to help discuss evoking strong emotions in your marketing, captivating your audience with relatable stories, and how to build trust to propel sales. Now it’s time to tap into that inner child for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Nate BagleyNate Bagley is a content leader who has served in media and marketing roles at companies like Clozd, OrangeSoda, Mindshare Technologies, Romacorp, and Bold Academy. He founded relationship coaching company Growth Marriage in 2017, co-founded “date-in-a-box” subscription service Unbox Love in 2014, and started a podcast called Loveumentary in 2012.About BlueyBluey is an Australian animated tv series about the daily life of a blue heeler cattle puppy and her friends and family. As blue heelers are known as super energetic dogs, Bluey is always turning things into an adventure and using her imagination to do it.It premiered in 2018 and is currently on its third season, and was created by Joe Brumm. It stars the voices of David McCormack as the dad and Melanie Zanetti as the mom. Bluey, Bingo, and some of their friends aren’t credited because they’re voiced by children of the TV production crew, and it’s to protect their identities.It’s the #1 Australian children’s TV show, Nominated for the 2023 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Children’s Program. 2022 AACTA Award winner for Best Children's Program. 2019 International Emmy winner for Kids: Preschool. The Guardian has called it "arguably the best television series in the world".What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bluey:Tap into emotion. Think of your audience as human, and appeal to their very human needs, wants and desires. It could be that your product saves them time to go enjoy more family time, time outside, or time doing literally anything other than working. Appeal to that. Nate says, “”In marketing, emotion is the number one tool that we have to use. I think especially in B2B marketing, it's probably the most underutilized tool, is trying to elicit some sort of emotion in the content that you create.” And Bluey does this by exploring real life situations like a boy who has ADHD and struggles with sitting still in school all day, or Bluey’s dad making a mistake and feeling inadequate as a father. B2B marketing isn’t for robots; use emotion and see engagement hit the ceiling.Make it quick. Boil your story down to create maximum impact in a short amount of time. Bluey episodes are a few minutes at most. Which makes them insanely digestible, and they still draw tears from parents watching with their kids. Of course, this masterful storytelling isn’t easy to do. Nate says, “How can you tell the most compelling story that evokes the most emotion in the most efficient way possible? And that requires a lot of work.  I don't think most people are willing to do that work. I think it's much easier to write out a list of features on your website and say, ‘This is how we can help you.’ But the alternative is more powerful.” Spending time to craft a campaign that tells your story efficiently and with emotion pays off.Show that you understand your audience to earn their trust. Research your target buyer to figure out what they care about. Then leverage that in your marketing as a powerful trust-building tool. Nate says, “If you can describe the problem, the life, the struggles that your buyers are facing better than they can describe it themselves, they will automatically assume that you have the best solution. Having that empathy and understanding, and being able to communicate that back to them through your marketing messaging is going to accelerate the buying process and help you win business faster than anything else that you can do.” It’s like how parents have learned to trust Bluey to thoughtfully explore real life topics in a compassionate way that children will understand. So when kids want to watch something, Bluey is not just a safe option, but an educational one as well. Bluey then becomes an easy go-to. Just like your product will be.Quotes*”Accounting, a great example. Accounting might be boring,  but accountants are not, because accountants are people. And people are not boring if you ask them the right questions. If you're trying to sell accounting, then you're going to fail. But if you're trying to solve a problem for accountants and you do a really good job understanding them, understanding what they're struggling with and what they want out of life, and you have empathy for their situation as an accountant, then you can find some really compelling stories to tell. But it's curiosity about the people that creates the good story. It's not what the people do. It's not the activity that's interesting in and of itself.” - Nate Bagley*”Focus. Focus more of your time and energy on learning how to tell good stories, and learning how to tell good stories in a really powerful way that evokes emotion and makes people feel understood and seen. And they'll trust that you have exactly what they need to take away the pain or increase the rate of success around what they're doing on a day to day basis.” - Nate BagleyTime Stamps[0:50] Introducing Content Leader Nate Bagley[1:22] What makes Bluey impactful?[3:33] What’s Bluey about?[7:45] Why is Bluey Remarkable?[10:54] What B2B Marketing lessons can we take from Bluey?[20:06] How does Bluey use emotion?[26:03] How can we applying Bluey's storytelling techniques in marketing?LinksWatch BlueyConnect with Nate on LinkedInAbout 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 and Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketers are trained to create targeted content for specific personas. But creating a message that’s open to interpretation is a highly effective strategy that strikes a cord across personas.Because your audience will fill in the blank with how the message is meaningful for them. So instead of speaking to pain points specific to one role, speak to the human pain points. Maybe your product is a solution for a task that takes too much time or is overly complex, for example. Nobody likes feeling like they’re wasting too much of their workday on one task. So talk about how your product saves time or simplifies their work. So in this episode of Remarkable, we’re listening to Zach Bryan’s song, “Something in the Orange,” the hit song that resonates with a wide range of listeners. That’s because Zach Bryan’s lyrics are open to interpretation. And we’re talking with Todd Raphael, Head of Content at SkyHive, about how you can use this strategy in your content marketing to resonate with a wider audience. We’ll also cover the best time to brainstorm content ideas and why you could easily double your output with one simple idea. So grab your cowboy hat and stare off into the sunset while you listen to this episode of Remarkable. About our guest, Todd RaphaelTodd Raphael is Head of Content at SkyHive, a cloud-based workforce management and reskilling software provider. Todd joined SkyHive in November 2022. He previously served as Head of Content at eightfold.ai. He also worked as Editor in Chief at ERE Media for over 14 years, and prior to that, Online Editor at Workforce.About SkyHiveRecognized as a top AI innovation by Forbes, a Gartner Cool Vendor in HCM, and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, SkyHive is cognifying the world’s labor economy and fundamentally changing how we work, learn, and live. SkyHive has built the world’s only Quantum Labor Analysis platform to optimize human economies in real-time for companies, communities, and countries. Essential to global economic empowerment, SkyHive allows people to future-proof themselves and their workforce faster than ever before. By marrying economic theory with workforce modeling and human analytics, SkyHive illuminates the reskilling journey and builds a capable and future-proof workforce that closes the skills gap with speed and efficiency unleashing human potential for individuals, organizations, and governments. SkyHive supports customers across all industries and geographies globally, and is focused on strengthening the overall economic resilience of workforces and communities.About “Something in the Orange” by Zach Bryan“Something in the Orange” is a song by American singer-songwriter Zach Bryan, a 25-year-old from Oologah, Oklahoma. Zach Bryan started writing music when he was 14, and putting it online when he was still serving in the Navy. His song “Heading South” ended up going viral after he posted a video of himself playing it on TikTok. He has two self-released albums, DeAnn and Elisabeth, and is now signed to Warner Records. His first studio album, American Heartbreak, debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200 with over 70,000 album-equivalent units. The 34-song triple album has been certified Platinum as of June 2023, with over 1 million units sold.“Something in the Orange” was Bryan’s first charting single. He told Today’s Country Radio that the song wasn’t about “some deep, dark thing.” He came up with the idea while sitting in a cabin in Wisconsin watching the sun set. It’s now certified 4x Platinum.His video for “Something in the Orange” starts with a message, saying, “Thousands of videos were submitted by my listeners for the video of Something in the Orange. I decided to make this myself because it’s a feeling I know we’ve all shared at some point. Thank you guys for contributing and thank you guys for listening.” His idea to crowdsource videos reflects an appreciation of his fans, a sharing of energy, and a homegrown, grassroots effort true to his roots and the nature of country music. The video is a compilation of sunset videos taken by fans.What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Something in the Orange”:Leave room for interpretation in your marketing message to resonate with a wider audience. Create a marketing message that lets your audience fill in the gaps. “Our tool saves you time to do more of what you love.” Could mean spending time with loved ones, walking their dog, doing a hobby…your message doesn’t have to be specific to strike a nerve. Todd says when he was looking at comments on Zach Bryan’s video for “Something in the Orange, “the song means all of these different things to different people. It's a song about their grandma. It's a song about their dog. It's a song about their ex-boyfriend. It's all these different things.” So let your marketing speak to multiple personas by leaving room for the imagination.Create two versions of your content. One is the typical kind of B2B, serious, technical content. The other is conversational and human. Both can be your brand voice. Ian says, “We make content and we write it in a certain way, in a certain language and a certain approach. And then we just say, ‘Well, this is our brand voice,’ as if that's how everybody just automatically wants to read stuff. You could get way more mileage by creating a second version of that same piece of content and writing it in an extremely conversational, approachable voice that's actually tied to a human being.” Zach Bryan wrote two versions of “Something in the Orange,” So create a second, conversational version to humanize your brand.Brainstorm content when you’re doing everyday routine tasks. Todd says it’s when people do their best thinking. He says, “We're walking the dog, we're riding a bike, we're doing something that's mindless and repetitive. It's always when we think of our best ideas. It's never during a brainstorming meeting.” Zach Bryan was sitting at a campfire when he wrote “Something in the Orange,” and it’s during that contemplative time that the lyrics came to him easily. So take notes when you’re out and about, and have a great idea for content.Quotes*”We choose the words for what words work best for SEO, instead of what emotions we want to provoke. People used to think of two different audiences, right? It was like pain avoiders and pleasure seekers.  Like, this car will keep you safe, versus this car is so much fun and so cool. And I think maybe sometimes we get away from that.” - Todd Raphael*”There's a lot of B2B content that is just done one cookie cutter way. And we always talk about repurposing for a different medium. But some people want the creative to feel different, to read differently.” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[00:55] Meet Todd Raphael, Head of Content at SkyHive[1:36] What’s Zach Bryan's song 'Something in the Orange' about?[2:39] What does Todd do at SkyHive?[4:10] Learn more about Zach Bryan's musical journey[8:01] What was the impact of 'Something in the Orange'?[11:30] How can you harness the power of storytelling in marketing?[24:00] What’s the content strategy at SkyHive?[29:08] How does Todd prove the ROI of content?LinksListen to “Something in the Orange”Watch the music videoConnect with Todd on LinkedInLearn more about SkyHiveAbout 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.

B2B marketers aren’t creating serialized content. But you should be. We felt so strongly about this that we literally wrote a book about it. Well, not “we”. Ian wrote it. And we’re sharing key insights from that book with you in this episode of Remarkable. Because you, the B2B marketer, could be capitalizing on a more efficient content strategy proven to boost sales and improve ROI. Stop making one-off pieces of content. Make a series and make marketing not only easier and more productive for you, but more bingeable and more addictive for your audience.So tune in for an exclusive sneak peak of The Serialized Content Framework, by Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. And get ideas churning for your next new content series. This episode is going to revolutionize the way you do content marketing.About Ian FaisonIan Faison is CEO of Caspian Studios, a video podcast-as-a-service company. Ian founded Caspian Studios to help CMOs and marketing teams to create world-class podcasts and video series. Caspian Studios now produces and manages over 60 podcasts and video series across a variety of industries.About the Serialized Content FrameworkThe Serialized Content Framework is an ebook three years in the making, written by Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. It answers the questions:Where is B2B marketing headed?How is Hollywood-style storytelling evolving?How do you drive pipeline from B2B content?What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Serialized Content Framework: Series>one-off pieces of content. You spend so much more brain power trying to come up with the newest, freshest material for every single piece of content than in creating a formula for a content series. Series are a more productive, more efficient use of your marketing team’s time and resources. Ian says that content powerhouses like Disney, Mattel and Marvel are capitalizing on this tactic. He says, “Each of these franchises is multiple seasons. It's multiple episodes within a season. And a lot of times they have other types of shows that are similar in either format, characters or universe. Then you get to market the entire franchise and your marketing is more productive over time.” B2B companies should do the same to multiply productivity and ultimately revenue.Don’t always try to sell to your audience. 95% of the time, people are not in buying mode. They don’t want to be sold to. So instead, continually and consistently put quality content where your audience is. Ian says, “You want to create really good, really impactful content in that 95% of the time so that when they go into the research phase, they're already thinking of you and you're already top of mind.” This is why top of funnel content is important. Because it builds brand awareness and affinity that leads to sales.Niche down. Your product is not for everyone. It is for a specific persona. So create persona-driven content for greater impact. Ian says, “The more segmented and targeted on a specific persona, the better off [your content will] be. Look at industry, look at role, look at geography.” (And much, much more.)Quotes*”Serialized content is so important because it compounds. By the time you get to episode 40, 50 or 60, you have this valuable back catalog of content that has been working for a long time. As you continue to grow and expand with more and more episodes, all of that back catalog starts to perform even better over time. And you can cut it up to use as derivative content. ”*”If you're creating serialized content, for example, a video podcast, and every single week a new episode comes out, this is something that is a consistent, repeatable process to drive brand gen. It is constantly fresh, but it also is evergreen, and it impacts various parts of the funnel.”*”If serialized content is not nested right in your go to market, then it's never going to get approved, and it's never going to get any results. It's never going to get the support and the effort that it needs. So we need to make sure that this fits right into our go to market strategy.”Time Stamps[1:35] Part 1: What’s the Serialized Content Framework about?[3:52] Part 2: How do you engage prospects who aren’t ready to buy yet?[7:11] Part 3: Why should you niche down?[15:33] Part 4: Where do series fit in your GTM?[21:29] Part 5: How do you create a video podcast series?[32:44] Part 6: How do you drive pipeline with a video podcast?[43:46] Part 7: What KPIs should be you be tracking?[50:54] Part 8: How does content shape community?[53:50] Part 9: What are some examples of serialized content portfolios and video podcasts?[55:20] Part 10: Advice and resourcesLinksCheck out the Serialized Content FrameworkConnect with Ian on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian StudiosAbout 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). 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.

