Podcast appearances and mentions of caspian studios

Some performances fade. Others stay with you for decades.Buena Vista Social Club is one of them. It isn't just a musical—it's a masterclass in resonance, memory, and experience.In this episode, we're pulling B2B marketing lessons from that spirit of storytelling with the help of Dan Lowden, Chief Marketing Officer at Blackbird.AI.Together, we explore why content should come first, how honesty builds brand resilience, and what it takes to create live experiences your audience will talk about for years.About our guest, Dan LowdenDan is the CMO at Blackbird.AI and leads the company's strategic marketing efforts, including demand generation and brand leadership. He has over 20 years of strategic experience at the executive level. He has served as CMO at cybersecurity firm HUMAN Security (acquired by Goldman Sachs), named one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2023. Lowden also served as the CMO at Digital Shadows (acquired by Reliaquest) and, before that, CMO at Invincea (acquired by Sophos) and VP of Marketing at vArmour (acquired by Night Dragon). He has held marketing leadership positions at Wayport (acquired by AT&T), IBM ThinkPad (acquired by Lenovo), NEC Technologies, and Sharp Electronics. Lowden holds an MBA in International Business from Rutgers Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Science from Rider University.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Buena Vista Social Club:Content is the foundation—not an afterthought. Even in cybersecurity, content is king. Dan says, “My first hire was a content person. You can have the best ABM strategy or tools, but if you don't have really valuable content, you're not going to get anywhere.” His advice? Lead with education, not asks. Thoughtful reports, relevant use cases, and engaging narratives will earn your audience's attention—and their trust.Honesty builds brand resilience. When it comes to trust, marketing can't cut corners. Especially in high-stakes industries like cybersecurity. Dan says, “There's been a lot of overstatement of things by marketers and salespeople. That's when marketing takes a ding.” Instead, he urges CMOs to stay grounded: deliver real value, communicate with clarity, and show your audience you're in it for the long haul.Live experiences create a lasting impact. If you want your brand to be unforgettable, you need to create moments that move people. “People still come up to us today and say that band and that experience 10-plus years ago—they remember. There's not been anything like that,” Dan says, reflecting on a live concert his team produced. Whether it's a concert, a rooftop dinner, or a one-of-a-kind conference, remarkable experiences turn into word-of-mouth—and brand love that lingers.Quotes*“To me, in marketing—B2B or B2C—it's about creating a relationship, trust, even friendship, a community with your audience.”*"If you treat your customers well, if you serve them well, if you're honest with them… then you have a chance of being very successful as a company.”*“Music is really, really important, really powerful… as a marketer, especially in cybersecurity where there's 5,000 cybersecurity companies, you have to do something different. You have to stand out.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Dan Lowden, CMO at Blackbird.AI[03:42] The Magic of Live Theater[06:21] The Role of a CMO in Cybersecurity[10:23] Understanding Narrative Attacks[14:29] The Evolution of Narrative Intelligence[22:36] The Story Behind Buena Vista Social Club[28:31] The Power of Live Music in Marketing[30:33] Creating Remarkable Experiences[39:21] The Importance of Content in Marketing[45:05] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Dan on LinkedInLearn more about Blackbird.AIAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

Some stories don't need to be loud to leave a mark. Ordinary People is one of those films—a quiet, deeply human story that lingers long after the credits roll. It's not flashy, but it's unforgettable.In this episode, we're pulling marketing lessons from Robert Redford's directorial debut with the help of our special guest Ruth Zive, CMO of Voices.Together, they explore what B2B marketers can learn from telling emotionally resonant stories, leading with creative conviction, and knowing when to step out of the spotlight to let the work speak for itself.About our guest, Ruth ZiveRuth Zive is the Chief Marketing Officer at Voices. Ruth is a skilled and metrics-driven marketing strategist who believes in evidence-based revenue growth through the coordination and alignment of marketing and sales processes. She has worked for two decades serving B2B clients in the technology, financial services, and nonprofit industries.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ordinary People:Conviction is part of the job. Strong marketing doesn't come from consensus—it comes from clarity. Ruth says, “Marketing can sometimes devolve into a bit of a crowdsourced exercise. Everybody wants to edit your content or weigh in on the messaging… but we are the experts in marketing and we should make decisions accordingly.” Have conviction in your vision—and own the creative calls that matter.Tell the story of your customer's pain, not just the product. Emotional resonance starts with understanding your buyer's struggle. Ruth says, “The most resonant stories as a B2B marketer are the ones that start with the pain of the person that you're trying to touch. Ultimately, what you're doing is showcasing how you're going to get the prospect to the other side of that pain.” Lead with empathy, not just features.Stretch your team—and your story. Growth comes from pushing beyond the expected. Ruth says, “You never want your marketing to be a rinse and repeat proposition. You always want it to be a little bit provocative and unexpected.” Like casting Mary Tyler Moore in a dramatic role, bold choices unlock surprising results—creatively and commercially.Quotes*“Know your superpower. I talk about this a lot with my marketing colleagues. Robert Redford was the George Clooney of the day. He had very successful movies, he was a fantastic actor, but he was also a heartthrob. And that might have been a distraction in this story. I think that Robert Redford probably had some good self-awareness in that regard, and some of it might have been that he wanted to test his other skills and stretch into new domains for sure, but it might have been a distraction for him to have been the guy on the screen.”*“You don't need the biggest budget to have the biggest impact. [Robert Redford]  didn't have to hire the biggest star, and yet, look at how the movie performed.”*“I think at the end of the day, the folks behind the brand, even in B2B marketing, creating the assets, writing the story, they are humans, and the folks that we are selling to are ultimately humans. And it is our job as the B2B marketers to make those people on the other side of the transaction feel something. That's what we are trying to do is get them to feel something. And there are a lot of different ways we can do that, but I believe wholeheartedly that it starts with the story. The story speaks to their pain. The story showcases how we are going to make that pain go away. It's a simple formula. But I think that if you lead with features and functions, then you've lost the plot.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Voices CMO Ruth Zive[01:30] About 'Ordinary People' the Movie[04:26] What We Learn From Robert Redford's Directorial Debut[08:21] Analyzing Characters and Themes[13:50] Marketing Lessons from the Movie[25:18] Casting Choices and Their Impact[26:51] Marketing Lessons from Unconventional Casting[29:15] Donald Sutherland's Unique Perspective[32:08] Authenticity in Marketing and Storytelling[38:43] The Future of Voice in Branding[44:30] Content Strategy and Vision Videos[47:40] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Ruth on LinkedInLearn more about VoicesAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

In this special episode of Pipeline Visionaries, Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios, breaks down the future of B2B content creation for 2025. He dives into frameworks and strategies, outlining the five methods of consumption and aiming for high quality that makes virality possible. He also dives into the difference between feeds, shows, and networks, giving case studies and examples and highlights the shift towards platform-specific content and the role of marketers as 'gardeners' in navigating walled gardens like YouTube and LinkedIn.Key Takeaways:There are five methods of consumption that marketers need to be thinking about: shorts, shows, medium form video, live entertainment and fiction.  The format matches consumption. Shorts for scrollers, shows for subscribers, limited series for binges, live events for live learners, fiction for edutainment. A feed and a show and a network are three different things. Creating a network allows audiences to self-select into the content that they like.  The optimal strategy for creating content to deliver it to your audiences, is for creators to create it and put it on the platform. Individuals, not brands.Quote: “ That's what we have to figure out - how do we maximize coverage for our target audience? And if you ignore methods of consumption or you ignore format, or you ignore hosts, you're inherently ignoring a subset of your population."  Episode Timestamps: *(00:06) The future of B2B content in 2025*(01:42) Five methods of consumption*(07:52) Framework: feeds, shows, and networks*(16:38) We're all gardeners: accessing walled gardens*(17:38) The shift to creator-first content*(24:41) The importance of distribution and creativitySponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios

Polish doesn't build trust—personality does. And no one understands that better than TikTok creators, who turn raw ideas into magnetic, shareable content every day.In this episode, we're pulling marketing lessons from TikTok's creative chaos with the help of Rhonda Hughes, award-winning B2B marketing leader.Together, they explore what B2B marketers can learn from leading with authenticity, embracing low-fi experimentation, and having the courage to make something truly original.About our guest, Rhonda HughesRhonda Hughes is a storyteller and connector of people and ideas with 18 years of experience helping brands engage their customers and audiences. She believes in creating value, not noise, and she has a knack for inspiring teams to push boundaries with fresh, fun, relevant content, campaigns, and programs. Rhonda's team's work has earned recognition from Mashable, Business Insider, Hubspot, Sprout Social, KISSmetrics, Content Marketing Institute, and snagged her a spot on North Bay's 40 under 40 “Ones to Watch” list, noted among the “Top 50 Women in Content”, and awarded for "Best B2B Campaign on TikTok."What B2B Companies Can Learn From TikTok Creators:Fun is a strategy—not a distraction. Brands win when they lean into playfulness—not just performance. “The brands that, to me, the companies that feel like they win are the ones that are really always putting their audience in the center and trying to figure out a way to be useful and be human and be playful,” Rhonda says. This kind of joyful creativity builds connection—and makes your brand memorable.Imperfect content is often the most relatable. Audiences don't crave polish—they crave authenticity. “The most engaging content isn't the most polished… you can tell that this was just a creative idea and somebody with their camera and they're rallying the folks internally around how they bring the story to life,” Rhonda says. “And that's part of what makes it so relatable and likable.” Let your audience in on the process, not just the finished product.Iterate like a creator. TikTok's best creators don't get stuck in strategy mode—they test, tweak, and try again. That mindset is essential for B2B marketers too. “TikTok creators are constantly iterating… they've gotta test formats and hooks and trends and sounds, and they have to move fast and be playful with this,” Rhonda says. The takeaway? Strategy doesn't mean overthinking. It means being in motion.Quotes*“You just never know what's gonna work. So you kind of have to be okay with trying and missing and trying again.”*“You want to build content that's gonna resonate with your audience and also be something they want to share.”*“If you're not enjoying what you're making, your audience probably isn't either.”*“It's not about going viral—it's about showing up over and over again.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Rhonda Hughes, Award-Winning Marketer[03:37] The Power of Authenticity on TikTok[06:00] Engaging Content Strategies[10:34] Spotlight on Successful TikTok Campaigns[16:16] Creative Marketing Examples[27:28] The Power of Authenticity in Social Media[29:37] The Bravery of Unique Marketing Strategies[30:33] TSA's Unexpected Social Media Success[32:39] The Importance of Fun and Experimentation in Marketing[42:03] Creating Value, Not Noise[43:37] The Utility of Content and Audience Engagement[50:03] Final Thoughts and Advice for Marketing LeadersLinksConnect with Rhonda on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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 can a satirical HBO series teach you about building a scalable, high-impact B2B marketing engine? A lot—if you ask Manish Gupta.In this episode, 4-Time CMO Manish Gupta joins Caspian CEO Ian Faison to deconstruct the show Silicon Valley and extract lessons on marketing, storytelling, team dynamics, and startup chaos. Together, they explore how to translate complex technology to engage your audience, prioritizing content in your marketing, and including human moments to build brand trust.About our guest, Manish GuptaManish Gupta is a 4x CMO, having led marketing at companies like LaunchDarkly, Sonar and Redis. Manish brings deep experience scaling B2B technology businesses across public and private markets, including acquisitions and strategic transitions.His leadership spans category-defining companies such as Redis, Sonar, Liaison, Oracle, and Apple, where he has successfully driven both product-led and sales-led growth. With domain expertise in software infrastructure, AI, SaaS, cloud, and communications, Manish is known for navigating complex business models and delivering sustainable growth.He has also served as an advisor, board member, and investor in early-stage startups. Manish holds Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Santa Clara University.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Silicon Valley:Tech needs a translator. Technology is hard to understand—even for your audience. “Translating really complex technologies into simple-to-deliver messaging is an art form,” Manish says. “Great technology needs a great story, right? The narrative is so important, and how you deliver the narrative and how you package it is key to the success.”Content is the engine. Not the garnish. Manish makes it clear: “The whole marketing engine should be built around content.” That means investing in formats your audience truly wants—like hands-on guides and short-form videos—and making sure every asset is tailored to a specific persona and stage in the journey.Human moments build brand trust. Whether it's the "Not Hotdog" app or the team playing their bizarre “Always Blue” game, Silicon Valley nails the emotional truth of startup life. That same humanity should be visible in your marketing. Quotes*“ We as marketing leaders have to be very mindful that not everything and everybody in every marketing organization can evolve and move at an exponentially improved pace just because you have the tools. Yes, it has to move on that trajectory, but there has to be a level of reality put into the expectation. Otherwise there's gonna be burnout.”*”I think particularly in the B2B tech space, you've got almost a bifurcation of folks that use the technology but don't have any budget ownership, versus people that have the decision-making authority and the budget ownership but aren't necessarily very close to the technology. And I think marketing has to deal with that two-pronged approach in everything that it does and the channels that get activated. The messaging that has to align with the audience is certainly the content that has to be created, and that can be complicated. Balancing that is a nuanced execution for marketing teams.”*”A CMO should run the entire marketing engine around content. And this is not to invoke the old adage of ‘Content is king,' but, you know, what are you at the end of the day? Delivering or communicating to your target audience, whether it's an existing customer or a prospect you're trying to win over. It is content and how you package that content, how you position it, what story and narrative is wrapped around the technology to deliver is really, at the end of the day, what matters.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Manish Gupta, 4-Time CMO[01:05] Why Silicon Valley?[08:22] What is Silicon Valley?[16:01] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Silicon Valley[24:02] Balancing Predictability and Innovation[28:10] Targeting Practitioners vs. Decision Makers[30:26] Creating How-To Content[33:18] Importance of Content[39:33] Measuring ROI Around a Series of Content[42:13] Advice for CMOs on Content Strategy[43:25] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Manish on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Chris Bontempo, CMO, Johnson Controls, a 140 year old company that is a global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings.Chris spent nearly 19 years at IBM, eventually serving as CMO of IBM Americas before moving to Johnson Controls. He shares his perspective on website content being scraped by LLMs, how they're using AI to reduce ad spend, and which types of content are resonating most with prospects.Key Takeaways:Websites need to be designed to be scraped by LLMs. All CMOs are trying to figure this out right now.CMOs need to consider AI part of their teams “to supplement the labor that [they] have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better”.CMOs need to be hands-on-keys, using, learning and leveraging new tools themselves, in order to be able to lead well.Quote: "As a CMO, you need to consider AI as part of your team, right? So the tools that we're using that all have AI baked into them, the how AI is going to streamline your process. AI is part of your team to supplement the labor that you have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better and at huge scale without taking on a huge amount of expense."Episode Timestamps: *(06:02) The Trust Tree: No daylight between sales and marketing *(15:04) The Playbook: Designing the website to be scraped by AI*(42:12) The Dust Up : There's always a kernel of truth to both sides*(46:08) Quick Hits: Chris's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about Johnson ControlsLearn more about Caspian Studios

Going viral might get you noticed. But consistency is what makes you unforgettable. And no one proves that better than Alix Earle, a TikTok star who turned daily “Get Ready With Me” videos into a personal media empire.In this episode, we're pulling marketing lessons from Alix's rise with the help of Elizabeth Strickert, Director of Content Marketing at A-LIGN.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from staying consistent, growing with (not past) your audience, and making content that's actually fun to create.About our guest, Elizabeth StrickertElizabeth Strickert is Director of Content Marketing at tech-enabled cybersecurity and compliance company A-LIGN. There, Elizabeth is leading content, thought leadership, comms & customer marketing.She has overhauled their SEO program, resulting in top 10 ranking for high-difficulty, high-volume keywords. She also led the creation of an annual benchmark report, reaching 3 million+ impressions. She leverages internal thought leaders for social media, videos, webinars, speaking opps and written content. She previously served as Director of Communications & Content at Ekos and Marketing Communications Manager at Passport.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Alix Earle:Consistency builds credibility. Viral moments come and go, but Alix Earle's staying power lies in her relentless consistency. No shortcuts, just commitment. It's a reminder that content success isn't just about innovation; it's about endurance. Elizabeth says, “Alix, not only did she get rewarded from doing that, she was on TikTok for a long time before she really got big. But even since making it, she's still posting multiple times a day. She is just there doing it, grinding. All the time.” In B2B, the same rule applies: keep posting, keep showing up.Honor your origin story. Growth doesn't mean forgetting who got you there. Alix still makes the content that first drew her audience in, while smartly layering in new formats. In B2B, you must evolve, but stay grounded. Elizabeth reminds us, “You gotta remember who got you here. You gotta remember your core customer base. You gotta remember the people who you know are…the ones that pay the bills.” Make sure to have a balance, especially as you scale.Find the fun and show it. Audiences can feel when you're enjoying what you're creating. It's what makes content magnetic. Alix's success didn't just come from consistency, it came from joy. She leaned into the formats that were fun for her, and her audience leaned in too. Elizabeth puts it plainly: “When someone is excited about the things they're making, it automatically makes them more interesting. And we just have to lean on that.” In B2B, it's easy to default to polished, sanitized messaging. But the real key is letting your content creators tap into what actually excites them. If your team thinks it's boring, your audience will too.Quotes“ We think, B2B, it needs to be polished, it needs to be sanitized. But the story is the interesting part. That's where someone can relate to it. That's where somebody can get hooked in. That's why you care. And I think a lot of times we forget about that.”“We want B2B content to be polished. Sanitized. But the story — that's the interesting part. That's what people actually relate to. We forget that too often. The story is why people care.”“ I think it's good to be a consumer. As a marketer, you're putting content out in the world, you need to consume it. But…you don't need to be going to a B2B workshop. You can watch TikTok. You can watch people like Alix Earle and other folks and get inspiration from what their doing. You can look at what YouTubers are doing. Everything people are doing is a marketing decisions and there's things you can take away from that.”“Influencers start off because they thought, ‘Oh, it'd be kind of fun to make a video.' That's the initial nugget.  And as marketers who, for a living, have chosen to create content and do marketing. We also need to think, ‘Hey, it'd be a little fun to make a video.' That's where the start of it has to come from.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Elizabeth Strickert, Director of Content Marketing at A-LIGN[01:03] Why Alix Earle?[01:56] The Role of Director of Content Marketing at A-LIGN[02:29] The Rise of Alix Earl[13:41] Relatability and Authenticity in Influencer Marketing[21:07] The Power of Parasocial Influence[29:02] B2B Marketing Takeaways From Alix Earle[45:59] A-LIGN's Content Strategy[47:32] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Elizabeth on LinkedInLearn more about A-LIGNAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