It’s easy to feel like you’re on your own lonely marketing island. You’re so focused on what you’re doing that your process starts to feel stale. Wouldn’t it be helpful to hear how other marketers are driving sales?Especially if those marketers are at companies like G2, Deel and Gigster; successful names in B2B that know what works, and are pushing the envelope for what B2B content could look like. That’s what we’re bringing to you this week. In this episode, we’re wrapping up Season 3 by highlighting the winning content strategies from top B2B brands. You’ll leave with new ideas and insights to use on your very next campaign. So all aboard, we’re getting you off that lonely island on this episode of Remarkable.About our guestsKim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing at LobGillian Jakob Kieser, Director of Content Marketing at CircleCIAnja Simic, Director of Content Marketing at DeelMartha Aviles, Vice President of Marketing at GigsterPalmer Houchins, VP and Head of Marketing at G2Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfoJohann Wrede, CEO at EmburseChris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at CelonisJérôme Robert, CMO and Chief of Staff at TenableWhat B2B Companies Can Learn From Season 3 of Remarkable:Provide some free, valuable content to your audience. It proves that your product is worth the investment and helps you establish domain authority. Gillian Jakob Kieser, Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI says, “When we were smaller, we were really banking on utility. So we invested a lot in single pieces of content that people would share because there was nothing better than it. So once you saw it, you would have to pass it on. An example is our team open sourced our entire competency matrix and wrote about how we developed it. And that's a document that is like five years old and it's an open Google doc. Every time I go on there, there's still like 12 Anonymous Raptors on there using the content. And that was worth it because they've become tools. And that's been a great marketing strategy.”Create content for people at different points in the buying process. Your content should look different for people who are just exploring their options vs. people who are ready to make a purchase. Anja Simic, Director of Content Marketing at Deel says, “The readiness to purchase is very important when you think about content marketing.” She says you can think of it like the marketing funnel. “Top of the funnel content is informational, it's educational. It's a lot of articles or listicles, and lighter content. Closer to the middle of the funnel, your content needs to be a bit more product heavy. It needs to talk about specific solutions, specific questions that your prospects may have. But not all of it has to be salesy and pushy, because they're just considering. They're exploring their options. And then the very bottom of the funnel is where you really push them over the edge. They're really thinking about it. They're considering your product, and know enough about it.”Make something different. Get away from the B2B content formula. Jérôme Robert, CMO and Chief of Staff at Tenable says the risk in making something outside-the-box is overstated. He says, “Notably in an industry where marketing, the marketing practices are very mature and very identical from one company to another, there's very, very little downside in standing out, in doing something that is entirely different.” He says, “Worst case scenario, it’s not going to get a lot of engagement. But I don't think anyone would laugh at you or discard you as a company because you did something different. I think people respect the originality, the boldness, in doing something entirely different.”Quotes*”A lot of what we think about with content marketing is how do we show a bit more of the heart behind what we do? How do we make us not just a brand, but show that there's a real company and people behind that? If you are choosing a provider, you're actually going to choose those guys, you're going to bet on them.” - Chris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at Celonis*”Without trust, you can't do business. And today, buyers are really sophisticated. If we don't produce excellent content that genuinely seeks to inform, educate and help the customer, then they're just going to ignore it and they're going to go somewhere else. If you can create content that authentically seeks to inform and to add value, then you start to move into the trusted advisor quadrant.” - Johann Wrede, CEO at Emburse*”We are all bombarded with content every day. And so we try to cut through the noise and provide content that can help our audience do their jobs better. That's the overarching goal of everything that we create.” - Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfoTime Stamps[0:58] Introducing the Season 3 Roundup! Content strategies from…[1:22] Kim Courvoisier from Lob[2:38] Gillian Jakob Kieser of CircleCI[4:38] Anja Simic of Deel[7:17] Martha Aviles of Gigster[8:28] Palmer Houchins of G2[10:39] Meghan Barr of ZoomInfo[12:09] Johann Wrede of Emburse[16:44] Chris Sheen of Celonis[19:37] Jérôme Robert of TenableLinksListen to the full Season 3 episodes, featuring:Kim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing at LobGillian Jakob Kieser, Director of Content Marketing at CircleCIAnja Simic, Director of Content Marketing at DeelMartha Aviles, Vice President of Marketing at GigsterPalmer Houchins, VP and Head of Marketing at G2Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfoJohann Wrede, CEO at EmburseChris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at CelonisJérôme Robert, CMO and Chief of Staff at TenableAbout 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.

Hear us out. A children’s book, a novella, a fictional crime podcast, but make them B2B. Because B2B marketing doesn’t have to be a webinar, a blog post, an email newsletter… Every B2B company does those. Today we’re challenging you to rise above the noise and make radically different content. In this episode, we’re learning from a company that has created B2B content as all three: children’s book, novella, and fictional crime podcast. That company is Tenable. We’re chatting with their CMO and Chief of Staff, Jérôme Robert, about the art of creating fictional content that feels realistic, lived in, and resonates with your audience while also improving brand affinity. So grab a coffee from your local barista, tip well, and settle in for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Jérôme RobertJérôme Robert is CMO and Chief of Staff at Tenable. He previously served as Managing Director of Alsid’s U.S. operations. His responsibilities included enabling users to harden their Active Directory and detect attacks. and supporting PSG. Prior to Alsid, he served as SVP of Product and Marketing at EclecticIQ. He has also worked at companies like Orange Cyberdefense and Arkoon Netasq.About TenableTenable® is the Exposure Management company. Approximately 40,000 organizations around the globe rely on Tenable to understand and reduce cyber risk. As the creator of Nessus®, Tenable extended its expertise in vulnerabilities to deliver the world’s first platform to see and secure any digital asset on any computing platform. Tenable customers include approximately 60 percent of the Fortune 500, approximately 40 percent of the Global 2000, and large government agenciesAbout The Hacker ChroniclesThe Hacker Chronicles is a podcast about a barista named Alice who’s struggling to make ends meet, and that’s when a friend suggests buying a Ransomware-as-a-Service kit. So she starts exploring the Dark Web as a way to make some extra cash and ends up becoming America’s most wanted hacker. It’s now in its second season, “Digital Nomad”. It stars Chloe Taylor as Alice Mitnick and Michael C. Hall as John Doe. And it’s presented by Tenable.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Hacker Chronicles:Create marketing content in a non-marketing genre. Like a children’s book, like a fiction podcast. Because not only will you appeal to marketers, you’ll tap into a much broader audience who enjoys the story. Ian says, “What I heard a ton of when we launched season one was, ‘I don't normally listen to podcasts like this, but I binged it with my girlfriend,’ or, ‘I listened to the entire thing in the car.’ We talked a lot about, ‘How do we make it bingeable?’Ground your fictional characters in a real world. Make your content resonate with your audience by creating hyper realistic scenarios. Accuracy in the details is key. Ian says in creating the storyline, “The characters had to experience the world in a certain way in order for it to feel real. Like, they need to have real stakes. They need to have real relationships. They need to have real pressures.” And Jérôme adds that, “W​hen you see a movie and there's a supposed hacker, but you see their screen and it's a dumb script that they are running that has nothing to do with cyber security, when a cyber security person watches this movie, we're like, ‘This is awful. I can't stand it.’ That's exactly what I didn't want. So everything [the main character Alice] does has been thought through and is realistic.” The Hacker Chronicles is based on a lot of real hacks, and so anyone in the cybersecurity industry would believe it.Get rid of ads. Try entertainment instead. Jerome says, “Everybody believes that the opportunity for ads is shrinking dramatically. People don't like interruptions. You have to provide something that is enjoyable. That rewards your audience.” And he said after bringing this up, his team no longer got pushback from the leadership on updating their marketing strategy.Quotes“Tenable was one of the founders of cybersecurity as an industry. And there's a lot of good things that come with that heritage. But there's also the tendency to not try new stuff from a marketing perspective. And there were people at the company when we joined that had an innate desire to challenge that.” - Jérôme Robert“You have to be self-critical about what you're doing all the time. It's not easy, I think, from a brain gymnastics standpoint. It involved a lot of effort, but it's very rewarding. You're very happy when you end up with something that you think cannot be attacked, cannot be challenged. I mean, yeah, they could say they don't like it, but they can't say it's wrong. You have the eureka moment when you think, ‘Yeah, we got it.’ It's very cool.”  - Jérôme Robert *”You do something that is fundamentally different from the rest of the industry, you are going to stand out. Which is, as marketers, what we're looking for. But as a company that is managing their risk doing something that makes the company stand out creates mixed feelings. They think, ‘If the outcomes are not what we hoped for it's a huge risk, it could backfire, and you don't have any ROI to put in front of it, so, no, I'm not going to do it.’ There’s too much risk in being different, somehow. And I think that's totally overstated. I think, notably in an industry where the marketing practices are very mature and very identical from one company to another, there's very, very little downside in standing out, in doing something that is entirely different.” - Jérôme Robert  Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Jérôme Robert, CMO & Chief of Staff at Tenable[1:57] What does Jérôme do at Tenable?[5:45] What is The Hacker Chronicles?[11:26] About the inspiration behind The Hacker Chronicles[17:17] The importance of realism in a fictional piece of content[19:39] How scary is it to make a primer on hacking as a cybersecurity company?[35:30] How do you prove the ROI of content?[40:02] Why does Jérôme have a long-term approach to content like a podcast?[44:40] How does Jérôme tie the podcast back to Tenable customers?LinksListen to The Hacker ChroniclesConnect with Jérôme on LinkedInLearn more about TenableAbout 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.

Imagine this: possessing the power to not only understand your customers' deepest desires but also plant ideas in their minds, making them believe it was their idea from the very start.It may sound like something straight out of a dream, but it may not be as far-fetched as it seems. See, the genius of Christopher Nolan's Inception conceals marketing insights if you look close enough. It's the marketing movie you never knew was about marketing.While we can't offer you a PASIV device to enter your customers’ dreams, we can provide you with the tools to craft marketing strategies that work like inception - subtly influencing, inspiring, and engaging your audience.So in this episode, we’re deciphering the intricate layers of marketing with the help of Emburse’s Chief Experience Officer, Johann Wrede. Together, we discuss how to utilize emotions to ‘plant ideas’ in your customers’ heads, avoid fixating on initial customer expectations throughout the customer journey, and leave room for your customers to co-create their narrative to boost engagement. So grab your totem for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Johann WredeJohann Wrede is the Chief Experience Officer at Emburse. He is responsible for leading a cross-functional marketing and customer success organization, with the goal of delivering a world-class customer experience from first awareness through subscription renewal.  Over the course of the last 25 years, Johann has written, implemented, sold and marketed a variety of customer database, CRM and customer experience (CX) products. An evangelist for customer experience, he has delivered keynotes and press interviews in 18 different countries, and written numerous articles on the topic.About EmburseEmburse is the global leader in spend optimization. Their expense, travel management, purchasing and accounts payable, and payments solutions are trusted by more than 12 million business professionals, including CFOs, finance teams, and travelers. More than 18,000 organizations in 120 countries, including FORTUNE 100 corporations, high-growth startups, public sector agencies, and nonprofits, count on their intelligent automation, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched spend control to streamline processes, increase spend visibility, enhance compliance, and deliver positive financial outcomes.About InceptionInception is a sci-fi action, mind-bending movie about a corporate spy who enters people’s dreams to steal secrets from their subconscious. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the main character, Dominic, or Dom, Cobb, who is basically gifted with this ability that’s made him extremely successful, but he’s lost everything because of it. Namely, his marriage and children. His wife is played by Marion Cotillard. And so he’s kind of haunted by her in his subconscious and she ends up sort of thwarting his every move. So anyway, he’s given a chance to redeem himself by planting an idea in someone’s mind, and having to go layers deep into their subconscious, which is of course, a nearly impossible task.The movie was released in 2010, and directed by Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, latest Batman series with Christian Bale AND Memento). Nolan also produced it along with Emma Thomas - his wife and producing partner - for Warner Bros. It also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Elliot Page as Ariadne, and Tom Hardy as Eames.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Inception:Utilize emotions to ‘plant ideas’.  Emotions are your superpower to accessing the deepest corners of your customers' minds. People don't just buy; they invest for emotional reasons—this is an intrinsic part to our human nature. Johann says, “our whole mission is to plant ideas into customers' heads and convince them that it was their idea from the first. And the first time I saw [Inception], that is, it just jumped out at me and I thought, wow, that really sums up the marketing profession in a nutshell.”Don’t fixate on initial customer expectations. Customers evolve, and so should your strategy. What matters most in the end is if they are happy. Just as Inception leaves us with an ambiguous ending, Cobb’s happiness is undeniable. Whether it's a dream or reality, his happiness is the ultimate goal, mirroring how you should approach your customer journey. Johann emphasizes, “it doesn't actually matter if the value that they thought they were going to get is the value that they got. What's more important is that the value that they want right now is the value that they're getting right now. Are they happy with the result?”Leave room for your customers to co-create their narrative. This fuels customer engagement and is exactly what Christopher Nolan did when creating Inception. We witness this concept in two distinct ways: co-creation within the dream state, as the dream world is designed in a way that allows the subject to fill in details, and ambiguity in the ending, with Inception's enigmatic conclusion inviting audience speculation. Johann says, “All too often, we build these elaborate cities that we put our buyer into. And we orchestrate this narrative that is so complete and so full. And we try to be so precise in our language that we don't leave room for them to bring their own perception and perspective to it.”Quotes“One of my first sales mentors said to me, people buy for emotional reasons and then back it up with facts. That became really clear to me that what we needed to do as marketers was peel away those layers of the onion and get past the business person and down to the human, and speak to that person.” - Johann Wrede“If you can create content that authentically seeks to inform and to add value, then you start to move into the trusted advisor quadrant, which is where you really want to be. And the other piece of this puzzle is that we have to look at the content we create through the lens of the customer journey.”  - Johann WredeTime Stamps[01:00] Introducing Chief Experience Officer at Emburse, Johann Wrede[1:34] Why are we talking about Inception?[3:34] Tell me more about Inception [13:48] What are some marketing lessons we can learn from Inception?[22:16] Marketing insights from Inception's mind-bending ending[32:02] How to identify needs and craft messages that resonate[45:53] How does Johann think about content marketing?[54:49] Johann’s view on the ROI of content[57:49] Johann’s favorite upcoming marketing campaigns at EmburseLinksWatch InceptionConnect with Johann on LinkedInLearn more about EmburseAbout 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.

You don’t need to have an unlimited budget to make remarkable marketing content. In fact, it's better if you're working under some constraints. We have proof.The folks over at Wistia did a little experiment they called One, Ten, One Hundred. They made an ad for the same product (Wistia’s Soapbox video recorder) on three different budgets: $1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 dollars, to see which one would perform best. And in this episode, we’re giving you the inside scoop on what they found. You’ll be surprised at the result.Today, we’re showing you how combining a bit of inventiveness with a touch of resourcefulness is more powerful than just throwing money at your marketing. Because when cash is a bit strapped, that’s when you’re forced to get creative. And it’s that creativity that resonates with viewers. That’s what we’re talking about today with Chris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at Celonis. So take out your scissors and craft paper for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Chris SheenChris Sheen is Director of Content and Social at Celonis. He joined Celonis in February of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as CMO at Sideways 6 and SaleCycle. He has also worked at Teradata and Experian. He is based in London.About CelonisCelonis is the global leader and pioneer in process mining. They pioneered the process mining category 10 years ago and the company is now valued at over $13 billion dollars - decacorn status no less. About One, Ten, One HundredOne, Ten, One Hundred is a Webby Award-winning four-part documentary in which video software company Wistia challenges video production company Sandwich Video to make three ads on different budgets: 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000-dollars. The goal was to explore the impact budget has on creativity in video ads. Wistia then measured ad performance and audience reaction to gauge success of each. It was also a way to advertise for Wistia’s tool, Soapbox, which is a video creation tool for SMBs.The metrics they tuned into were traditional demographics, engagement data, cost per customer acquisition and return on investment.The idea for Wistia’s documentary came about because their production team realized they didn’t have a good understanding of the money-in-money-out ratio. Wistia Founder and CEO, Chris Savage said, “Our production team felt that creativity was the single most important element in producing an effective video and this fits in with our vision to grow through creativity.”What B2B Companies Can Learn From One, Ten, One Hundred:Show the “making of” process behind your product.  There’s an appeal to seeing a transformation from beginning to end. Ian says, “We like to know the process of making something. The making of something is just as interesting, or even more interesting, than the final asset. People like to watch transformation. They like inside information.” Chris says that it also shows the humanity behind the product, behind the company. He says, “I think B2B companies can just feel like a faceless organization that has a product, that has software. But when you show the making of things, like one of my favorite easy tricks is showing an outtake at the end of a video. It's a, you know, a five second outtake. It shows the human side, it shows the mistake and it completely changes how you feel very quickly about the brand, about the company.” Showing the process humanizes your brand and makes it more appealing to potential customers.Play up how long your product was in development. This conveys to your audience a sense of your specialty and standards of excellence in the industry. Chris says, “Apple and Dyson really show you the level, the hours, the days, years, months, they've gone into making their products, really crafting what they do and the art behind it. Like, ‘We've perfected this. We weren't going to ship it until it was ready.’ This is so powerful as a marketing technique. Because it works. It really makes you feel like, ‘Okay, this is going to be something special.” So show the rigor that went into crafting your product.Edutain your audience. Don’t just try to educate them. Make it fun. Chris says, “Great content marketing is like entertainment. You've got to know your audience to do that well. Wistia really does. How many companies sat there thinking, ‘We'd love to have a great explainer video for our website, but we just don't have the budget’? I watched [the documentary] and I'm literally thinking, ‘I need to get my craft papers out. I'm going to steal my daughter's school stuff and start making stuff to help sell Celonis.’ Because it brings it to life in so many different ways.” So when you’re creating content, ask yourself, “Is this educational and is it entertaining?” A good way to measure this is to ask, “Would viewers watch it in their own time?”Create something that you enjoy. Because it’s likely what your audience would enjoy too. Chris says, “With Wistia, they're clearly doing it as much for themselves as anyone else. They're clearly loving it, enjoying it, learning a lot themselves. And at the end of it, you kind of feel that they've got as much out of it as I have watching it. And I think that in itself is a great sign of content. If you can do something that, when you look back, you think, ‘I think I would enjoy this if someone else had made this,’ I think that's a really strong point if it fits your target market.’Quotes“When you watch [One, Ten, One Hundred], you don't feel like you're watching a piece of content marketing. And that's probably the ultimate B2B marketer’s goal, or any marketer's goal really, is to make that content not feel like it's selling something. It's just selling entertainment and education.” - Chris Sheen“We always strive for perfect, don't we? We want perfection in the market. We want it to feel great and look great, sound great. Sometimes it's worth taking a step back and thinking, ‘Actually, what's going to get the message across the most authentically?”  - Chris Sheen*”Creative work has to have constraints.” - Ian Faison*”[The documentary] really was binge worthy, which is the ultimate goal for content marketing. It passes the driveway test. That’s when you're listening to a song, you get to the end of your journey, you're sitting in your driveway. Do you get out of the car and just walk away, or do you stay to finish it?” - Chris SheenTime Stamps[00:54] Introducing Director of Content & Social at Celonis, Chris Sheen[1:48] Why are we talking about Wistia’s One, Ten, One Hundred documentary today?[3:21] What is Wistia’s One, Ten, One Hundred documentary about?[5:50] What makes the documentary remarkable?[12:51] What are some marketing lessons we can take from One, Ten, One Hundred?[30:22] What’s Chris’ content strategy?[36:15] What are some projects at Celonis Chris is proud of?LinksWatch One, Ten, One HundredConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about CelonisAbout 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.

Nailing down your brand voice is tough. Especially when you’re writing content for videos, blogs, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok…we could go on forever. Because a strong brand voice helps you stand out, drives brand affinity, and improves conversion rates. But where do you even start? What tone do you use? How wordy or concise should you be? We have answers for you. We’re tuning in to the Queen of brand voice today: Taylor Swift. Along with VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo, Meghan Barr, we’re exploring how Taylor Swift listens to her audience, how she defines her writing style, and how that changes with each reinvention. So grab your glitter pen and take notes on this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Meghan BarrMeghan Barr is VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo. She joined ZoomInfo in January 2021 as Senior Director of Content and Communications. After nearly two decades as an award-winning journalist at The Associated Press and The Boston Globe, Meghan joined the tech world at ZoomInfo, a software company that is modernizing how businesses go to market.During her journalism career, Meghan covered some of the biggest breaking news stories in the world, including Occupy Wall Street, Superstorm Sandy, and the Boston Marathon bombings. As a reporter based in several Midwestern cities and, later, New York City, she broke news about serial killers, witnessed a death row execution by lethal injection, followed politicians on the 2008 presidential campaign trail, drove through flooded roadways, chased ambulances and tornadoes, climbed to the top of the World Trade Center on a rickety ladder, interviewed famous athletes, and generally had a lot of amazing adventures. Over the years, her areas of expertise included crime, income inequality, transportation, and tourism. She also became one of the AP's trained video journalists capable of shooting and producing my own video reports streamed globally to clients for AP Television News.As an editor, Meghan directed metro news coverage on Boston.com for several years before becoming an editor at The Boston Globe Magazine, where she commissioned and edited longform narrative features and adapted excerpts from forthcoming works of nonfiction.Meghan is passionate about telling impactful stories that resonate. She’s also dedicated to helping working parents succeed in a world where the odds are stacked against them, particularly for working mothers. At the Globe, she was part of a fierce committee of women who successfully lobbied for a better family leave policy. At ZoomInfo, she launched a caregivers employee resource group to help support and advocate for employees who care for children or elderly relatives.About ZoomInfoZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI) is a leader in modern go-to-market software, data, and intelligence for more than 30,000 companies worldwide. ZoomInfo’s revenue operating system, RevOS, empowers business-to-business sales, marketing, operations, and recruiting professionals to hit their number by pairing best-in-class technology with unrivaled data coverage, accuracy, and depth of company and contact information. With integrations embedded into workflows and technology stacks, including the leading CRM, Sales Engagement, Marketing Automation, and Talent Management applications, ZoomInfo drives more predictable, accelerated, and sustainable growth for its customers. ZoomInfo emphasizes GDPR and CCPA compliance. In addition to creating the industry’s first proactive notice program, the company is a registered data broker with the states of California and Vermont.About Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift is a singer and songwriter and all-around music industry phenomenon who is currently on her much-talked-about Eras Tour. She was originally known for country music but is overall considered a pop artist. She has collected Grammys, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and more #1 albums than any other woman ever. She has a strong, defined personal brand that fans tap into, namely the red lipstick, wearing the number 13, and wearing friendship bracelets. She’s also a strong advocate for artist’s rights. What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taylor Swift:Decide who you are as a company. What are your values? What’s your mission? How would you describe your company? Answer these questions first, and that will inform your brand voice. Meghan says, “Which brand archetype are you? You can be the hero. You can be a helper. It’s an important question of like, ‘Who do you want to be as a company? Who do you want to be as a brand? What are you all about, basically?’Lurk on your audience. Tune into their social media to find out what matters to them. Then create content that plays to your audience’s values. Taylor Swift calls her approach “Tay-lurking.” She investigates what fans are doing and saying on social media, and that’s how she understands what they care about. She then builds it into content. This way, she gives fans what they want (another concert, hidden Easter eggs, etc.).Put effort into building your community. Community doesn’t build itself; it depends on give and take. (Emphasis on the “give” part). The energy and attention that you invest in your community comes right back to you in the form of brand affinity. Taylor Swift is constantly engaging with her fans, whether it’s at her concerts and giving away her black fedora to a special fan, on social media, or at meet and greets. She gives the impression of being very accessible, and that she “gets” her fans. So put some effort into building that emotional connection and reap the benefits.Reinvent your brand to renew audience interest. As your company grows and develops, refresh your brand to reflect the change. Taylor Swift has reinvented (aka rebranded) herself many times, from country music to pop, album to album. Each has had a different feel and look. Even the name of her tour - The Eras Tour - plays to this. She has grown and changed through each era, each album. And her fans have grown with her, gaining momentum. Taylor Swift even uses different voices in her songs. At the 2022 Nashville Songwriters Association International annual ceremony, she said she has three styles of lyrics: quill lyrics, fountain pen lyrics, and gel pen lyrics. The important part is that Taylor Swift is the one writing them. And it’s her personal brand fans are attached to. She already made a psychological bond with them, and they are always looking out for new content from her. So keep your branding feeling fresh, including your brand voice, so your audience stays invested.Quotes*“The Tay-lurking thing is her listening. Like every good marketer, she spends time with the customers. She's out there listening to what her fans want and responding to that stuff. That's how she can layer in all these little hidden messages and hidden secrets and know that people are going to find them because she's probably reading how much people love that stuff.” - Ian Faison*”She's investing the time in her fans that they are investing in her. She’s feeding the frenzy of her fans, of the community. You have to invest in your audience. You have to listen to them and actually put the work in.” - Meghan Barr*”One of the big marketing takeaways from Taylor Swift in the totality of her career is her acknowledgement that ‘I know my fans better than you know them.’ She knows what she’s making and who it's for. And if you don't like it, it's not for you.” - Ian Faison*"You can't be everything for everyone. You have to pick a lane, you have to decide what you're doing and commit to it.” - Meghan Barr*”If you don't know your audience, you're going to fail. You have to know who they are, what they think about, what they're worried about, what they're stressing about… you have to really put in that time and effort. Because otherwise you can't get inside their heads. You can't figure out what's going to resonate with them." - Meghan BarrTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo[1:33] Why are we covering Taylor Swift?[2:52] What does Meghan do at ZoomInfo?[4:07] Learn more about Taylor Swift[9:49] Why is Taylor Swift remarkable?[13:09] Why authenticity is more important today, after the advent of AI in marketing[24:14] More marketing takeaways from Taylor Swift[38:45] Learn about the modern go-to-market indexLinksListen to Taylor SwiftConnect with Meghan on LinkedInLearn more about ZoomInfoRead the AdWeek article on ZoomInfo’s collaboration with ColossusCheck out ZoomInfo’s go-to-market playsAbout 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.

You can learn a lot by looking at the past. Especially at an era that shaped how we think of marketing today. Today, we’re traveling back in time. And we’re doing it in style.Come with us to Madison Avenue in the 1960s, a formative time for advertising and marketing. It was the “Mad Men” that walked so the 21st Century marketers could run. And even though we’re equipped with technology, AI and all sorts of new digital tools, many of the cares and struggles feel familiar. But we’re not just turning to the past today to commiserate. We’re looking at case studies and learning from the classic masters of marketing…through the lens of Hollywood, of course.In this episode, we’re turning to the series that brought marketing into pop culture and earned Lionsgate $26 million a year: Mad Men. Joining us is VP & Head of Marketing at G2, Palmer Houchins. Palmer and the Remarkable team are discussing how to balance delivering on your brand promise with connecting emotionally with your audience, being persistent with marketing ideas, and paying attention to all the little details. So put on your sharkskin suit and wingtip oxfords for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Palmer HouchinsPalmer Houchins is the VP, Head of Marketing at G2. He previously served as a senior marketing leader and G2 customer at Mailchimp (acquired by Intuit) and CallRail ($125M+ in funding).He is a veteran marketer with 15+ years of experience growing businesses, scaling teams and building brands.About G2G2 is the largest and most trusted software marketplace, helping 80 million people every year make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews.About Mad MenMad Men is a drama series about a prestigious New York ad agency called Sterling Cooper in the 1960s focusing on debauched ad executive Don Draper, who’s played by Jon Hamm. It also stars Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, January Jones, John Slattery and Vincent Kartheizer. The series was created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It aired from 2007 to 2015. According to the pilot episode, the name “Mad Men” is short for Madison Men, or the men that worked on Madison Avenue in New York City. It won 16 Emmys, five Golden Globes, a Peabody award, averaged 2 million viewers over its run, and made Lionsgate about $26 million a year.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Mad Men:Be persistent. If you have a cool idea for a marketing campaign, don’t let it drop. It’s only a matter of time before that idea becomes your next success. Writer Matthew Weiner wrote the script for Mad Men in 2001, but it didn’t get picked up until four years later. Palmer says, “Matthew Weiner was writing this script on his off time at The Sopranos where he was a writer and just had it in his back pocket. And he just kept trying to get it made, get it made, no one was interested. And then boom, this happens and it becomes one of the most successful shows of all time.” So hold onto those good ideas and advocate for them. If you believe they’re good ideas and worthy of being created, act with conviction.Pay attention to the details. Make sure every part of your design and marketing aligns with your brand. The logos, font, pictures, the messaging, are all a part of your image. Just like how every detail of the set and costuming in Mad Men are meticulously styled to make the viewer feel like they’re in New York City in the 1960s. According to an article by Zooey Norman on ScreenRant.com, “Every single secretary's desk included a small Rolodex in which each and every card was filled out with addresses and contact information. Their desks also contained documents formatted and filled out to appear like real notices, letters, and memos in order to create the illusion of a truly functional office.” That’s the level of detail you want to get into in your marketing. Every element matters.Deliver on your brand promise first, connect emotionally with your audience second. There’s a scene in Mad Men when they’re trying to win the Burger Chef business, and Peggy goes to the restaurant to do a focus group. Her goal is to hone in on the emotions of customers and what resonates with them. Palmer says, “you want that emotional connection, but your products also have to deliver on that basic thing. And so in a B2B context, we want to have that aspirational element. But we've also got to be able to just simply deliver on kind of a functional ROI level as well.” So focus on your brand promise first before tying it to emotional connection as well.Quotes*”Too often we fall into that trap, and the same thinking of, ‘Well, this is popular, so we're just going to keep doing more of that,’ and not going against the grain, or zagging when everyone else is zigging. And I think that [Mad Men] is a testament to that thinking, especially as it relates to creativity.” - Palmer Houchins“You can spend weeks and months and years crafting the perfect copy, but in our world, it's going to get A/B tested, it's going to get split tested, and the distribution of getting that out in front of people [isn’t] linear. You have to know that that piece of copy that you spend so much time writing, that might not be the first thing they see about your brand. That might be the 500th. That might be after they've already talked to a salesperson. It might be before. There's so much more complexity to marketing now.” - Ian Faison*”There's a lot of nostalgia in this show. They're using real products, like Coke, Heinz beans, Burger Chef, Hilton, Lucky Strike and Jaguar. Because they're real, it's cool to see an ad campaign for super common household brands. Giving the listener or the viewer some signposts that they're familiar with will go a long way.” - Ian Faison“I think nostalgia is a part of it, but as someone who wasn't alive during the 60s, for me, it was almost like this exploration of history; a time to kind of live in that. And I think using real products, real elections and real world events is how they earmark it. It helps you tether to a different era.” - Palmer HouchinsTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Palmer Houchins, VP & Head of Marketing at G2[1:32] Why are we covering Mad Men?[4:30] What does Palmer do at G2?[6:09] What is Mad Men about?[7:16] How was Mad Men made?[13:47] What makes Mad Men remarkable?[25:16] What are marketing lessons we can take away from Mad Men?LinksWatch Mad MenConnect with Palmer on LinkedInLearn more about G2About 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.