Scared marketing doesn't stand out. Bold stories do. And no one knows that better than the team behind Animal, a new documentary that challenges everything you think you know about meat, health, and what drives people to change.In this episode, we're pulling lessons from the film's launch with the help of our special guest, Kevin Carter, Producer at H20 Studios.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can steal from the big screen on how to activate communities, take smart creative risks, and stop playing it safe when the goal is to stand out.About our guest, Kevin CarterKevin Carter is an experienced marketing and production executive with a track record of driving significant revenue and audience growth. Currently a Producer at H20 Studios in Los Angeles, he oversees productions, strategically optimizing budgets to achieve substantial savings while delivering high-impact content reaching millions of viewers. Previously, in Global Marketing Strategy at Lionsgate, Kevin spearheaded marketing campaigns for over 117 film and television releases, generating upwards of $100 million in revenue.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Kevin's documentary, Animal:Build evangelists, not just audiences. A film doesn't go viral because it's seen. It goes viral because people can't stop talking about it. That's how Kevin sees it. He says, “The best way is when you really create an army of people that just talk about your film without you doing anything.” For B2B marketers, that means stop chasing impressions and start sparking conversations. If your product solves a real problem, give your users the language, the emotion, and the why. They won't just use it, they'll share it.Give your team space to strike out. You can't hit home runs if you're too scared to swing. Kevin urges leaders to embrace failure in the name of breakthrough: “You have to allow your executives to have three strikeouts before a win… try some crazy things that might cause some virality.” In B2B, too many marketers are stuck playing defense. But virality, innovation, and true brand momentum come from cultures that reward experimentation, not just execution. If you want word of mouth, you have to make room for risk.Challenge the spreadsheet. When executives default to templates, creativity gets sidelined. Kevin puts it bluntly: “Do I use this templated spend calculator… or do I take a chance and try something new to break through all the noise?” Most choose safety and the result is scared content that no one talks about. In B2B, the same trap shows up in recycled campaigns and rinse-repeat strategies. But breakthrough growth doesn't come from playing it safe. It comes from marketers brave enough to break the mold. Because what limits risk often limits reach.Quotes*“The best way is when you really create an army of people that just talk about your film without you doing anything. Every one person that you market to that loves it and then tells three other people. There's so much value to that. And then you expand that out to thousands of people, and they're all sharing with other people. That is the winning formula, really.”*“You finally get that EVP role… you're just loving life, and then you have two options. Do I use this templated spend calculator that we use on films, that's probably solid… limits our downside risk? Or do I take a chance and try something new and fresh, and try to break through all the noise out there, but the downside risk is a bit higher? Most of the time, they pick the latter... I think you get stuck in. Just making scared content all the time versus making like the best content.”*“For Animal, there's been no templated spend at all, we are just doing a totally bespoke campaign. If we do another film after this, it won't be the same either. You have to look at each project and ask, what are our strengths? What are our weaknesses?... And then lean into your strengths and hopefully that carries you to the promised land.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Kevin Carter, Producer at H20 Studios[01:00] Breaking Down Kevin's Documentary, Animal[07:52] Marketing Strategies For Film and TV[14:51] Challenges and Risks in Movie Marketing[21:25] Rethinking Your Target Audience[27:14] Innovative Marketing Techniques For Film and TV[33:40] Creating the Documentary, Animal[35:26] Marketing Animal[40:02 Final Thoughts & TakeawaysLinksConnect with Kevin on LinkedInCheck out AnimalAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio, Atlassian and author of the book Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI. Ashley dives into the pitfalls of both active spamming and the bait-and-switch tactics that are commonplace today. She also explains why marketers should ditch the funnel framework and embrace playgrounds as the model for the customer journey, and shares her insights into what it means to make marketing truly human-centric. Key Takeaways:Misleading CTAs and bait-and-switch tactics erode trust. Marketers should not be trying to trick prospects into buying. It is expensive to acquire a customer that is a bad fit, and they should be prioritizing the relationship.The funnel is outdated; marketers should adopt “the playground” where they allow customers to move through a self-directed customer journey however they want to.The language that we use to talk about our audience, “is so adversarial. It's like I'm gonna hunt for a prospect and I'm gonna capture a lead, and I'm gonna lock down a deal.” Remember there is a person behind the screen.Quote: “ My job as a marketer, I always say, I never want to sell anything to anybody. My job is to match problems with solutions. And if I harass you or convince you to buy something that doesn't actually solve your problem, that's going to  be very expensive for me to fix, either from a reputation standpoint, from a support or implementation cost standpoint. Like, it's not free for me to acquire a customer that's a bad fit. It's not just not serving them. It does not serve the business either. And I think that's the other piece that like sometimes people think when I talk about this, that I'm trying to be altruistic or that like it's a nice thing to do for the audience. I mean, yes, we should be decent humans, but it's bad for business to behave this way and to do the bait and switch or to force somebody into a bad fit. It's gonna be very expensive for you to force fit that, or to try to, you know, win and re-win that customer or to serve that customer If they go nuclear and they start posting on social media, or they file a lawsuit, right? It's very expensive to get out of a bad deal or to turn a bad deal into a good deal.”Segment Timestamps:*(02:55) Human-centered marketing frameworks*(08:56) The pitfalls of bait-and-switch tactics*(27:13) The playground over the funnel*(35:33) The Playbook: Uncuttable budget itemsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ashley on LinkedInLearn more about AtlassianHuman-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AILearn more about Caspian Studios

Cool features don't make a story. Emotional stakes do. And no one knew that better than Knight Rider, a show where a talking car and a lone hero made 80s TV unforgettable.In this episode, we're pulling lessons from that retro icon with the help of our special guest, Ashley Sasnett, Senior Director of Content Strategy at EquifaxTogether, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from classic archetypes, character-driven branding, and the power of giving your product a little personality (or maybe even a voice of its own).About our guest, Ashley SasnettAshley Sasnett is the Senior Director of Content Strategy at Equifax. She is an award-winning, dynamic, and energetic digital marketing strategist with an extensive background in content, social media, mobile, campaign design and execution, and audience development. Ashley is a data-driven leader who embraces social listening and digital analytics to glean insights to solve business problems.Ashley is a marketer who humanizes Brands with social media, digital content, and influencers, creating connections with clients and prospects.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Knight Rider:Storytelling makes the features matter. Knight Rider didn't win fans because KITT had voice activation or turbo boost. It won fans because those features served a bigger story. A story about a hero resurrected to right wrongs with his talking car by his side. Ashley urges marketers to take the same approach. Don't just list functionality. Show how it fits into a compelling narrative. Ashley says, “That's a story. And so I think for me, when I'm thinking about how do you create marketing that really sticks with people is... you need to really pull 'em away from like brochureware.” When tech serves emotion, people remember it. So build the story before you build the spec sheet.Embrace the buddy system. At its heart, Knight Rider was a buddy story—man and machine. That relationship brought emotional grounding to an otherwise tech-heavy premise. Ashley points out how powerful that dynamic is in marketing, too. Even the most advanced products need a human emotion. Ashley explains, “You gotta give him a friend… give them a buddy to keep their humanity, keep them connected so they can go out and be the hero they're supposed to be.” Your product might be brilliant. But it's the companion—the story, the use case, the customer—that brings it to life.Make it iconic, not just informative. KITT wasn't just a car. It had a voice, a silhouette, and a sound you could recognize anywhere. It was branding genius and completely unforgettable. Ashley sees this as a blueprint for marketers: features don't stick unless they're wrapped in a sensory identity people can latch onto. Ashley says, “When the car is driving up…that sound is like Darth Vader's voice. Everyone knows that sound. It's so ownable to the show.” Don't just inform. Design your marketing to be remembered. Own your marketing.Quotes*“When I'm thinking about how do you create marketing that really sticks with people is it's, yeah, you gotta give 'em the AI and the voice of recognition and the bulletproof and the hot car thing. You gotta give them features and functionality, but you need to really pull them away from like brochureware, right? Don't take a product sheet and turn it into a webpage. We're so past that. Because a lot of the time, people are going through and checking boxes for that stuff, but they're not getting the use case, the value prop, the differentiation that's wrapped around those features and functionality. And when you do have something that's different, doubling down on that, so you can stand out, you're gonna do that in storytelling, and you always have these big story arcs.”*“ Market your marketing. The challenge that you've got is throughout your organization, people are seeing your marketing, but they're seeing it more as users. They're seeing the end product, they're not always understanding the strategies behind it. And I love a good dashboard. I love a good metric, I love a good deck, but you don't wanna turn them into crutches. You need to have that elevator pitch…And I think marketers, internally, we get so caught up in the bits and bobs and the how it's made, and we like to geek out on that stuff. We forget that really everybody just needs three or four bullet points… I think that's where it's funny 'cause we don't do for ourselves as we should do for our company or for our customers. Which is market your marketing, make sure people are understanding why you're doing what you're doing and how.”*“Stories are  pretty basic…Things were cranking along, and then you hit a stormy patch, and now things are better because you use this product. The stories  that you unearth in there is how they've used that product, but you've got that big story arc that kind of pulls it all together….  What is the conflict? Who's the protagonist? And then what does that or resolution look like? And when you're able to do that, you're gonna have a fuller, clearer picture for the audience to really glom onto. Because unless you're in the room with them telling that story, you've gotta let your digital content do a lot of work.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Ashley Sasnett, Sr. Director, Content Strategy at Equifax[01:15] Why Knight Rider?[03:13] The Role of Sr. Director of Content Strategy at Equifax[05:21] Origins of Knight Rider[10:37] B2B Marketing Lessons from Knight Rider[37:42] Equifax's Content Strategy[41:26] Creating Memorable Content[43:15] Great Current Marketing Campaigns[47:37] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Ashley on LinkedInLearn more about EquifaxAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