Fans of your brand are one step away from becoming advocates for your company. Help them cross that line by sweetening the deal.Because if you can get fans to talk about why they love doing business with you, it’s the most effective way to do marketing; word of mouth is an extremely powerful tool proven to make sales. According to a Nielsen report, “92% of consumers around the world say they trust word-of-mouth or recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising.” And when you can offer a referral program for customers, it incentivizes their brand advocacy. Our guest today, VP of Marketing at Gigster, Martha Aviles, says that word of mouth marketing paired with a referral program leads to an almost 100% close rate. So in this episode, we’re talking with Martha about what leveraging referral programs looks like, how to break rules to create exclusive and unique content, and why there is always inherent risk in creating something truly remarkable.About our guest, Martha AvilesMartha Aviles is VP of Marketing at Austin-based Gigster, a firm that accelerates the delivery of digital transformation applications giving companies the agility to thrive in a software-defined world. With 20+ years of high-tech marketing experience in SaaS, semiconductor, networking, and network security at start-ups, private, and public companies, she is a fierce marketing leader. Martha has a gift for building and growing high-performance marketing teams, corporate brands, and inspiring thought leadership. Her extensive experience includes lead generation, integrated marketing, product marketing, digital marketing, public relations, brand management, analyst relations, and crisis communications. In addition, she has successfully led through 20+ mergers and acquisitions, including managing several integration and acquisition exits. Prior to joining Gigster, she was VP of Marketing at Austin-based Talroo, and also held senior leadership roles in marketing at RigUp (now Workrise) and Enverus - both of which have reached Unicorn status in Austin. Martha is an MBA graduate from the University of Texas and holds a BBA from Texas A&M University. Connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maviles/About GigsterGigster is a smart software development service that combines top developers, designers and product managers with artificial intelligence to build your project. Have your software reliably delivered at twice the speed, with end-to-end management and visibility.About AirAir is a sports drama based on the true story about Nike’s deal with Michael Jordan to create Air Jordans, the line of sneakers that is super popular today. In 1984, Nike was about to shut down its failing basketball shoe division. So in a last ditch effort, Nike’s basketball talent scout, Sonny Vaccaro, was sent to find a new spokesperson for Nike basketball sneakers. He advocated for the unlikely pick, rookie Michael Jordan, even though Jordan’s preferred brands were Adidas and Converse, and he would have n been too expensive for their budget. Nevertheless, the deal came through with the stipulation that Jordan would get a cut of every Air Jordan sold, and the Air Jordan was born. In its first year, the sneakers far exceeded expected sales of $3 million, and brought in $162 million. The movie was directed by Ben Affleck and written by Alex Convery, and stars Damion Young as Michael Jordan, Viola Davis as his mother, Matt Damon as talent scout Sonny Vaccaro, and Ben Affleck as Nike co-founder and chief executive Phil Knight. It also stars Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, and Marlon Wayans, among others. It’s the first movie from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s new venture, a production company called Artist’s Equity. It’s an artist-led studio that will give creators a cut of the profit from projects. So Air was a conscious choice as their first film, as it reflected the ideal of giving a cut to the talent. What B2B Companies Can Learn From Air:It pays to do partner marketing. Leveraging partner marketing and offering incentives to your partners or brand advocates increases sales. Martha says, “There are some customers who will be advocates for you, and they're really, really happy with your services, and typically, birds of a feather flock together. If they recommend you, you give them a piece of the action. Things like that work. And those deals are typically almost a 100 percent close rate. It always pays exponentially.” Find customers who are willing to advocate for your brand and offer them a partner deal.Don’t rest on your laurels. Keep giving it your all no matter how long you’ve been in the business. Nike failed to do this when pitching an endorsement deal to Steph Curry in 2013, mispronouncing Steph’s name and leaving another athlete’s name on the PowerPoint deck when presenting. Needless to say they lost the deal because of their sloppiness in what ESPN has called “the worst endorsement pitch ever.” So tune in to what’s going on in your industry, experiment with new marketing techniques, and always always pay attention to the details.Break the rules. Don’t follow trends or do what all the other B2B brands are doing because you think you’ll be taken “seriously.” Instead, tune in to your brand values and create evergreen content. Martha says, “At the time, the NBA had a stipulation that the shoes had to be [mostly] white…Nike paid all of the fines for Michael Jordan to wear these red and black Jordans, which is how they launched. Before, Converse and Adidas were the shoe to wear and Nike's were like your dad's shoe, nobody wanted to wear those. But they brought in that cool factor…And then everybody wanted the shoe and they built the demand.” Be bold enough to break the rules and create demand for your unique content.Quotes*”There's so many times where we have to innovate or we have to figure something out when your back's up against the wall, but [Nike] knew they didn't really have anything to lose. That's how they were approaching it, because they were shutting down this division. It was either like, ‘We're not going to have basketball shoes,’ or ‘We're going to get Michael Jordan,’ you know? And they made the right bet, but it was a big bet.” - Martha Aviles“If you're telling any type of marketing story, being able to start at the beginning with that uncertainty, with painting the picture in the audience's mind that this might not work, that this crazy thing might not happen…getting into the person's headspace of where they were in that moment, how they felt in that moment, is so important to the story.” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:55] Introducing VP of Marketing at Gigster, Martha Aviles[1:45] Why are we talking about Air?[2:49] Learn about Martha’s role at Gigster[3:58] Tell me more about the movie Air[16:20] What marketing takeaways can we glean from Air?[23:34] Learn about running customer referral programs[31:31] What was Martha’s content strategy at Talroo?[32:15] How does Martha view the ROI of content?[33:57] What are exciting projects Martha is working on at Gigster?[41:22] Exploring Lionel Messi’s deal with the MLS and Apple+ as a modern day example of athlete dealsLinksWatch AirConnect with Martha on LinkedInLearn more about GigsterAbout 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.

Wake up. There’s a glitch in the matrix. That’s because we’re seeing deja vu - your campaigns are starting to look the same. Need some fresh ideas? We’re here for you.But in reality (what is reality anyway?) you don’t have to come up with the freshest never-before-seen content. You just have to pull from all of your favorite pieces of content. Take the inspiring bits. All of them. And put them together to make something new.See, the creators of The Matrix, the Wachowski’s, even said they took “every idea we've ever had in our f***ing lives” and put it into the Matrix. Based on the ideas from French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, they also pulled from the techno scene, anime, martial arts, and more. There are even references to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, these very familiar cultural symbols. And yet when The Matrix was released, it was something fresh. It received wide acclaim, won Academy Awards, and basically broke the box office, bringing in over $460 million. So in this episode, we’re going down the rabbit hole of marketing lessons we can learn from the 1999 film with the help of Deel’s Director of Content Marketing, Anja Simic. Together, we discuss how to pull your inspiration into your B2B marketing, create educational content that preempts audience questions about your product or service, and call out audience pain points. So put on your very dark, very tiny sunglasses for this episode of Remarkable.About our guest, Anja SimicAnja Simic is Director of Content Marketing at Deel. She has been with the company over 4 years, having started in December 2018 as Senior Content Marketing Manager. Prior to Deel, she served as Digital Media Coordinator at Impact Hub Network.About DeelDeel is the all-in-one HR platform for global teams. It helps companies simplify every aspect of managing an international workforce, from culture and onboarding, to local payroll and compliance. Deel works for independent contractors and full-time employees in more than 150 countries, compliantly. And getting set up takes just a few minutes. For more information, visit Deel.comAbout The MatrixThe Matrix is a sci-fi action movie about a computer programer who discovers that the world as we know it is a simulation. In this awakening, he finds out that machines have created the simulation to distract humans and are using his body as an energy source in the meantime. He bands together with other people who have been freed from The Matrix to rebel against the machines. The 1999 movie stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, and Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith.The Matrix was created by Lana and Lily Wachowski, known professionally as The Wachowskis. They had only written and directed one movie before - Bound, a 1996 neo-noir crime thriller. Now they’re now known for V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, and more. The Matrix was made when the Wachowskis were asked by a friend to develop an original comic book concept, which they started working on in 1992. It began with the idea that everything in our world is a simulation in a digital universe, an idea inspired by French postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007). Baudrillard believed that we have lost all ability to make sense of the distinction between nature and artifice. In the movie, the Wachowskis nod to Baudrillard when Neo hides his contraband software in a hollowed-out copy of "Simulacra and Simulation," a book by Baudrillard. The idea that “our reality” is a simulation allowed the Wachowskis to explore and experiment with special effects and camera tricks to make many iconic and memorable scenes, like the bending spoon and the slow-mo bullet dodging scene. The style of the movie is influenced by cyberpunk, anime, and martial arts. What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Matrix:Combine all of the ideas you’ve ever had. That’s exactly what the Wachowski’s did when they developed the story of The Matrix. They pulled inspiration from the techno movement, anime, martial arts, and cyberpunk as well as the postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard to create something totally new, but whose references were recognizable. This made The Matrix accessible and not totally foreign while also being inspired and thought provoking. So pull in those ideas and make something totally new!Present complex products in an understandable way. Use clear visuals and straight-forward language that appeals to both the technical buyer and the layman. By speaking to both, you increase your potential customers. Anja says, “When you're talking about a product, you are trying to explain it in a way that's relatable to your potential buyer, to a prospect. So you're trying to find the words, use the visuals, use the brand, everything in your power to respond to a need. The Matrix is doing the same. So it's based on the very complex philosophy of postmodernism, but the movie presents it in a way that's very light, that is relatable.”Call out your audience’s pain points. This grabs their attention and sounds like you’re talking directly to them. Trinity does this when she meets with Neo in the nightclub. She says, “I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer.” Neo immediately knows that Trinity has been paying attention to him, understands what he’s going through, and that it’s important to her. Which is exactly how your audience will feel if you do the same.Quotes“There is some hesitancy from marketers to not want to pull in a bunch of different things that they like and put them together. But that's what makes [The Matrix] feel so cool and different. The cramming of worlds together in that way is what makes this feel so unique. So like, take a few things that you are really passionate about - content that you love - and just put it together.” - Ian Faison*“I think you need to be really flexible with [your content strategy] because the markets change, the business landscape changes the economic factors change. So what you devise as a plan for this year might not work next year because we are living in very uncertain times. We don't know how the next few years are going to look. So being lean and flexible is the right way to address any strategy, but content strategy in particular.” - Anja SimicTime Stamps[0:55] Introducing Director of Content Marketing at Deel, Anja Simic[1:50] Why are we talking about The Matrix?[4:22] Tell me more about The Matrix[8:52] What makes The Matrix remarkable?[11:11] What are some marketing lessons we can take away from The Matrix?[33:49] How does Anja think about content at Deel?[36:58] How does Anja prove the ROI of content?LinksWatch The MatrixConnect with Anja on LinkedInLearn more about DeelAbout 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 O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Are you a chaos muppet or an order muppet? Knowing the answer to this very important question can help you unlock your B2B marketing potential. Here’s why.There’s magic chemistry that happens when a chaos muppet joins forces with an order muppet. (Replace the word “muppet” with “marketer” in this instance.) It’s like a marketing power couple. You need the wildly outside-of-the-box thinking of the chaos side tempered with the composed, organized, planning mind of the order side to create truly remarkable content. It’s these two energies that work synchronistically to create content worth talking about.So in this episode, we’re looking back at nearly 70 years of Muppet history and one Slate article that made us ponder, “What kind of muppet am I?” And break down all of the wild and wondrous things muppets can teach us about B2B marketing with the help of CircleCI’s Director of Content Marketing, Gillian Jakob Kieser. Together, we talk about allowing some of that chaos into your campaigns, developing useful and evergreen content, and how to work through the riskiness of creating something original in this episode of Remarkable.About CircleCICircleCI lets teams build fully-automated pipelines, from testing to deployment, allowing them to focus on the real work of innovation. Using CircleCI, engineers can automate their entire testing suite for new commits, reducing the potential for human error, while using orbs to automate deploys.About The Muppets and Muppet Chaos TheoryThe Muppets is an American television show featuring a cast of puppets performing various skits. The beloved characters include Kermit, Miss Piggy, Rowlf, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Beaker, Animal, The Swedish Chef, and more. It was created by Jim Henson in 1955, and has been around for nearly 7 decades. It was originally a short-form tv show called Sam and Friends, and it’s now grown into a media franchise with lots of spin offs including movies, music, and tv appearances. The franchise was owned by The Jim Henson Company until 2004 when Disney bought it. Jim Henson once suggested that the term “muppet” comes from combining the words “puppet” and “marionette.”Muppet Theory is a theory posed by Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick that everyone in the world is either a chaos muppet or an order muppet. Chaos muppets are crazy, volatile, unpredictable. Like Animal, Cookie Monster, or The Swedish Chef. Order muppets are anxious, neurotic and don’t like surprises. Like Kermit the Frog, Scooter, or Sam the Eagle. Order muppets often choose Chaos muppets as lifelong partners, like Bert the order muppet and Ernie the chaos muppet or  Kermit as the order muppet and Miss Piggy as the chaos one.About our guest, Gillian Jakob KieserGillian Jakob Kieser is Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI. She has been with CircleCI for over six years, having started in June 2017 as Content Marketing Manager, and their first content hire as a growing startup. She has also served in marketing roles at companies like Prismatic and MAKE Magazine.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Muppets and Muppet Theory: Incorporate both chaos and order into your marketing. Team up with your chaos or order counterpart to make new content. Or create some content that’s very structured and some that’s very unstructured. Gillian says that it’s these different energies that make successful collaborations in marketing. “They really need to have both the order aspect and the chaos aspect to make something feel alive and authentic. If you over plan it, it's dead in the water. It's dry and predictable. And if it's too much chaos, you never can get it out the door because no one knows what time anything is happening. So you always need to have both order and chaos on a team or in a program.”Mix the real and the fantastical. This creates playful and captivating visuals, and engages the viewers’ willing suspension of disbelief. Gillian says, “There's this aspect of these fantastical creatures in a real world scenario that appeals to adults as well as children. Because children really have a sense for the authentic, and they know that there's something about this world that is real and that they can learn from, that it's not just watered down and catered to them. There's something about that that I think has set them apart and has always been really appealing.”Trust the intelligence of your audience. The Muppet Show is not just for children. There were signs in the cigarette-smoking, Studebaker-driving scenes that Jim Henson was appealing to more mature viewers as well. Like Jim Henson, give your audience all the information you have for them, and don’t oversimplify it. Gillian says, “Jim Henson and his crew never played down to their audience. There was so much intelligence and so many references, and it was very high reaching for something that could have conceivably been, ‘Oh, this is just for kids.’ It feels like Jim Henson was the first one in exploring that space, of elevating this art form to something that had a lot of depth that you wouldn't expect to see coming from puppets.”Quotes*“[The Muppets is] a testament to taking risks, just going for it and not knowing. It might not have worked out, but it did in the long run. Some of our efforts at creative projects, branding or anything else like that are sometimes a little bit of a shot in the dark.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser*”I was thinking, ‘Okay, where is there order and chaos in our current content strategy?’ The blog is very orderly. We've learned a lot about SEO and how to answer people’s questions with technical tutorials. And then we've got a podcast with our CTO interviewing folks. That's much more of a chaos aspect because you never know where the conversation's gonna go, but he's standing in and asking the questions that the audience wants to ask. And it's very funny and we're not selling in that show at all. We're creating affinity, trust, informing, educating and being able to share our perspective on how our industry works with others.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser*”The ad copy is another place where we test wildly. There's been times when we throw in something that's ungrammatical because you know it's gonna catch someone's eye. Or put a question mark at the end of something to get their attention. And then you can make the connection. But that order and chaos marriage shows up everywhere.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser*”There's a time and a place for things. There's concentric circles of stuff that needs to be really on brand that the legal team needs to look at and everyone has to check off on it. And then stuff that as you get further out has more of a buffer of forgiveness for being off-brand at times.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser*”If you want to feel like your entire brand is super buttoned up always, and it's only on official channels, you have to know that your marketing is gonna be boring. Because there's no humanity in it. People buy people. If you're trying to get people to commit to you with emotion and you're using the opposite of that, how effective is it really gonna be?” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:54] Introducing CircleCI Director of Content Marketing, Gillian Jakob Kieser[1:39] Why are we talking about The Muppets?[4:03] Learn more about Gillian’s role as Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI[5:33] What are The Muppets?[8:37] How did Jim Henson create evergreen content in The Muppets?[10:54] How do you work through the riskiness of making original content?[15:04] What is Muppet Chaos Theory?[16:59] How does Muppet Chaos Theory apply to collaborative work and marketing?[21:00] How does CircleCI use chaos and order in their marketing strategy?[31:09] How to humanize your content, and the value of human-generated content in the age of AI[34:24] What’s Gillian’s content strategy at CircleCI?[37:30] The difference in making remarkable evergreen content versus sensational content[39:09] How did Gillian grow her team and advocate for the value of more content creators?[41:57] How do you choose the channels worth posting content to?LinksWatch The Muppet ShowRead the Slate articleConnect with Gillian on LinkedInLearn more about CircleCIAbout 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 O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Picture this: tens thousands of fans screaming from the top of their lungs for more content from you, the B2B marketer.It may sound more like how people react to superstars like Taylor Swift; there are tactics she uses in her branding that inspire intense fandom, like how Swifties can wear red lipstick, make beaded bracelets or decode hidden messages in her Instagram posts to own a bit of her brand for themselves. It’s all a part of a culture that Taylor Swift and her team of amazing marketers have meticulously cultivated over time. But who’s to say B2B marketers can’t borrow a bit of that marketing magic? In this episode, we’re turning to the artist with more #1 albums than any other woman in history: Taylor Swift, and seeing what new B2B marketing ideas we can learn from her. What about her brand has inspired such passion; the kind of passion that is expected to bring in more than $1 billion in ticket sales from her current tour? Joining us is Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob, Kim Courvoisier. Together, we’re talking about the marketing behind Taylor Swift’s record-breaking tour, creating a shareable brand, and refreshing content to give your audience even more value. So layer on your Swifty bracelets and maybe a little something sparkly for this episode of Remarkable.About LobLob is the only direct mail automation platform for the digital age. Lob's platform automates the direct mail execution process for enterprises at any scale - from creation, printing, postage, delivery, and sustainability with end-to-end analytics and campaign attribution. Over 12,000 businesses trust Lob to transform their direct mail into intelligent mail. Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, Lob is venture-backed by Y Combinator, Polaris Partners, Floodgate, and First Round Capital.About Taylor Swift and The Eras TourTaylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter who has more #1 albums than any other woman in history after her album “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” debuted at #1. The 33-year-old artist from Pennsylvania who was originally known for country music is known for her musical versatility and reinventing herself as an artist. As a cultural figure, she has had several high-profile news stories, including her dispute with Big Machine Records over ownership of the masters of her first 6 studio albums which led to her re-recording all of them, and another legal battle with Apple in 2015 over protecting artists’ rights to fair compensation for their work. She currently has 10 albums, and has sold 114 million albums worldwide. She’s won 12 Grammys, 19 Billboard Music Awards (the most of any woman), 40 American Music Awards, and more.  She has many trademarks, including hiding messages in her content, frequently using the number 13, wearing red lipstick, and going barefoot. Her fans call themselves Swifties.The Eras Tour is a journey through all of Taylor Swift’s studio albums. It’s 131 concerts across five continents, and is expected to be the highest grossing tour in history. Tickets bring in more than $13 million a night, for an expected $1 billion+ overall. The average ticket costs $254. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve even reported that the tour is boosting economic growth, specifically related to hotel revenue. Taylor Swift has a 44-song set list and the concert is 3-hours long. The tour started on March 17th in Glendale, Arizona which was officially renamed “Swift City” for two days. The tour will wrap up on November 23rd, 2024 in Toronto.About our guest, Kim CourvoisierKim Courvoisier is the Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob, the only direct mail automation platform for the digital age. Kim is an experienced senior-level digital marketing leader with over 12 years of experience in SaaS marketing, specializing in B2B and B2C content marketing, social media, email marketing, customer lifecycle marketing, AI, and SEO. She is based in San Francisco, California.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taylor Swift and The Eras Tour: Re-use, recycle, repurpose your classic content. Look back at your past marketing content that did really well and see if you can get more juice out of it. Kim says, “A lot of times, I'll write an ebook, and it's like, ‘Okay, that was great for that campaign. Moving on,’ And I'm like, ‘No, no, no. That's all perfectly relevant content. We should reuse that, we should recycle it, we should repurpose that.’ And that's exactly what Taylor Swift is doing when she is re-releasing these albums because she's now driving eyeballs or ears back to that content.” So make the most of the content you’ve invested time and effort in in the past, and refresh it to give your customers added value today.Create a shareable culture around your brand. For Swifties, it’s making beaded bracelets, wearing the number 13, going barefoot, putting on red lipstick. And it inspires fans to create their own content or even make their own bracelets and sell them. Kim says, “It's helping this whole little generation become entrepreneurs, which I think is so incredible. I talk about marketing and [Taylor isn’t] keeping it for herself. She's sharing it with everyone, and I think there's no greater power as a marketer than to empower others. And she's absolutely doing that.” So extend your brand to include free elements that fans can own, get added value from, and make their own.Quotes“If your content isn't adding value, then you're just creating more noise.” - Kim Courvoisier “When [Taylor Swift] re-releases an album, she actually adds new content to it. Like content from the vault that wasn't on the original edition. And so it's adding more value. So that would be like if I took an old ebook that I had written and then put on an extra bonus chapter and re-released it. So I think there's a ton of lessons we can learn as marketers to go back and refresh and repurpose our content. And I get a ton of inspiration from that.” - Kim CourvoisierTime Stamps[0:54] Meet Kim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob[1:32] Why are we covering Taylor Swift?[4:04] Tell me more about Taylor Swift[10:32] Learn more about the record-breaking Eras Tour[16:54] How do you create a shareable culture?[22:39] What are marketing lessons we can learn from The Eras Tour?[24:58] How to repurpose classic content and give your audience added value[33:55] How to make content appeal to people who aren’t currently in the “buying mode”[36:34] How does Kim think about the ROI of content?[42:57] What are Kim’s favorite pieces of content she’s made at Lob?[45:15] Tell me more about Lob’s 2023 State of Direct Mail and Consumer Insights ReportsLinksListen to Taylor SwiftLearn more about The Eras TourConnect with Kim on LinkedInLearn more about LobAbout 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), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

If your audience isn’t engaging with your posts, they’re not opening your emails and your webinars are empty, it’s time to tweak your marketing strategy.Your marketing strategy has become a pattern; a pattern your customers are used to. They know what’s coming, so they tune it out. And the last thing you want to be is part of the noise.So we’re going to show you how to pattern interrupt. According to a Mailchimp article, pattern interrupt is “a neuro linguistic programming (NLP) tactic used to disrupt a customer's usual thought process or behavior… [around] cold calls and other marketing and sales strategies to change how they think and feel.” In this episode, we’re going to share how pattern interrupt is a key tool in re-engaging your customers as well as catching the attention of new potential customers. And we’re learning about pattern interrupt from a show that does it so well: “Archer.”So in this episode, we’re having a watch party of the Emmy Award-winning series "Archer" with Head of Content Marketing and Customer Education at Apollo.io, Josh Garrison. And we’re chatting about how to engage your audience with pattern interruption, why you should spend time developing complex characters, and how to provide value by teaching your audience a new skill with each piece of content. So stick on a fake mustache and strap on your Omicron Spymaster watch for this episode of Remarkable.About Apollo.ioApollo.io combines a buyer database of over 250M contacts and powerful sales engagement and automation tools in one, easy to use platform. Trusted by over 160,000 companies including Autodesk, Rippling, Deel, Jasper.ai, Divvy, and Heap, Apollo has more than one million users globally. By helping sales professionals find their ideal buyers and intelligently automate outreach, Apollo helps go-to-market teams sell anything. In the last year, they’ve grown ARR 3x, quadrupled their active users, and closed a $110M Series C led by Sequoia Capital in March of 2022. They continue to grow faster each month with record months of sales and added ARR.About ArcherArcher is an animated tv series parodying espionage culture about a James Bond-esque spy named Sterling Archer in a dysfunctional intelligence agency headed by his own mother. The show is set in a sort of Cold War era universe. The highly stylized animation is inspired by classic comic books. The animators describe the style as “puppety,” in that a limited amount of drawings are made, and then they put rotation points from which the drawings can move.  The show was created by Adam Reed and made by Trinity Animation with the voice of Archer played by H. Jon Benjamin. It also includes the voices of Jessica Walter of Arrested Development, Aisha Tyler from Criminal Minds, and Chris Parnell from SNL. It originally aired in 2019 and is currently in its 14th season. It has won at least 3 Primetime Emmys among other numerous awards and nominations. About our guest, Josh GarrisonJosh Garrison is Head of Content Marketing and Customer Education at Apollo.io. He joined Apollo.io in December of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as Head of Revenue at Teamflow. He has also held leadership roles at Autodesk and inDinero. He co-founded SpotMe Lending, an alternative to payday, auto title and pawnbroker loans, and Ledger Leaders, a bookkeeping and accounting services business.What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Archer”: Use pattern interrupt. Use a familiar interaction but pivot suddenly to catch your audience off-guard. Josh says that in “Archer”, “they do the thing where they set up a joke and then the punchline of the joke is a cut scene to someone else saying it.” It helps with pacing, and moving the story line along while making the audience laugh.Develop complex characters. Characters simply feel more like people when they have flaws, preferences, history… And building believable, relatable characters takes time, intention, and thought. The characters in Archer immediately feel lived in from the first episode. Josh says, “The first time you meet every character, you get the essence of that character. There's no wasted time there.” The characters are multi-dimensional, neither purely good or bad. They’re human. Ian says that Archer “is the best spy in the world. But he's super narcissistic and he's pretty mean and self-serving. But there's this element of heart to him. Like he loves animals, he has a real affinity to certain people at his work. He’s an a**hole, but he's our a**hole.” As a complex character, he’s much more interesting and relatable than if he were simply a good person, good spy, good protagonist. So before you create content, spend time thinking about your characters’ backstory, personality, motivations, and more, to flesh out a character that will resonate with your audience.Borrow from nostalgic content. The artwork of Archer is inspired by classic comics and 1960s superhero cartoons. The show borrows from James Bond and espionage culture. So the show has elements that feel very familiar while at the same time being quite modern. Josh says, “It’s very unique, but it also feels familiar because they're calling back to things that you've seen and read throughout your early life.” So it draws people in with its nostalgic artwork but creates super fans with its modern tone, fast pacing, and cutting humor.Quotes*”Marketers are bored of our own playbooks. They're like, ‘Oh man, I'm doing another webinar.’ Or they're like, ‘Oh, we gotta write another ebook?’ Those are old ideas. But that doesn't mean that those things don't work anymore. When I explore pattern interruption, I'm still gonna run a webinar. But in that webinar, how can I subvert the expectation? How can I set people up to think they're gonna get one thing, and then give them something that's way more than they hoped or bargained for, and just go beyond?” - Josh Garrison*”Salespeople will engage with anything that will make them money. That's the guiding principle of our content marketing strategy. Put yourself in the shoes of a salesperson and ask yourself, ‘Would I read this? Before I commit to reading it or watching it, am I convinced based on the headline or the title or the description, that this is gonna bring enough value to me to help me improve my ability to make money?’ So we start there. That's actually a pretty high bar. It's really hard to do. It means that you can't make any fluff, because fluff doesn't make anybody money.” - Josh Garrison*“What we try to do is go two steps further than [typical content,] and it's like, ‘I'm gonna open up Apollo. I'm gonna show you exactly what to do.’ Something that's so actionable that by the time somebody finishes engaging with a piece of content, whether it's a video, webinar, or article, they have gained a new skill.” - Josh GarrisonTime Stamps[0:58] Introducing Head of Content Marketing & Customer Education at Apollo.io Josh Garrison[1:59] Why are we covering Archer?[3:13] What makes Archer remarkable? And what is “pattern interrupt” or “pattern interruption”?[6:05] How does the animation style of Archer draw an audience?[7:54] Tell me more about Archer[10:34] How does character development play into Archer’s popularity?[15:02] How can marketers think about using pattern interruption in their marketing?[17:32] What can we learn about pacing from Archer?[19:38] What’s Josh’s content strategy at Apollo.io?[26:14] How did Josh rebuild the webinar program at Apollo.io to the point where people were asking when the next one would be?[35:08] Who did Josh hire to produce their world-class videos?[40:21] What are the keys to good marketing?LinksWatch ArcherConnect with Josh on LinkedInLearn more about Apollo.ioAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Characters in your B2B marketing are polished, smooth, suave, always smiling. They never feel awkward, even when they’re asking for more budget or getting negative feedback. Stop that.Let your characters be and feel awkward in those moments. Because you want your audience to think, “Oh, they get me.” And because we’ve all felt awkward at work. Today, we’re taking notes from a show that has made us all cringe: The Office. Alison Herman wrote for The Ringer that cringe comedy resonates with the audience because “Cringe often comes with a reassurance that we aren’t alone in our crippling insecurities, without the sometimes insurmountable hurdle of disclosing our own inner thoughts.” It’s a reminder that other people get sweaty and shaky when they ask for a raise too. So on this episode, we’re chatting about the Benihana Christmas episode, from Dwight flopping a dead goose on Pam’s desk to Andy’s efforts to cheer up a heartbroken Michael with an onion volcano. And we’re bringing on Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign, Jakub Rudnik, to talk about what makes the episode so iconic, why you should consider bringing in experts from other industries to help create content, and why it’s time to embrace the awkwardness. So deck the halls with twinkle lights and order yourself a sushi boat for this episode of Remarkable.About ActiveCampaignClickUp is a cloud-based project management platform that provides wall-to-wall solutions for teams to manage all types of work, collaborate on tasks, and streamline multi-step workflows. It’s an all-in-one tool that lets you plan, track and collaborate on any project. Founded in 2017 by Zeb Evans in San Diego, ClickUp is now used by Google, Netflix, Airbnb and Nike.About The OfficeThe Office is a mockumentary about the daily lives of employees working for Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The U.S. version is based on the original U.K. series created by comedian Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant which was  adapted for an American audience by SNL writer Greg Daniels, and co-produced by Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille Productions in association with Universal Television. The original cast included Steve Carrell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fisher, and B.J. Novak. There are 9 seasons, which aired from 2005 to 2013. It has won many awards, including Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series.About our guest, Jakub RudnikJakub Rudnik is Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign. He joined ActiveCampaign in March 2023. Prior to his current role, he served as Head of Content Marketing at Scribe. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University where he teaches Journalism courses, and a content marketing consultant. What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Office: Bring in the experts. Cross-pollinate B2B and B2C by contracting experts or specialists to help you level up your content. Iconic actor, comedian, writer and director Harold Ramis directed the Benihana Christmas double-episode, making it a standout comedic performance from everyone involved. Likewise, the Dinner Party episode will go down in history as being one of the most uncomfortable episodes to sit through. Part of the magic was that they brought in cameramen from reality TV to follow the action like in a reality TV show. So it creates the illusion that the audience is getting an inside look at some real drama. Ian says that you don’t have to sacrifice your brand voice or consistency when you bring in outside voices. He says,, “I love keeping things consistent with structure and flow and all that. But I do think that bringing in other people to give a second look, or to just give them the reins and say, ‘Hey, do it the way that you want to do it,’ is something that they do a lot in Hollywood and we don't necessarily do as much in marketing.” So next time you want to make some fresh content, bring in an expert from outside your team to collaborate, put in their two cents, and give it that B2C flavor that will set you apart from the pack.Lean into the awkwardness. Highlight customer pain points by leaning into the discomfort and cringiness caused by them. This shows that you’re empathetic to their situation, and are acknowledging their frustrations. Jakub says,”The Office takes those awkward cringe things and makes them more extreme to play it up. But that’s why we connect to it. It’s real. I’ve been there.” And Ian says, “We don't strive for really awkward, tense moments in B2B marketing. It's very rare. Whereas our work is full of super awkward, tense moments. There are so many moments that are extremely personal and awkward in work and we never talk about it.” So it’s time to talk about it. Lean into the awkwardness that happens in real workplaces, and you’ll hook your audience.Quotes*”The biggest successes of my career came from an inflection point where something was broken, something was failing, we were flatlining, a competitor was emerging, and we went a different way. We scrapped everything that we thought we knew about content and we went a different route. Let's not replicate what our competitors have done. Let's go find something brand new or a different way of executing this completely. And so to me, that's Darryl being like, ‘Don't worry about that. We don't need the karaoke machine at all. We're gonna go print off lyrics from the internet and I'm gonna go grab my keyboard and we're just gonna have more fun.’ And it was a better party because of that.” - Jakub Rudnik*”There are so few scenes in The Office that are about work. We want to do a great job. We wanna get better at work. But we also just have these very human moments.” - Ian Faison*”The Office takes those awkward cringe things and makes them more extreme to play it up. But that’s why we connect to it. It’s real. I’ve been there.” - Jakub RudnikTime Stamps[0:56] Introducing Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign, Jakub Rudnik[2:53] Why is The Office remarkable?[3:50] Tell me more about The Office[10:57] What are marketing lessons we can take from The Office?[13:10] What’s the best way to manage obstacles?[18:54] How do you focus on the customer’s pain points, not the KPIs?[21:47] Why is it important to bring in people from outside your team to pitch in to the creative process?[32:28] Why should you embrace awkwardness in your content marketing?[33:21] What’s Jakub’s content strategy at ActiveCampaign?[39:21] How does Jakub use marketer influencers?[45:57] How does Jakub track the ROI of influencer marketing?LinksWatch The OfficeConnect with Jakub on LinkedInLearn more about ActiveCampaignAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

B2B content feeling a little limp and lifeless? We have the answer. The one thing that will give it life, improve brand recall, and make it universally appealing: Put it to music. A Harvard study found that music is truly a universal language. Harvard correspondent Jed Gottlieb says, “Across societies, music is associated with behaviors such as infant care, healing, dance, love”...and work. And listening to music activates wide swaths of the brain, especially areas related to emotion. Simply put, using music in your marketing is your ticket to engaging and connecting emotionally with your audience, whoever and wherever they are. Including when they’re at work.ClickUp is proof that music works in B2B marketing. They created the first ever full studio album from a tech company, and it took off. Featuring artists like Clever, who previously collaborated with Justin Bieber and Post Mallone, as well as Michael Minelli and Philip Good, the album has had over a million streams. On this episode of Remarkable, we’re taking a beat to talk with Chris Cunningham, Head of Influencer Marketing at ClickUp, about the creation of their studio album, Work Flows. We’re learning from him about what it takes to make an album for a B2B company, how to make viral content, and the best way to leverage influencers. So put your headphones on and turn up the bass for this episode of Remarkable.About ClickUpClickUp is a cloud-based project management platform that provides wall-to-wall solutions for teams to manage all types of work, collaborate on tasks, and streamline multi-step workflows. It’s an all-in-one tool that lets you plan, track and collaborate on any project. Founded in 2017 by Zeb Evans in San Diego, ClickUp is now used by Google, Netflix, Airbnb and Nike.About Work FlowsChris released the first song, “ClickUp to Keep Up” in June 2018. In 2023, they released a full-length album, “Work Flows” featuring 21 songs about project management and features artists like Clever, who has previously collaborated with Justin Bieber and Post Mallone, as well as Michael Minelli. It’s the first full studio album from a tech company. It was released during ClickUp’s LevelUp Conference in February. Within a week of its release, it got over half a million streams.About our guest, Chris CunninghamChris Cunningham is Head of Influencer Marketing and a founding member of ClickUp. He has previously served as VP of Business Development at Elevator Studio and Head of Business Development at Mango Technologies, Inc.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Work Flows:Build internal influencers. Encourage and support employees in becoming thought leaders in their industry. And become an influencer yourself to relate to them, build trust, and collaborate more effectively. Chris says, “If you're someone who's at a smaller company and you want to learn, you're going to look for someone who's at a large company, someone who's done it before.” And he says at ClickUp, they’re building several internal influencers, and not just within the C-suite. Chris himself is working to become one, and it makes him more effective at being Head of Influencer Marketing, because he says, “ I understand their struggles. I understand how hard it is to create content every day and, and put that out. I understand how to talk to them and how to work with them because I'm trying to be one. So one of the last things I learned is that a very strong value point if you want to get in this space and you want to do influencer marketing in tech, you should probably actually do it yourself to learn from them and earn their respect.”Get your influencers to go off script. Give them the trust and autonomy to create authentic content. When you give influencers the stage to express themselves, they’ll forge real connections with followers. Chris says that if he offered to pay an influencer to talk about ClickUp, “it’s not natural and people can smell it out.” But if he gets an influencer to try ClickUp’s platform and it improves their workflow, then he works together with them to create content. He says, “I give free reign to the creator. I'm not going to give them a script. What I want them to do is go tell the world how we save them time.” And then he uses their endorsements as ads across social media platforms. He says it’s a tactic that has been really effective for ClickUp.Make a song. Think outside the B2B marketing box and embrace unconventional engagement. ClickUp’s creation of the first studio album from a tech company challenged the status quo and raised the bar for what B2B marketing could be. Chris says he made a studio album to stand out. “Everyone listens to music. So many people listen to music while they work. It's a new way to get in front of people that no one's done.” And it paid off. With over a million streams and maybe - just maybe - another album on the way.Quotes*”The best move I could ever make was trying to become an influencer myself. I think [influencers] are more apt to get back to me because they see me doing the same thing they are. I understand their struggles. I understand how hard it is to create content every day and put that out. I understand how to talk to them and how to work with them because I'm trying to be one. So I think one of the last things I learned is that a very strong value point if you want to do influencer marketing in tech, you should probably actually do it yourself to learn from them and earn their respect.” - Chris Cunningham*”It's not like everything we do goes viral. So I think it's more of a long-term process, testing and learning your audience, but to me, going viral is just getting tons of shares, tons of comments. Likes are a small vanity metric. It's people talking about it, and then they're getting articles and news talking about it. That is what I care about and what my goal is every time we do anything.” - Chris Cunningham*“One thing I think that I would like to be known for, and that I've always tried to do, is just testing new things. Does everything work? No. Like I've had plenty of failure. And that's what everyone will tell you, right? Fail, fail, fail. But I think you gotta go into things not caring about failure. I think it's just seeing what happens and having fun with it, and having some belief. So that's how we handle everything in marketing. I'm gonna keep trying new things.” - Chris Cunningham*”The big piece of advice I'd like to leave everyone with is to not overthink, just start doing things. It's so easy to have a full plan and to type things up and get approvals. Just start doing things. Like, don't worry too much. Who cares about outcomes? Outcomes happen and sometimes they don't. And it's perfectly okay.” - Chris CunninghamTime Stamps[0:55] Introducing ClickUp founding member and Head of Influencer Marketing, Chris Cunningham[4:24] How does influencer marketing fit into ClickUp’s overall marketing strategy?[9:03] How does influencer marketing work?[13:37] The art of interviewing influencers[16:43] How did ClickUp make a studio album?[23:34] Where can you find the Work Flows album and other related content?[24:00] How do you set KPIs for content like a studio album?[25:25] How do you measure the ROI of content?[31:32] How do you make viral content?[35:03] When did Chris make the first song?[40:12] What are Chris’ favorite pieces of content or campaigns?[42:38] What’s something Chris is working on that he’s excited about?LinksListen to Work FlowsConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn about ClickUpAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Does it feel like you’re flailing for ideas ​​every time you’re starting a new campaign? It’s good to have a place to start every time. To have a framework for your story that gives you loose benchmarks to meet so you’re not starting from scratch every time. It’s the answer to all the hard and repetitive work that goes into storytelling. It’s the antidote to marketer’s block. It’s marketing, codified.Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon came up with the “Story Circle,” an 8-step journey the characters go on in each episode akin to the Hero’s journey. And Harmon has used this framework for any new story, including for his work on the show Community. He says, “I can't not see that circle. It's tattooed on my brain." This structure enabled Harmon to write over 60 episodes of the show, which has become the most watched TV comedy for adults between ages 18 and 24 as well as a hundred-million dollar media franchise. So on this episode of Remarkable, we’re looking to the Emmy Award-winning Adult Swim hit TV show for lessons on storytelling structure, the delightful use of absurdity, and much more. And chatting with us is Cube’s Director of Content and Brand Strategy, Sarah Frazier. Join us as we talk Pickle Rick and all things content marketing on this episode of Remarkable.About Rick and MortyRick and Morty is an animated series on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim about mad scientist Rick who takes his grandson, Morty, on sci-fi misadventures including things like inter-planetary travel. The series was created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland. Both Rick and Morty were voiced by Justin Roiland until 2023. (Adult Swim cut ties with Roiland following news that Roiland was facing felony charges for domestic violence. The charges have since been dropped.) It also stars voice actors Chris Parnell as Jerry Smith, Spencer Grammer as Summer Smith and Sarah Chalke as Beth Smith. Rick and Morty started airing in 2013, and It’s won a slew of awards, including 2 Primetime Emmys. About our guest, Sarah FrazierSarah Frazier is Director of Content and Brand Strategy at Cube. She joined the company in February 2023. Prior to Cube, she served as Head of Content Marketing at Podium, a platform for local businesses to get more reviews, collect payments, send text marketing campaigns, and centralize their communications. She has also held content marketing and demand gen roles for Drift and CustomerGauge.   