Rational thinking might drive economics, but emotional behavior drives decisions. And no one understands that better than Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, a book that's reshaped our assumptions about how people make decisions.In this episode, we're unpacking key lessons from Dan Ariely's work with the help of our special guest, Leslie Alore, SVP of Marketing at Flexera.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from setting the right expectations, why fewer choices close more deals, and how the power of “free” and fear of loss can drive serious retention.About our guest, Leslie AloreAs the SVP of Marketing, Leslie Alore leads Flexera's marketing strategy with an aim to create great experiences and outcomes for our customers.Her passion for people and technology—combined with more than 15 years of marketing leadership in the tech space—has established her as a successful, results-driven executive who enables teams to do their best work.Prior to joining Flexera, Leslie served as the Global SVP of Lifecycle Marketing at Ivanti. Before that, she held various marketing, operations and GTM strategy roles at Iron Mountain. Leslie is an active speaker and mentor in the GTM community, and has been recognized among “Top Women in Marketing” by Ragan Communications and “Women of the Channel” by CRN.Leslie holds a BBA in Management, and an MBA with a concentration in Strategic Leadership from Walsh College of Accountancy and Business Administration.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Predictably Irrational:Set expectations to shape reality. Great marketing doesn't just reflect value, it creates the conditions for it. Leslie highlights how expectations shape reality. When buyers believe something is good, they interpret every detail through that lens. This isn't about manipulation, it's about clarity and consistency. Leslie says, “The effect of expectations… believing beforehand something is good, therefore it will be or the reverse.” So stop hoping your audience connects the dots. Tell them what to expect, then deliver on it. Perception isn't a bonus, it's the foundation.Shrink your options to speed the decision. Too many options stall progress. The paradox of choice tells us more isn't better, it's paralyzing. Leslie urges marketers to curate the path forward: “You actually want to give people fewer options and take control of the options that they see.” Don't just join the shortlist, define it. When you narrow the frame, you speed up the decision for your customers. Turn “free” into staying power with loss aversion. There's magic in “free,” but the real power lies in what people fear losing. Once someone uses your product, whether it's a freemium tool or an ungated resource, they've invested. Now there's skin in the game. Leslie puts it simply, “People will overvalue something that's free and ignore kind of the trade-off costs associated. And loss is psychologically painful. We don't want to lose that, which we already have.” Whether you offer software, content, or services, create early wins. Then make the cost of leaving feel higher than the cost of staying.Quotes*“ There's many organizations that lean into that power of positivity…What's very interesting is that consumer brands do this a lot very, very well. B2B organizations tend to do almost the opposite. They tend to lean more into FUD. And that's a harder road to tread.”*“ If you're an organization that is selling software, the software is designed to provide a business outcome. It's designed to solve a business problem. Instead of focusing on, here's the business problem. Doesn't that suck for you? You can say, ‘here's the solution.*“You have the power, you can feel confident about your ability to achieve X, Y, Z because you've solved this problem.' It's saying the same thing, but orienting it in a positive way and being very, very, very consistent in that message. Beat that drum over and over and over again.”*“ Narrow down the competitive options for them. Your sales process will move faster. You will be able to take better control of the narrative if you say, ‘this is us and these are the two other vendors that look like us. And here's why we are different and better, and here's what you can expect from these guys.' And that doesn't mean saying negative things about them.  It's just highlighting your strengths and your virtues.”*“People are willing to accept trade-offs for something that is perceived to be free…This is the exact reason that PLG, product-led growth, is so powerful. Because if you can get people in the door with some sort of freemium offering, people will actually work harder to do the legwork to get a free product to work and interact with it, than they might be willing to put in for something that they have to go pay for. And then once they have it and they've put in the work, they don't wanna lose it.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Leslie Alore, SVP of Marketing at Flexera[00:56] Why Predictably Irrational?[02:20] The Role of SVP of Marketing at Flexera[02:47] Understanding Predictably Irrational[09:56] B2B Marketing Lessons from Predictably Irrational[37:49] Cognitive Dissonance in Buying Behavior[42:17] Emotional Marketing in B2B[46:18] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Leslie on LinkedInLearn more about FlexeraAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Avi Bhagtani, CMO at Digitate, a company that leverages machine learning and AI to intelligently manage IT and business operations.Avi discusses their success with regional, curated events and how they are investing in AI experiments. He also shares insights into how they are leveraging AI to optimize the website. Key Takeaways:Many successful events are curated, smaller and regional. Marketers who can meet their customer expectations and create networking opportunities with peers will pull ahead. The world of the traditional funnel is gone. The buyer journey is much more user dependent. Buyers have more agency and the journey has become very fast. The speed that generative AI can move when it comes to updating the website and launching ABM campaigns is already astonishing, and will only get better. Marketers should be leveraging these tools to move faster. Quote: “In the last one year, we have experimented with at least 12 to 15 new tools, either for finding our prospects or distilling our signals or increasing productivity with AI, right? Some of them have worked. Some of them have failed miserably, just the nature of the business today. But fortunately, we are doing this going in all eyes wide open, right? We know that some of these things are just gonna work. Some of these things have, you know, they have a little bit of a longer runway that they need to give you the results you want. Some of these just don't work, right? So that's where the majority of the investments are focused on today.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:07) The Trust Tree: Finding every avenue to intercept prospects*(09:06) The Playbook: Consistency of messaging over time*(31:31) The Dust Up: Answer what marketing will do for other functions*(33:48) Quick Hits: Avi quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Avi Bhagtani on LinkedInLearn more about DigitateLearn more about Caspian Studios

Adolescence isn't your typical TV drama. It's raw, immersive, and filmed in a single unbroken shot, forcing you to stay with every moment, no matter how uncomfortable.In this episode, we're pulling lessons from that intensity with the help of our guest, Charlie Ungashick, CMO of Vimeo.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from embracing creative risk, connecting across generations, and resisting the urge to over-polish. Because sometimes, the most powerful stories are the ones that feel the most human.About our guest, Charlie UngashickCharlie Ungashick joined Vimeo as CMO in 2024. He has over 20 years of experience leading marketing teams in tech companies. Before Vimeo, he was CMO and Head of Product at Applause, a leader in crowdsourced software testing. Charlie also advised Gem, a talent engagement platform, and held product, sales engineering, and IT roles at AIG, Novell, and SilverStream Software early in his career. He holds a bachelor's degree from Fordham University and a diploma in economics from the Université de Paris-Sorbonne.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Adolescence:Take risks that stretch you. In Adolescence, everything was a bet. A single-take format. A debut teenage actor. Emotionally loaded material. It had no business working—and yet it did. Charlie sees the same dynamic in great marketing. He explains, “Some of the best projects that we've all worked on are probably like that—they're risky and audacious.” In B2B, we often play it too safe. Big ideas get trimmed down before they even leave the doc. But safe rarely stands out. Sometimes, the smartest move is to back the idea that feels slightly unmakeable—and then go make it.Follow the signals across generations. Charlie and his daughters both watched Adolescence—but saw it through totally different lenses. That contrast sparked something powerful. Charlie says, “Adolescence was interesting because it had something for lots of different generations... it created that human element.” The best B2B content doesn't just target—it connects. Know where your audience is, how they consume, and what matters to them emotionally. Not every story has to hit everyone the same way. But the best ones open up space for conversation across the gap.Lead with authenticity, not polish. Adolescence wasn't glossy. It was real. That's what made it stick. Charlie challenges marketers to do the same: “We should all be comfortable in our B2B marketing by providing the same emotional authenticity that we find on TikTok and Netflix and Instagram.” B2B doesn't have to mean buttoned-up. Lo-fi can hit harder than high-budget. People buy from people, not buildings. The more human your marketing feels, the more likely it is to land.Quotes*“ Some of the things that I've been the most proud of are things that were super out of the box, almost unachievable when you sort of bring the idea to your team. Not all of them are achievable. Not all of them are inspiring, but some of the best ones happen. And so I typically love being visionary when it comes to doing big things that require big sort of game-changing execution. And when I looked at Adolescence, the combination of all the things that we talked about certainly has those elements.”*“ As a marketer, I always continuously look at demographics and psychographics and figure out how to elicit brain chemistry to ensure that people who I'm targeting are the ones that I want to connect with. I think the Adolescence was interesting because it had something for lots of different generations. And in fact, my daughters probably looked at it very differently than I did. And then when we compared notes in our conversations, it created that human element that we talked about earlier.”*“ B2B marketers, they don't buy from a b, they don't buy from a building, they buy from human beings. And I think our storytelling in our marketing can be much more authentic when we're thinking about the consumerization of the types of things that we do. So shorter form, more authentic, maybe even lo-fi. There's a time and a place for those kinds of things, and I think it can propel our results.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Charlie Ungashick, CMO at Vimeo[01:06] Why Adolescence?[03:19] The Role of CMO at Vimeo[06:20] AI and the Future of Video Creation at Vimeo[09:24] Origins of Adolescence[18:50] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Adolescence[47:36] Vimoe's Brand Strategy[49:59] Creating Authentic Content[53:13] Innovative Uses of AI in Video[54:20] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Charlie on LinkedInLearn more about VimeoAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

Since 2014, Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic newsletter has landed in inboxes every single morning, offering ancient wisdom in bite-size, highly clickable form.It's also a masterclass in content marketing. In this episode, we're unpacking what B2B marketers can learn from The Daily Stoic with the help of Amanda Dyson, VP, Head of Marketing at FourKites.Together, we explore how to break the marketing mold, why the most impactful content is also the most practical, and how anchoring your message in core values makes it stick. Stoicism isn't just a philosophy; if done right, it's a blueprint for modern marketing.About our guest, Amanda DysonWith 20 years B2B software and SaaS marketing expertise, Amanda specializes in go-to-market strategy; consultative marketing; change and people management; lead generation; account based marketing; partner co-marketing; integrated digital marketing; email marketing; live and virtual events; corporate branding and storytelling; account segmentation and targeting; project and budget management, and strategic advisement.Amanda has run regional and global teams. She has a passion for people and results and a proven track record of success delivering on KPIs and OKRs. She has held successively responsible, cross-functional leadership positions in sales and marketing, including alliances, partnership marketing, ABM, demand generation, field marketing, solutions marketing, events, communications, and corporate marketing for global Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software companies.A California girl at heart, Amanda happily resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with her family of five. When she's not growing people or pipeline at leading tech companies, she enjoys spending time with her family in the mountains or at the beach, running daily, and practicing mindfulness. Amanda has an MBA from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University with a focus in Marketing, Finance and Supply Chain, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Economics with a Minor in Professional Writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic Newsletter:Break the marketing mold. Stoicism may be ancient, but Ryan Holiday has made it feel new and modern. Amanda sees that reinvention as a creative north star. She says, “Let's do something wild. Some of my favorite marketing campaigns have just been weird stuff. It breaks the mold and it gets something done.” Ryan Holiday didn't market stoicism by copying academic textbooks, he made it approachable and surprising. B2B marketers should do the same. Surprise earns attention. A little weirdness, done with purpose, goes a long way.Make it usable, not just insightful. Ryan Holiday's greatest trick isn't sounding smart, it's making stoicism actionable. Amanda says,  “He does things in such a bite-size, practical way that you can hold onto it.” That's exactly how B2B content should work. Don't just publish thought leadership that nods at trends. Give your audience tools they can actually apply. Teach them something they'll remember at 4 PM on a chaotic Tuesday. If it doesn't help them do their job better, it's just noise.Anchor your content in core values. The Daily Stoic isn't random. It's rooted in four core tenets: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Amanda draws the parallel for marketers: “It's all fostered and rooted in these core values or the stoic virtues, which you could look at your brand pillars in the same kind of light.” B2B content should be more than campaign-deep. When your content reflects your company's true values, it resonates longer and travels farther. Think less about filling the calendar, and more about reinforcing what you stand for. Quotes*“ I really challenge my teams to get back to storytelling. You gotta break out of the box, so let's do something wild. Some of my favorite marketing campaigns I've ever done have just been weird stuff: bobbleheads, robots on the beach. Random things that are not B2B software, but it breaks the mold and it gets something done. I think Ryan's done that with his marketing of stoicism. He's broken the mold, right? He reinvigorated this ancient philosophy, and so that's definitely a lesson I think we can learn from him too on content.”*“ So we are all about how do we take one thing and reuse it in different ways. I think if we look at Ryan and his newsletter, I kind of mentioned his repetition. I don't think he sends the exact same newsletter, you know, multiple times. But there's certainly similar messages where you can go back in your archives and dig those things up again and present it in a different way. Content is huge. It drives, internally and externally, all of our activities. But you gotta be really smart about how you do it and how you use it, 'cause you're competing with so much noise. It can definitely be challenging to again break that mold.”*“ Something that makes him a tremendous marketer is that he really believes in what he's selling us, right? He's created this brand that is a lifestyle. Stoicism is a philosophy, so there's a lot of high value attached to it and how you live your life.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Amanda Dyson, VP, Head of Marketing at FourKites[00:58] Why Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic Newsletter[03:04] The Role of VP, Head of Marketing at Four Kites[04:18] Origins of Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic[09:27] Understanding Tucker Max[13:12] Stoicism 101: Old Ideas for Modern Chaos[20:23] Building a Daily Ritual[22:21] Strategies for Writing Like a Pro[25:35] Inspiration as a Driver for Your Content[35:55] Creating Marketing Tactics That Actually Matter[39:00] FourKites' Content Strategy[40:31] What's Working for Amanda Now?[44:15] Measuring ROI at Four Kites[49:49] Advice for Marketing Leaders[51:27] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Amanda on LinkedInLearn more about FourKitesAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Bruce Cleveland, author of the best-seller “Traversing the Traction Gap" and CEO of Traction Gap Partners, a Market Engineering advisory firm.In this episode, Bruce outlines why most startups fail and explains market engineering, a term he coined  to represent the ideas around category design. He shares insights into creating a category and what goes into startup success. Key Takeaways:Market engineering involves the ideas around category design or redefinition thought leadership to create a category.There are distinct advantages to being a category leader; the category leader generates about 76% of  all the profits from a category. While there is a first-mover advantage, there are also some associated challenges.Thought leadership is an essential component of creating a category. People want to be around peers they admire, so gathering the right people together leads to an eventual tipping point that makes it easier for a company to sell.Quote:  One of the reasons that you need to actively be involved in the thought leadership part of category creation is people wanna hang out with other people who they think are smart, who have some cool ideas. And that I think happens with companies as well. So eventually some companies kind of climb out of the morass, the cacophony of, fighting the marketing battle and begin to emerge as the thought leaders in those. And then they collectively gather more people and more people. And finally there's a tipping point where that company is perceived as the category leader. And so it becomes really easy for those companies to then sell more.Episode Timestamps: *(02:26) The Trust Tree: Traversing the Traction Gap *(07:31) The importance of category design*(26:05) Thought Leadership in category creation*(35:39) How to evaluate startupsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bruce on LinkedInLearn more about Traction Gap Partners or Traversing the Traction GapLearn more about Caspian Studios