What B2B Companies Can Learn From Rick and Morty: Create a framework for your storytelling. Map out the stages of your story structure to give yourself a foundation for each campaign. It gives you a basis to build campaigns from instead of having to start from scratch every time. Co-creator of Rick and Morty, Dan Harmon says creating the story circle was his “attempt to remove all the hard and repeated work from the task of breaking a story.” So do yourself a favor and create a framework for each campaign to start from.Employ absurdity. Be ridiculous and wildly unreasonable as a way to grab audience attention. When blended with seriousness, clever humor, and creative ideas, it’s a surefire way to keep your audience interested. Sarah says, “The inherent randomness of our own lives makes us feel better to see it played out on the screen. The ability to see like you are maybe not solely responsible for the things that happen to you, that there is inherent randomness in the universe. But ultimately the lesson is like you are responsible for how you react to those things. Very similar to how you deal with customers and potential customers. They're going to come at you with all sorts of questions and comments, things that you didn't consider. It’s how you react to those things that creates remarkable moments for them where you are a memorable vendor in their head and you define the journey for those folks.”Speak to the pain points of the employee, not the organization. Connect with your audience by sharing relatable stories, and by showcasing your solution as the answer to their personal growth. Sarah says, “Some of the best storytelling that happens today is where you're talking about someone late at night in front of their laptop, elbows deep in trying to solve a problem, and it's like something that's a lot more personal. You're talking about like someone saving their career versus someone using tech to solve a problem for their organization, which is such a boring narrative that we hear all the time. I think where people are succeeding is where they can lean a little bit more into that, ‘How can I help you further your career?’ versus like, ‘How can I help your company do this?’”Quotes*”When you can ground things in a process, then you can use that mental energy to focus on creating something that's more interesting or more absurd. And if you don't have to worry about the flow and the process and the structure, then you can really use that brain power for something else.” - Ian Faison*”We're always talking about scaling in marketing. And particularly in tech startups because we want to move fast and iterate. But what are those unscalable moments that we can create for customers that feel wholly unique to them?” - Sarah Frazier*“Some of the best storytelling that happens today is where you're talking about someone late at night in front of their laptop, elbows deep in trying to solve a problem, and it's like something that's a lot more personal. You're talking about like someone saving their career versus someone using tech to solve a problem for their organization, which is such a boring narrative that we hear all the time. I think where people are succeeding is where they can lean a little bit more into that, ‘How can I help you further your career?’ versus like, ‘How can I help your company do this?’” - Sarah FrazierTime Stamps[0:55] Introducing Director of Content and Brand Strategy at Cube Sarah Frazier[2:06] Why are we talking about Rick and Morty?[2:54] What is Rick and Morty?[4:10] What’s Dan Harmon’s Circle Story?[5:21] What makes Rick and Morty remarkable?[8:55] Why should you use absurdism in marketing?[18:10] Why it’s important to feature customer stories[23:24] What we can learn from Rick and Morty about making parodies in B2B marketing[24:30] What’s Cube’s content strategy?[27:19] How does Sarah prove the ROI of content marketing?[32:06] How do you make a useful, bookmark-able template?LinksWatch Rick and MortyConnect with Sarah on LinkedInLearn more about CubeWatch Dan Harmon explain the Circle StoryAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It’s time to take a risk with your B2B content marketing. To create a top of funnel piece of content that’s truly unique. Because it’s easy to resort to the “safe” conventional strategies and industry jargon. With everyone using AI tools to pump out B2B content, you can’t afford to make one more thing that just fades into the crowd. So what if instead of a webinar or a slide deck, you made a murder mystery starring Kate Mara from House of Cards and Stranger Things’ Brett Gelman? We’re referring to the original podcast that debuted in the top 20 comedy fiction shows on Apple Podcasts: Murder in HR, presented by Gympass and produced by us here at Caspian Studios. On this episode of Remarkable, we’re showing you why it pays to take a risk in your content marketing. And how creative narratives can help your brand break through the noise, leave a lasting impression on your target audience, and revolutionize your B2B marketing strategy. So brace yourself for this very special episode of Remarkable where we talk with Gympass’ VP of Content Marketing, Chris Dean, about the creation of Murder in HR.About Murder in HRMurder in HR is a podcast about a woman named Jemma who just started a new job as Employee Experience Manager at a tech startup. On her first day at the company all-hands, one of her co-workers gets electrocuted. It’s while investigating his death that she discovers he was murdered. So she teams up with her Chief People Officer, Nicholas, to find out who the murderer is. So armed with her HR skills, Jemma investigates her toxic colleagues while trying not to become the next victim herself. Murder in HR is an original podcast murder mystery starring the voices of Kate Mara and Brett Gelman, produced by Caspian Studios and presented by Gympass. About our guest, Chris DeanChris Dean is VP of Content Marketing at Gympass, having joined the company in September of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as Executive Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Ramsey Solutions. He has also served as Global Content Marketing & Public Relations Manager at Albemarle.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Murder in HR: Take a risk. Create a piece of content that transcends expectations in B2B marketing. Infuse storytelling into your marketing efforts to create a compelling and relatable narrative that engages and resonates with potential clients. Chris says that the availability of AI along with the need to grow brand recognition for Gympass in the U.S. drove them to create something top of funnel and unique. He says, “We didn't want to do some crazy stunt that got us a spike of awareness for the wrong reasons. We wanted something meaningful. We wanted something that was going to resonate with HR representatives. We wanted to give them a reason to continue to come back to us.” And Murder in HR was born.Use brand integrations. Put your branding into the story in a subtle and seamless way to blend into the plot while hinting at the benefits of your product. Gympass wanted to use brand integrations like Steven Spielberg (e.g. Reese’s Pieces in E.T.), fitting marketing for Gympass organically into the story structure of Murder in HR. Ian says that the way they integrated Gympass in the story was that the company in the story uses Gym Pass as part of their benefits. It’s a proven technique used from B2C, Hollywood and beyond to drive business.Create an experience. Make every piece of content fit the customer journey. Chris says, “The worst thing that you can have in content marketing is a dead end piece of content. It all needs to be part of a longer experience.” And that experience pushes customers to your website. But the thing about Gympass is they’re not trying to rush it. For them, it’s about creating a more seamless, enjoyable, and one-of-a-kind experience. Chris says, “It's all about continuing the conversation and offering up the next logical step for them to take with us.” So sit back and enjoy the ride.Quotes*“If they're listening to the podcast, they might not even know they have an HR related problem at their company. We're introducing the problem to them so that now they're problem aware. And then they're solution seeking because it's like, ‘Okay, I don't want these toxic behaviors. What can I do about it?’ And then once Gympass is introduced into that, then they're solution aware and they know that Gympass could be a possible solution for them.” - Chris Dean*”Our brand awareness activities need to be driving brand traffic. And so we should be seeing a continuous increase there from all of our activities. The challenge is associating one individual activity with that traffic profile. But whenever we have a launch of something, we can look on that traffic profile, and we see a distinct spike that perfectly aligns with that. And so that gives us an indication of the traffic impact of that activity.” - Chris DeanTime Stamps[1:55] Get to know Chris Dean, VP of Content Marketing at Gympass[4:21] Why is Murder in HR groundbreaking?[7:57] What was the impetus behind creating Murder in HR?[8:48] Tell me more about Murder in HR[15:45] How did the podcast incorporate brand integrations for Gympass?[21:35] What was the inspiration behind Murder in HR? And how did they use experiential marketing?[27:13] How do they think about the customer journey at Gympass?[32:04] How does Gympass measure the ROI of top of funnel or brand awareness content?[36:45] Chris Dean’s advice for other B2B content marketersLinksListen to Murder in HRConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about GympassAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your employees have untapped star potential. Think about it.We all love a little drama, some hot gossip, some spilt tea. And it happens in the office just as much as it happens in a high-end restaurant. We’re not saying you should stir it up for the sake of creating content, but it’s the personalities, interpersonal relationships, and social politics that attract an audience. And you aren’t tapping into that audience. Not yet.If someone were to say, “Want to watch a show about waiters at a fancy restaurant?” You’d probably say no. Well, you’d be saying no to Bravo’s “crown jewel” with over 4 million viewers and each member of the cast earning at least $25,000 an episode: Vanderpump Rules. The show made celebrities out of their waitstaff and earned a dedicated following for ten seasons with an eleventh season on the way. So on this episode of Remarkable, we’re asking the question: “Want to make a series about the employees at your B2B tech company?” To do that, we’re joined by PandaDoc Head of Content Bethany Fagan. Together, we're turning to the reality TV sensation to learn about creating a series, leveraging divisible content, putting your talent front and center, and posting where your competitors aren’t. So pour yourself some rosé and put your feet up because we’re talking Scandoval-and-all on this episode of Remarkable.About Vanderpump RulesVanderpump Rules is a reality TV show about former Real Housewives star Lisa Vanderpump and her staff at her high end restaurants and bars in West Hollywood, including SUR [Sexy Unique Restaurant] Restaurant & Lounge, Pump Restaurant and Tom Tom Restaurant & Bar. It’s a spinoff of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It focuses on the interpersonal relationships and drama among the employees, including Kristen Doute, Katie Maloney, Tom Sandoval, Stassi Schroeder and Jax Taylor. So there are blooming romantic relationships, cheating, divorce, marriage, betrayals, etc. The first season aired in 2013 and now there are 10 seasons out, all on Bravo.About our guest, Bethany FaganBethany Fagan is Head of Content at PandaDoc. She has been with PandaDoc for over 7 years, having joined in February 2016 as Partner Marketing Manager. Prior to PandaDoc, she served as Director of Content and PR at iQ media. She is a founding member of Sales Hacker, Inc. and an Associate Member of Pavilion. She is based in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore area.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Vanderpump Rules: Create a series. Make a podcast or video series for your organization. Use the content in its entirety or cut it into smaller pieces and post it across social media channels. It diversifies your content asset production, spreads brand awareness and accesses new audiences. Bethany says that last year, they saw a 79% increase in their social media followers. And she credits that growth to the PandaDoc podcast, The Customer Engagement Lab, which Bethany’s team started in 2020. Lisa Vanderpump’s leveraging of reality tv has resulted in as many as 2,000 diners showing up to her restaurants on a busy night, and a net worth of somewhere around $90 million.Use the talent you have. People are drawn to companies they can relate to. Put faces to the company name and focus on the relationships to impart authenticity and humanize your brand. On top of this benefitting your company’s brand, you’re also leveraging the personal brands of each employee involved. If one of them gets fans, it magnifies your company’s brand and theirs. Likewise, Lisa Vanderpump features her employees in Vanderpump Rules. Each of them has a personal brand that they’ve built outside of the show that fans relate to. That’s why Jax, Stassi and Ariana all have millions of Instagram followers. And why Stassi, Katie, and Kristen were able to launch a wine company together. Because fans want to buy into their personal brands.Go where your competitors aren’t. Post your marketing content on Instagram if your competitors use LinkedIn and Facebook. Bethany says PandaDoc is posting to TikTok simply because the DocuSigns and the Adobe Signs of the world weren’t on it. And month-over-month, they see a 10 to 20% increase in followers. It's a winning strategy to grow your brand.Quotes*”Content marketing 101 is repurposing and getting more juice from the squeeze.” - Bethany Fagan*”From a content team perspective, we just try to control the controllable. You know, what are some of the metrics that I know that matter that I can confidently report on and try to tie that back to revenue for the business? That's how I tell the story with my leadership team, and that's how I get them to invest in more content for us.” - Bethany FaganTime Stamps[1:28] Get to know Bethany Fagan, Head of Content at PandaDoc[2:38] Why are we covering Vanderpump Rules?[3:31] Learn more about Vanderpump Rules[7:20] Why is Scandoval so attention-grabbing?[9:41] What contributed to Vanderpump Rules’ longevity?[14:26] What B2B marketing lessons can we take from Vanderpump Rules? (And how has PandaDoc leveraged these lessons?)[16:24] The power of diversifying marketing content and leveraging its divisible content[24:01] About PandaDoc’s TikTok debut and how to measure success on a new social media platform[27:23] Learn more about PandaDoc’s content strategy with their podcast, The Customer Engagement Lab[32:27] How to get leadership on board to invest in new contentLinksWatch Vanderpump RulesConnect with Bethany Fagan on LinkedInLearn more about PandaDocCheck out PandaDoc’s podcast, The Customer Engagement LabAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Can you sum up your marketing message in three words? (And would customers “get” it?)Like, can you write it in plain language—just a few words that would make sense to your audience? Because if you - the B2B marketer - get it, your audience will too, right? Maybe not.On this episode of Remarkable, we’re learning from the 90s classic movie Speed about keeping it simple. The movie can literally be summed up in three words: “Bomb on bus.” It’s a blissfully simple premise that rocked viewers, made Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock stars, and raked in $350 million dollars at the box office. And we’re bringing on board Director of Content Strategy at 6Sense, Chris Hutchins, to talk storytelling, using character tropes, and fictionalizing your B2B marketing. So grab your popcorn and buckle up for the wild ride that is this latest, greatest episode of Remarkable as we talk about Speed (“Not the drug, but the movie” - Ian Faison).About the movie SpeedSpeed is a 1994 action movie starring Keanu Reeves as young police officer Jack Traven who has to keep a bomb from exploding on a city bus by staying above 50 mph. It also stars Sandra Bullock as the female counterpoint, Annie, who ironically had had her drivers’ license revoked for speeding but steps in when the bus driver is shot. And of course the villain is played by Dennis Hopper as Howard Payne, the madman who rigged the bus with the bomb in the first place. Speed was written by Graham Yost and directed by Jan de Bont.About our guest, Chris HutchinsChris is a versatile, deadline-driven content director, editor and writer with corporate go-to-market, creative agency and professional journalism experience. He uses nimble workflows to produce world-class content at scale. His agency work has engaged millions of consumers worldwide.Chris is currently the Director of Content Strategy for 6sense, an ABM platform. He also provides consulting services for SMBs that need help with content strategy, content production, branding and messaging.In addition, he helps craft award-winning immersive marketing narratives, screenplays and novels for companies such as 20th Century Fox, A&E, Cinemax, Discovery, FOX Broadcasting, Infiniti, Macmillan Publishers and Ubisoft. He has been profiled by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR’s Weekend Edition, ABC Radio and the BBC.