Reinvention beats repetition every time. In a crowded market, it's reimagination that sets you apart.That's the real lesson behind The New Look, a drama that follows Christian Dior as he rebuilds a whole new vision of fashion. In this episode, we're taking inspiration from that spirit of transformation with the help of our special guest, Hrishi Kulkarni, Director of Customer Advocacy & Executive Programs at dbt Labs.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from narrative-driven branding, thoughtful reinvention, and the power of showing up with both creativity and compassion.About our guest, Hrishi KulkarniHrishi Kulkarni leads customer advocacy and executive programs at dbt Labs. Previously, Hrishi served as Head of Customer Marketing & Executive Programs at New Relic. He has also worked at Salesforce in Customer Engagement and Marketing and QStream in Customer Success and Professional Services. Hrishi brings with him over 16 years of experience in customer engagement. He is also an equality champion, SF LGBT Center board member and founder of LGBTQ+ ERGs in India and Asia.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The New Look:Storytelling is your superpower. In The New Look, Christian Dior tells stories through his fashion. His work is infused with personal meaning, from tributes to his sister to inspiration from his mother. Hrishi says, “Marketing is all about storytelling. I joined marketing because I love storytelling… it emotionally connects your product and your services to your audience.” In B2B, storytelling isn't fluff, it's how you make people care. It's how you stand out. Don't just tell your audience what your product does, tell them why it matters.Innovation only works when it's authentic. Dior's most memorable move wasn't a massive runway spectacle; it was an intimate, unexpected fashion show that broke every rule. Hrishi explains, “He's not going to have a huge fashion show… He's going to create it in a very small space, a very personalized experience. Which never before any designer had done.” That decision wasn't flashy for the sake of it. It was deeply intentional. For B2B marketers, it's a reminder that innovation doesn't mean gimmicks. It means staying true to your values and finding fresh, genuine ways to express them.Repetition kills good content. Dior didn't copy what worked, he created what was next. Hrishi says, “As a customer marketer… we have to be creative in identifying and securing the right stories and then finding innovative ways to amplify those stories. If you keep amplifying different stories also in similar ways, at some point it is going to fall flat.” B2B marketers often default to the same formats: another case study, another quote, another video. But to keep your audience engaged, you have to rethink how you tell your stories, not just what stories you tell.Quotes*“ I love storytelling. It's because, if you think about it, storytelling truly impacts people's hearts and minds. It emotionally connects your product and your services to your audience. And that's exactly what Dior has done with his fashion. Like the perfume story you shared earlier, right? It's inspired by his sister. Like a lot of his design of his costumes, of his art, his all comes inspired from his mother. So he truly shows us how storytelling can drive the fashion industry. He started his fashion through the art of storytelling. Also thinking outside the box. If you saw the show, he's constantly innovating. He's constantly thinking outside the box. And as a customer marketer, you have to be constantly creative in identifying and securing the right stories and then finding innovative ways to amplify those stories. If you keep amplifying different stories also in similar ways, at some point it is going to fall flat. So it's always “how can I be innovative with these stories?” And then of course thought leadership, right? It's storytelling or thinking outside the box, being creative to showcase the thought leadership of your customers, their brand.”*“ In terms of B2B, customers love to hear how other customers are doing, how they're using your platform. .And I always say that what makes a kickass story is it has to be data driven and there has to be some human element to it. And now that's your recipe of a powerful story. ”*“ In a B2B world, we create all these customer stories, but what's our end goal? Our end goal is how are my sales teams, my how are my account executives going to leverage this story with other prospects, with other customers. So truly thinking that buyer journey, how are your different stories going to influence every stage in that buyer journey?”*“ Being authentic is so important in marketing. That is something we learned from The New Look. Be authentic in what you do. The passion comes across genuinely. It comes across easily. It's very evident. Be innovative. Don't be afraid to take risks.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Hrishi Kulkarni, Customer Advocacy & Executive Programs Lead at dbt Labs[01:10] Why The New Look?[04:19] Customer Advocacy & Executive Programs at dbt Labs[06:54] Origins of The New Look[11:54] B2B Marketing Takeaways from The New Look[24:57] Building a Strong Content Strategy[27:53] Measuring ROI in Customer Marketing[32:08] dbt Labs Executive Sponsorship Program[34:12] Advice for Marketing LeadersLinksConnect with Hrishi on LinkedInLearn more about dbt LabsAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

Escaping the underworld may not sound like a marketing strategy until you look at how Hades turned it into a blueprint for success.Developed by indie studio Supergiant Games, Hades isn't just a video game, it's a critically acclaimed masterpiece thanks to its iterative development, rich storytelling, and a fanbase that helped shape the game in real time. In this episode, we dive into the lessons marketers can learn from this roguelike phenomenon with special guest Zoe Hawkins, Director, Content Marketing & Integrated Campaign Strategy at Sumo Logic.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from fearless experimentation, community co-creation, and crafting content your audience can't help but share.About our guest, Zoe HawkinsZoe Hawkins is a former video game and tech journalist turned content marketer. She has over a decade of professional experience turning technical understanding into fluent communication. Working with a range of B2B tech companies, Zoe has helped create value across marketing and strategy. She also serves as co-lead for Sumo Logic's sustainability-focused ERG, the Planeteers. When not working, Zoe is usually absorbed in speculative fiction – video games, books, or streaming media. She's a mom to two cats and a grade-school-aged daughter, living with her husband in perpetually sunny Arizona.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hades:Experimentation is the only way forward. In Hades, dying isn't a setback; it's part of the process. Zoe says, “You keep experimenting and you're gonna fail. And that's okay... Each time you learn and you grow and you do it better.” For marketers, it's a reminder that campaigns don't need to be perfect out of the gate. Failure isn't fatal. Failure is how you find what works.Build content with your community, not just for them. Supergiant launched Hades in early access, inviting players to shape the game as it evolved. Zoe explains, “They give feedback. It's almost like a co-design, co-development process with your fans.” B2B marketers can do the same by involving their audience early, whether through feedback loops, pilots, or beta content. Let your audience help build what they want. It not only strengthens relationships, but it also keeps them excited about what's coming next.Create content that people want to share. Hades isn't just a game people play, it's one they rave about. Zoe asks, “How do you make it that people are actually happy to use your product and excited to use it… not just customer loyalty, but advocacy? They wanna tell other people, ‘you will not believe how cool this thing is'.” That's exactly what Hades achieves through intentional design, standout storytelling, and undeniable personality. Marketers should aim for the same. Treat your content the way Hades treats gameplay, and your audience won't just consume it, they'll spread it.Quotes*“ You keep experimenting, and you're gonna fail. And that's okay. If I think about it, you come into a new team or you come into a new product launch or you come into a new organization, whatever it might be. And you think you know how to play the game, you think you know what it takes to succeed, to beat the boss, whatever that is. And you do the run according to the way that you've done it, maybe in other roles or other companies, and you die, you fail. It doesn't necessarily go a hundred percent to plan, and that's okay. And then you get to restart with a new weapon, a new strategy, a new approach, whatever that might be, and pull it back together. Bring it back in to say, ‘okay, let's, let's try it again. Let's run it again and see if we're successful this time.' And that just feels so liberating and then each time you learn and you grow and you do it better.”*“ I love the idea that they only make one game at a time, that they're so focused, and it comes through in the work. It's so polished, it's so well made, and clearly made with love, that transfers to me. And I think if we tie it back to that B2B marketing, I think about working in tech, working in SaaS, how do you give that moment of delight where it's not just like, ‘oh my gosh, your company saved me this amount of money or whatever, or this tool is worthwhile for me.' But how do you make it that people are actually happy to use your product and excited to use it, or have that sense of not just customer loyalty, but advocacy. They wanna tell other people, ‘you will not believe how cool this thing is.'”*“ One of my favorite kinds of content to make is case studies because we get to make our customer shine and tell their story… I know our story backwards and forward. What's your story? Why are you winning with this? Why are you succeeding with this? And being able to tell something cool that they figured out, a way they're using our product that we didn't even think about that's interesting or cool.”*“ Not being afraid to experiment, not being afraid to fail, I think, is such an important marketing lesson, because you're gonna have some risks that are gonna be great, and you're gonna take some risks that are gonna just completely flop. And that's okay. That's how we learn. That's how we try new things.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Zoe Hawkins, Director, Content Marketing & Integrated Campaign Strategy at Sumo Logic[02:20] Why Hades?[03:08] The Role of Director of Content Marketing and Integrated Campaigns at Sumo Logic[03:54] Origins of Hades[15:29] B2B Marketing Lessons from Hades[44:32] Importance of Humor in Branding and Content Strategy[49:47] Versatility of Video Content[54:11] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Zoe on LinkedInLearn more about Sumo LogicAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

This episode features an interview with Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, an AI-powered fraud platform delivering identity trust for leading global businesses.Armen has 10 years of experience as a CMO across a variety of fraud prevention, digital identity, and cybersecurity organizations. He discusses how word of mouth and a strong brand has allowed them to become a leader in their space and also gives insight into Sift's top source for demand generation.Key Takeaways:It is riskier not to take risks. Marketers need to be willing to try something unconventional. If it fails, the world goes on. Giving your customers access to your data, if it answers important questions for them, can be a key driver of demand. Understand what your customers are curious about and what questions they are asking. If you can find a way to provide answers, the ROI will be significant. Quote:  ”Those that aren't taking risks are the ones taking risks, is the way I would look at this. Like we have to take risks -you know, it's gotten so noisy and some of the tried and true tactics like organic search, right, which is completely flipped on its head right now. Every CMO has a responsibility, anyone in marketing really, has a responsibility to really rethink the logic for what they're doing and take some risks.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:29) The Trust Tree: 10 years of CMO experience*(09:19) The Playbook: Answering your customers biggest questions*(38:24) The Dust Up: To create a category or not *(42:32) Quick Hits: Armen's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Armen on LinkedInLearn more about SiftLearn more about FibrLearn more about Caspian Studios