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Speed: Keep the story simple. Use simple, straightforward language to explain what your marketing message is. Drop the jargon and boil down your message. Chris says that your audience needs a simple story, especially in the beginning, “to get the hook and begin to get an understanding of our content or product.” He says you don’t want prospective customers opening your site to find the content to be far over their heads. Speed does this with its simple premise that anyone can understand, that grabs attention and conveys a sense of immediacy.Fictionalize your story. Add fictionalized elements to your B2B marketing to grab your audience's attention, invite their curiosity, and inspire them to share their experience on social media. Chris shared an example of an event that incorporated a sort of online scavenger hunt. He says, “You just need to color outside the lines just a little bit to make it memorable.” And that the effect can be dramatic, especially in the B2B world. We see fictionalized elements in Speed as well, like when the bus has to cross an unfinished overpass, effectively leaping over a 50-foot gap in the road. Viewers are invited to suspend their disbelief to continue following the storyline. That fictional element is an invitation to go deeper into the story, deeper into engagement.Quotes*”When I think about blissful storytelling, it’s uncomplicated. Here is a movie done 30 years ago that is just pure bliss because you don't have to have a deep knowledge of X, Y, and Z. You are just there for the ride.” - Chris Hutchins*”As B2B content creators and marketers, we often assume our audience has the same kind of comprehensive knowledge about our product, when in fact, we are the ones who are drinking the Kool-Aid. They need the simple story - at least in the beginning - to get the hook, and to get an understanding and become delighted and dazzled by our solution. Make it as plain spoken as possible. And make sure that our readers who are coming to our site, likely for the first time, find something that isn't overwhelming or over their heads.” - Chris Hutchins*”The B2B equivalent of a blissful story is simply told and invites curiosity. It gets you from the beginning of the story to the end. And then keeps you engaged to investigate more.” - Chris Hutchins*”When you are starting to get sick of your messaging, that means that it's probably starting to sink in with your audience.” - Ian Faison*“Don't try to be every single thing. Just try to focus and say, ‘This is exactly the utility that you're gonna get from this thing.’ It's not gonna be 50 other things. It's just gonna be this one.” - Ian Faison“The first 30 minutes of the movie is not set on a bus. And the last 30 minutes of the movie is not set on a bus. But all we remember when we talk about speed is the stuff on the bus. So what do you want your audience to remember? What do you want them to remember feeling?” - Chris Hutchins“There are ways to enhance your narrative with fictional elements or fictionalized elements. You just need to color outside the lines just a little bit to make it memorable for them. It’s wildly, wildly experimental stuff in the world of B2B. But the path of creating these experiences, while it's a non-trivial thing to accomplish, it's absolutely possible and the promotional upside can be really dramatic.” - Chris HutchinsTime Stamps[1:20] Get to know Chris Hutchins, Director of Content Strategy at 6Sense[2:41] Tell me more about Speed[7:43] What makes Speed Remarkable?[12:23] How to keep your brand message simple[16:08] Ask: What do you want your audience to remember feeling about your brand?[19:39] What is 6Sense?[22:40] How does Chris use his experience as a narrative writer in his marketing work at 6Sense, and what can we learn from it?[28:53] Why don't we use fiction more in B2B?[35:28] How could you apply fiction to a B2B event?LinksWatch SpeedConnect with Chris Hutchins on LinkedInLearn more about 6SenseCheck out Chris’ work and writingAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

We’re willing to bet that you’re working on a new B2B campaign and require some new inspiration.Because all B2B tech ads look and sound the same. They just melt into one shapeless, forgettable jumble of fingers typing and screens scrolling. But we see you plodding along in the B2B marketing marathon of sameness, and we’re throwing you some jet-boosted sneakers.On this episode of Remarkable, we’re daring you to do the exact opposite of your competitors, to outsource the authenticity of your brand voice to your customers, and much, much more. And we’re doing that with the help of our special guest, Senior Director of Brand at Axonius, Kaite Rosa. Together, we’re exploring the iconic and visionary 2007 Nike ad campaign featuring pro runner Lauren Fleshman. We look at how the ad deviated from the “tasteful nude” status quo of female athletes in ads, dismantled the objectification of women in sports, and promoted inclusivity by leveraging Lauren’s voice. And how you too can subvert expectations, make a statement, and do it authentically. So lace up your new sneaks and get ready to redefine B2B ads on the latest episode of Remarkable.About Nike’s “Objectify Me” CampaignNike’s “Objectify Me” campaign was a 2007 ad featuring pro runner Lauren Fleshman. It’s a 30-second black and white slow mo video of Lauren running toward the camera. And we hear Lauren’s voice. She says, “Look at me, study me, understand me. I’m not a small, pink version of a man. Don’t give me small, pink versions of a man’s running shoe. I’m Lauren Fleshman. I’m a runner, and I’m a woman.” Then it shows her running out of frame, and the Nike logo pops up on screen. It’s a really understated Nike ad that deviated FAR from its predecessors.Lauren is a decorated distance runner. She won five NCAA championships at Stanford and two national championships as a professional athlete. She’s also a writer, having been featured in The New York Times and Runner’s World. Lauren is now Brand Strategy Advisor for fitness apparel company Oiselle, and Co-Founder of natural food company Picky Bars. Her book Good For a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World came out in January 2023.About our guest, Kaite RosaKaite Rosa is Senior Director of Brand at Axonius, where she leads the team responsible for creating a $2.6 billion brand in less than five years. Cited as one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity brands in history, Axonius has been named one of the most valuable private cloud companies in the world by the Forbes Cloud 100, along with numerous industry accolades.A life-long writer, she is passionate about using storytelling and creative concepts to define and build exceptional brand experiences. She has spent the bulk of her career at tech startups, and thrives on rapidly growing, fast-paced teams. Previously, she led brand and content at Payfactors, Virgin Pulse, and VentureFizz.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Nike’s “Objectify Me” Campaign: Do the opposite of what’s expected. Look at what other companies in your space are doing in their campaigns and make a campaign based on the antithesis of that. Be the rebel in your industry. Subvert the expected. Kaite says so many brands feel like they have to join in on what’s popular or trending. She says, “There's a lot of, like, ‘Me too,’ right? Like, they're gonna copy it and try to make it their own, and look very similar. But what inspires me the most is looking at what your competitors are doing and doing the exact opposite.” It’s like how Lauren Fleshman was presented with a briefing inspired by Brandi Chastain’s “tasteful nude” ad, and advocated instead to be in her athletic gear and to write the ad copy herself. She turned the copy on its head, saying that if she was going to be objectified, it would be to design running gear specific to her physiology. And the campaign became iconic.Outsource authenticity to your customers. Make your customer’s voice your brand voice. Ian says marketers always want to control the narrative, but sometimes you need to let your customers take the wheel. Because he says that when you ask customers to talk about your brand in their own words, “They come up with something absolutely brilliant that you could never have written.” And how could that not be authentic? Nike was able to outsource the authenticity piece of Lauren’s ad because Lauren wrote the copy herself. For sure, there was a layer of brand approval, but the words are Lauren’s. So outsource the authenticity piece of your ad copy to customers, and it will resonate.Quotes*”Whether you're working in a bootstrapped company or publicly funded company. any budget can accommodate your customer voice.” - Kaite Rosa*”If you're doing a high-level brand campaign, the approach shouldn't be, ‘Let's sell you all the features and benefits.’ It should be, ‘Let's get you in the store. Let's get you remembering who we are so that the next time you need those new sneakers or you need a B2B SaaS solution,  you remember the ad.’” - Kaite Rosa*”What is memorable and where storytelling really comes alive is when you look at what's out there and say, ‘We're gonna do something that is disruptive, that is different. And I think that you can do that on any budget.” - Kaite Rosa*“People latch on to the authenticity of brands. That's what drives you emotionally to a brand, is that it feels authentic. It resonates with you. And I think living and breathing your values in everything you do, if you're at a company with a culture that encourages that, that ties your values into everything you do, it comes naturally. Good marketing and good brands tap into those values.” - Kaite RosaTime Stamps[1:37] Get to know Kaite Rosa, Senior Director of Brand at Axonius[2:14] Tell me more about Nike’s “Objectify Me” campaign[8:04] About athletic advertising before Lauren Fleshman’s campaign[12:23] About the timelessness of the “Objectify Me” ad[14:23] Why challenging the status quo is important[23:27] How to ground your message in values[24:53] What does Axonius do?[25:42] What’s Axonius’ brand strategy?[26:41] How does Kaite think about the ROI of content marketing?[27:14] Learn more about Axonius’ “Controlling Complexity” campaign with gymnast Simone BilesLinksSee Nike’s Objectify Me ad with Lauren FleshmanConnect with Kaite Rosa on LinkedInLearn more about AxoniusCheck out the Axonius campaign with Simone BilesAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is generally a one-way conversation. You tell your audience what to buy, period, end of story. But what if we could change that dynamic and actually give our audience some control over our campaigns?You might argue that you already listen to the voice of the customer through surveys and testimonials. But have you ever really used their feedback to make a game-changing decision in your business? Well, today's the day we flip the script and let the audience take charge.On this episode of Remarkable, we’re soaking up marketing lessons from the UK hit series Love Island. Because Love Island is a show that relies on its audience to make those critical decisions, audience members can literally decide whether an islander will stay or go. This might be why the show earned itself a dedicated following. Without that audience participation, it wouldn’t be the Love Island we know and…well, love. So tune in as we unpack the marketing gold that is Love Island. We'll show you how to hook your audience on your content by tapping into the power of their input. Get ready to learn how to make your customers an integral part of your decision-making process and create an unbreakable connection with them. It's time to let your audience take control and revolutionize your marketing approach.About Love IslandLove Island is a reality tv/dating game show where beautiful single people are invited to stay in a tropical villa together in search of love. Drama unfolds when new islanders arrive, they’re given challenges, or contestants fail to match up and get kicked off the island. One couple will win a cash prize. ($100,000) They often also leave with sponsor and branding deals, and lots of new Instagram followers.It was originally a popular series in the UK created by ITV Studios (2005 and 2006 was Celebrity Love Island, then returned in 2015) The U.S. started its own version in 2019. Now 22 versions of Love Island exist worldwide.About our guest, Kailey RaymondKailey Raymond is Director of Enterprise Marketing at Segment. There, she is building a full-funnel Enterprise Marketing motion including ABM, thought leadership, upsell/cross-sell and outbound programs. Prior to Segment, Kailey started the Customer Marketing team at AlphaSense, built local communities and revenue at Hired in both Sales and Field Marketing roles and grew a global community of career transitioners and partners as the second employee of a STEM bootcamp.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Love Island: Give your audience agency in your brand. Ask for their feedback and incorporate it into your marketing. By showing them you’re listening and taking action based on their feedback, you show that you care about them. It creates a mutually beneficial relationship and forms a connection. Love Island actually has its own app. And people watching can vote for their favorite couples, as well as decide on who stays on the island and who gets kicked off. So every viewer has some power over the fate of each islander, so much so that the show becomes quite addictive. Ian says, “Giving the audience agency is ridiculously powerful.” Get your audience involved in the decision making and they’ll be hooked on your marketing.Engage with your audience in real time. The goal is to respond and interact with your audience in as quick of a timeline as possible. So build the muscle of quick response times on your marketing team. And leverage AI to speed up that process. Being able to interact with your audience provides a personalized, human experience. On Love Island, producers are sourcing viewer tweets in real time and showing them on screen to add dimension to the show. So as a viewer, the chance that your tweet could be part of the show makes your participation all the more appealing.Quotes*”The show requires engagement, it requires the audience to participate, or it would destroy the fabric of the show. Like, I can make a difference in getting this person voted off. Giving the audience agency is ridiculously powerful.” - Ian Faison*”The real-time audience interaction that they've embedded within the show allows you to feel like you're a part of their journey. It makes you want to watch. Every episode you have vested interest because you could be helpful getting somebody you don't like watching booted off the island or giving them the chance to win a hundred thousand pounds. So I think that they created this special sauce with being able to bring in multiple different channels with social, going along with video at the exact same time, and getting the audience interaction live.” - Kailey Raymond*”You absolutely have to have an on-demand component. You have to have a live component to some of your stuff. But if you're not creating on-demand content that's easily streamable, accessible, multi-platform, you are missing out on a massive demographic.” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[1:28] Get to know Kailey Raymond, Global Executive Content Marketing Lead at VMware[5:00] Tell me more about Love Island[6:44] What’s the story behind how Love Island was made?[10:27] How did Love Island rise above the noise of other reality dating shows?[16:29] How can you leverage key storylines to create interest for your audience?[18:56] What marketing lessons can we glean from Love Island?[25:21] What does Love Island teach us about responding in real time?[30:12] What we can learn from viewer statistics[33:58] How does Love Island use partner marketing?LinksWatch Love IslandConnect with Kailey on LinkedInLearn more about SegmentAbout 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The Remarkable team is hard at work on Season 3. And hold on tight because it’s gonna be a good one. This upcoming season, we’re taking B2B marketing lessons from the likes of Mad Men, Survivor, the 90s Keanu Reeves classic, Speed, and much, much more. And we’re doing it all with the help of new guests every episode! We’ll be speaking with marketers from companies like G2, ClickUp, ActiveCampaign and ZoomInfo. And through their expert lens, we’re giving you - the B2B marketer - tips, tricks and tools to use in your own campaigns. So keep an eye on your podcast platform of choice for brand new episodes of Remarkable coming your way very soon.