Reviving vinyl in the digital age sounded impossible until the creation of Record Store Day changed everything.Launched with Metallica at a San Francisco record shop in 2008, it became a global celebration of indie music culture and a blueprint for building real human connections. In this episode, we drop the needle on what marketers can learn from vinyl's resurgence with special guest Robert McCauley, Sr. Director of Content Marketing at Upwork.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from community-driven events, the power of exclusivity, and how to build content strategies that truly resonate.About our guest, Robert McCauleyRobert has 20+ years of experience in content marketing, editorial, and communications. At Upwork, he leads a team of more than two dozen amazing content marketers, customer marketers, and multimedia professionals. (In fact, you can find out more about how awesome they are by checking out this link: https://bit.ly/3PGXNcD.) Robert lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their high-octane fourth-grader. Ask him about his vinyl collection if you're looking to waste an hour or two.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Record Store Day:Sell the experience, not just the product. Exclusivity and differentiation aren't just nice-to-haves; they're why people line up on Record Store Day. As Robert puts it, “Part of the reason that someone is gonna pay $40 for something that they could, in theory, get for free is because the artists and record labels have done a nice job of selling the exclusivity and the differentiation. And, frankly, understanding their audience.” In B2B marketing, it's a reminder that when you make your audience feel like they're getting something rare and tailored, they'll lean in.Community turns customers into believers. Record Store Day isn't really about what you buy, it's about who you're with. Robert says, “This is where the power of community really comes in. It feels like a celebration of music. It feels like a celebration of vinyl... it feels like an event, a way to connect with people that are passionate about something like you are.” That emotional connection is the secret ingredient. For marketers, if your audience feels seen and connected, your brand becomes more than a service. It becomes a shared story.Go analog to cut through the noise. In a world of constant digital overload, physical media feels almost radical. Robert explains, “Analog physical media can really make an impact. We're all flooded with digital stuff all day, every day... the thing that cuts through that are physical things because they're so far, few and far between nowadays.” For marketers, this is a cue to think tactile because sometimes, the most unforgettable touchpoint isn't a notification, it's something your audience can actually hold.Quotes*“ When done right and in a very strategic way, analog physical media can really make an impact, right? We're all flooded with digital stuff all day, every day. There's the whole joke of you going from kind of your midsize screen to your small screen, to your big screen over the course of the day. And the thing that cuts through that are physical things because they're sort of so far few and far between nowadays.”*“ Record Store Day at the end of the day is really an awesome in-person event. And in-person events, I think, in general, can be really effective for marketers. And again, when they're well thought out and done well. One of the great things about this is that, again, it's about community. It's about doing something that people appreciate and like. It's about feeling very kind of personalized to the things that they're passionate about. And, I think again, it just reinforces the fact that there are great ways of connecting with your customers much more directly and, of course, physically than over email or something. And they have a much stronger impact when you are face to face with someone and they remember your name, or you have a conversation, or you enjoy the coffee, or the excitement in the atmosphere that the event brought you. So I think it's the way that these are run are a good example of how in-person events can and should be run and can really make a difference to marketing efforts.”“  We always, as content marketers and B2B marketers, I think, worry that we have one opportunity to kind of hook our audience. If we don't do it now, if we don't get everything we need, this is gonna pass us by. There's this trust of, ‘Hey, I am confident that over time I'm gonna show you the value of my content in this case, my music, and I'm gonna get hooked.' And that will be rewarded down the line. It's definitely a long-term play, but it is very counter to, I think, a lot of our instincts of squeeze as much as we can as quickly as we can.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Robert McCauley, Sr. Director, Content Marketing at Upwork[01:26] Why Record Store Day?[03:21] Origins of Record Store Day[10:26] The Draw of Vinyl[16:51] Robert's First Record Store Day[20:15] Value of Physical Music in a Digital Age[28:58] B2B Marketing Lessons from Record Store Day[47:43] Upwork's Content Strategy[51:41] Upwork's Recent Content Creation[55:21] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Robert on LinkedInLearn more about UpworkAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Alison Lange Engel, CEO of Ceros, a company that provides tools and services that empower companies to create interactive content with unparalleled ease and efficiency, driving customer engagement.In this episode, Alison discusses the power of interactive content and how to differentiate your brand amidst increasing noise. She and Ian dive into the importance of being unique and how creativity is a competitive advantage. Key Takeaways:Creativity is a competitive advantage, even more so as copying assets gets easier with AI. CMOs need to get their teams off the treadmill and make space for creativity, inspiration and ideation. The sea of sameness is real, especially in B2B, and the world continues to get noisier. You have to disrupt and have conviction behind your big bets; check box marketing won't cut it anymore. Originality is as important as ever, but teams have to find ways to do more with less and won't succeed if they are only trying to differentiate themselves through words, tone, or processes.Quote:  You're going to miss the opportunity to differentiate and tell a unique story, right, if you have your team on a treadmill constantly. And that's how most people feel. But, as a leader, you've got to create space for it and find inspiration. Encourage your team to bring ideas. We would bring magazine clips in. People would bring in their pets. People brought in old, you know, pictures, family mementos, what matters to them. You've gotta get to the heart and soul of what you're trying to do to kind of unlock your team and have your company, you know, feel fresh, feel modern, and have people take risks, right? Great companies take risks and you have to kind of create that environment to do that. The brands that don't, are in trouble and the brands that do are the ones that win.Episode Timestamps: *(05:50) The Trust Tree: Experiences over static content*(25:36) The ROI of creativity*(36:29) Advice for CMOs on creativity and boldnessSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Alison on LinkedInLearn more about CerosLearn more about Caspian Studios

Eric Johnson, CIO at PagerDuty, shares why today's most impactful CIOs are evolving into strategic business leaders. He explains how AI is driving a fundamental shift in how IT organizations operate—moving from reactive support functions to proactive, value-creating business enablers.About the Guest: Eric Johnson is the Chief Information Officer at PagerDuty, responsible for PagerDuty's critical IT infrastructure, data management and enterprise systems. Prior to joining PagerDuty, he was the CIO at SurveyMonkey, DocuSign and Talend. Before that, Eric spent 12 years at Informatica driving the information technology vision and strategy as the company scaled to a modern SaaS architecture. He is an active advisor and board member to several early-stage companies and a regular contributor to IT thought leadership.Timestamps:*(05:20) -  Embrace shadow IT and AI tools*(18:40) -  Changing role of the CIO*(30:00) -  Security and cybersecurity awareness*(33:35) -   Future of automation and AIGuest Highlights:“In the CIO org, they need to be business experts as much as the partners that they work with… because AI and the use of it and finding those high value use cases, it's gonna take folks in the CIO org to be a lot more knowledgeable about how the company operates and processes.”“Obviously, certain roles are going to change much more than others, but I think across the board, roles are going to change.”“As these changes come, how do you reorient the organization—the humans in the organization—to be able to find that higher value work?”Get Connected:Eric Johnson on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInResources:Learn more about PagerDuty: www.pagerduty.comHungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 59 - CIO Leadership in AI Security and InnovationEp 58 - AI-Driven Workplace TransformationEp 57 - The CIO Roadmap to Executive LeadershipLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

A man crashes through walls. A woman joins him. Together, they run straight into the sky. No dialogue. Just music, motion, and a pair of Levi's jeans.This is Odyssey, the Levi's ad that changed how we think about brand storytelling. In this episode, we're unpacking its marketing lessons with our special guest, Paula Vivas, Head of US Marketing at Freepik.Together, we explore why storytelling is the most powerful strategy, how boldness builds lasting brand identity, and why emotional resonance is your greatest competitive edge.Because the best marketing doesn't just show a product, it makes you feel something real.About our guest, Paula VivasPaula Vivas is the Head of US Marketing at Freepik. She has over 15 years of experience in visual design, online marketing, and social media marketing, with a passion for creating and promoting engaging and innovative content.Paula is also the co-founder of Charis, a platform that celebrates AI‑empowered creativity. With that, they launched the Charis Awards, a global competition that showcases the best AI-generated images and their creators.Paula's experience spans across Product Marketing, Content Marketing, Events, Ads and Growth Marketing in the Tech industry.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Levi's Odyssey ad:Story is the strategy. The Levi's Odyssey ad didn't just sell jeans, it sold a feeling of liberation. Paula recalls watching it and thinking, “I want to be able to give a meaning to a brand.” The brilliance wasn't in the product, but in the story it told, breaking through walls, both literally and metaphorically. In marketing, stories aren't a “nice to have”; they're the whole point. When you anchor your brand in a powerful narrative, you move from transactional to transformational.Break through with brand identity. In the Levi's Odyssey ad, two people sprint through wall after wall, finally launching into the sky, all while wearing Levi's jeans. To Paula, it wasn't just an ad; it was a masterclass in brand symbolism. No voiceover. No product breakdown. Just raw, kinetic metaphor for freedom and durability. In B2B, the lesson holds: skip the specs and aim for the soul. The brands that break through aren't the loudest, they're the ones that hit instinct before intellect.Emotion is the ultimate differentiator. What makes the Levi's Odyssey ad timeless wasn't just its visuals; it was how it made Paula feel. In an era of AI-generated everything, emotion is your moat. Tools can replicate images, but not meaning. The best marketing doesn't just look good, it makes you feel something. Give your audience that, and they'll remember everything.Quotes*“ Let's make great content. Let's forget about Will Smith eating spaghetti. Let's forget about doing another Star Wars. Star Wars is going to be there, and of course, that's going to go viral because it's Star Wars. Let's create beautiful content for you to watch, and sit down and say, ‘This is what a creative mind can do. This is what we can do with AI.' Let's make something original. Let's create a path that's different.”*“ I don't think AI is going to take out anything. I think it needs to be humane. We need to be behind it. We need to be the person at the wheel. LLMs are created by us, so we have to be there, right? Our creative part is always gonna be there.”*“ If you give me a cookbook, that doesn't make me a chef. [AI] is not gonna take anybody away. It is just gonna make everyone better and faster and explode those creative parts of themselves.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Paula Vivas, Head of US Marketing at Freepik[02:32] Why Levi's Odyssey Ad?[03:09] Levi's Odyssey Ad Origin[08:01] Why Great Storytelling is Your Differentiator[15:17] What is Upscale Conf?[18:47] Freepik's SEO Strategy[21:58] How Freepik Simplifies Prompt Engineering[24:17] Behind the Scenes of Upscale Conf[27:22] What's Next for Upscale Conf[31:05] Freepik's Content and Brand Strategy[34:01] Breaking Down Freepik's Music Collection[37:11] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Paula on LinkedInLearn more about FreepikAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Jen Rapp, CMO at Superside, an AI-powered creative service, trusted by 500+ top brands. Jen has over 20 years of experience developing and executing marketing strategies for high-growth companies, with a particular focus on working alongside entrepreneurial leaders to scale.She discusses selling the vision and how doing good impacts marketing, sharing her lessons from her time at Patagonia and DoorDash. She also discusses winning on meta through quality creative and driving qualified leads through virtual summits. Key Takeaways:Don't sleep on meta ads. If your ICP is on Instagram, those ads can be some of the cleanest and most effective ads to drive pipeline, especially if you have quality creative. Virtual Summits, or essentially a stack of webinars, are a great way to get emails and drive pipeline if you are truly offering great content. Sell the vision, not the product. A focus on features, instead of stories, is rarely the way to go. Quote:“  I would not have said this a year ago, when I first joined the company - number one is our meta, paid meta spend. I came to this company and I saw how much we were spending on Meta, and I was like, whoa, what the hell are these people doing? They're making mistakes left and right. Nope. We drive a majority, or a lot, I shouldn't say a majority, a lot of our qualified pipeline through our Meta spend. Our Meta spend also acts as our top of funnel awareness driver.  When we turn off meta, we basically turn off the ability of our SDRs and our BDRs to convert people to SQLs. It is invaluable. So number one, my marketing team is like rallied around creating incredible creative for Meta.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:51) The Trust Tree: Making sure customers have confidence in you*(12:12) The Playbook: The power of Meta ads*(33:10) The Dust Up: Standing up to brilliant founders*(41:01) Quick Hits: Jen's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jen on LinkedInLearn more about SupersideLearn more about Caspian Studios

Marketing isn't just about tactics, it's about strategy. And most times, the smartest move is playing the long game.That's the strategy behind Settlers of Catan, a board game built on resource trading, calculated risks, and thinking three steps ahead. In this episode, we're drawing inspiration from its gameplay with our special guest, Jen Grant, Chief Marketing Officer at Dialpad.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from staying focused on their own path, anticipating competitor reactions, and building a diversified strategy that drives long-term growth. Because in both Settlers of Catan and marketing, the real power play is thinking beyond your next move.About our guest, Jen GrantBefore joining Dialpad as Chief Marketing Officer in October 2024, Jen served on the Dialpad Board of Directors, held C-level positions at Cube and Appify, led Looker's marketing, drove the rebrand of Elastic, and grew Box to an industry-leading enterprise content company. Jen holds an MBA from Wharton, a BA from Princeton, and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Princeton Technology leaders.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Settlers of Catan:Play your own game. In Catan, constantly reacting to what others are doing can leave you scrambling. The same applies in B2B marketing. Jen encourages a more grounded approach: “You do much better, sort of very quietly focusing on your own growth.” Instead of chasing competitors or mimicking market leaders, build a strategy that aligns with your own long-term vision. Because sustainable growth isn't won through noise, but through quiet, deliberate moves.Always be forecasting. Winning at Catan means thinking ahead, not just about your next move, but the ones after that. Jen says,  “I actually really love the strategy part of it. Thinking about, okay, we're about to launch a particular feature. What's that gonna make the competition do?” In a competitive landscape, it's not enough to plan for what you control; you also need to anticipate how others will react. Great marketers operate like strategic game players. Don't bet on just one road to victory. Catan punishes one-dimensional players. You can't win by hoarding sheep alone, you need balance. Jen explains, “It is never one thing…It's all of the things at the same time, executed perfectly well.” Diversification isn't just about spreading risk; it's about orchestrating a full-spectrum effort that compounds over time. The most impactful marketing isn't siloed, it's symphonic.Quotes*“The thing about Catan, and other board games, this might come into play too, but you could potentially spend all of your time trying to crush the other players…And when you play a game a lot, you're like, oh, I'm gonna try this strategy this time, see what happens. And one of the things that I've definitely never seen work is if you focus all your energy on messing with other people. You do much better sort of very quietly, focusing on your own growth.”*“ I actually think the reason I like the game so much is the game theory of thinking ahead, 2, 3, 4 steps ahead. And so you're thinking how am I gonna achieve my goals, but what are they gonna do when I do, whatever it is, buy this road. I love that part of the game. I love thinking out ahead, okay, if we do this, then what are they gonna do? And for marketing, I think we often get caught up in the fun, creative part of marketing. But I actually really love the strategy part of it, of thinking about, okay, we're about to launch a particular feature. What's that gonna make the competition do? Are they gonna freak out? Are we kind of catching up to them? And maybe we shouldn't be so loud about it 'cause we should have had this before. All of the different implications of what you do in a market and then how the competition actually responds.”*“ So the thing about Catan at the very beginning of the game is that there are numbers on every square. And so you get to choose two places to put your little settlement, and there are three numbers for each of those settlements. So right there, you have six numbers, and the numbers are on resources. And what's really important, and many people don't think about this, is you wanna have all of the resources available to you on numbers that get rolled frequently, but you can't be on only two numbers. And it kind of speaks to diversifying tactics. So that to me goes right to marketing. Oftentimes, we'll get CEOs or CFOs, probably more likely. Just find that one thing that works really well and put all your budget into the one thing, and you're like, it is never one thing. Never, never, never is it one thing. It's all of the things at the same time executed perfectly well.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Jen Grant, Chief Marketing Officer at Dialpad[02:10] Why Settlers of Catan[03:08] The Role of CMO at Dialpad[04:52] Dialpad's Evolution[09:19] Dialpad's Super Bowl Ad[10:40] Origins of Settlers of Catan[16:23] B2B Marketing Lessons from Settlers of Catan[49:47] How Jen is Investing in Brand and Content[56:25] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Jen on LinkedInLearn more about DialpadAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Steve Rotter, CMO at DeepL, a global communications platform powered by Language AI.In this episode, Steve shares with us the power of a small uplift to your website when you see large scale website traffic, and the importance of pushing your point of view over your product features. He also dives into the value of brand in avoiding churn. Key Takeaways:Small changes to the website can have a small uplift, and when you are dealing with large-scale website traffic, that can have a big impact on the business. For large enterprises, don't underestimate the value of small optimizations on the website. People churn products, they don't churn from valued brands and communities. Make sure to invest in your brand accordingly. Explaining your POV over pushing your features, allows you to demonstrate the outsized impact of your product more effectively. Quote:  Brand is critical. My general sense is, people churn from products, they don't churn from communities, they don't churn from brands with personalities that they enjoy. So, we spend a lot of time looking at that in terms of, you know, what is the voice, what is the language, what is the identity of the brand?Episode Timestamps: *(04:11) The Trust Tree: People churn from products, not brands and communities *(24:13) The Playbook: Explain your point of view, over pushing all your features*(39:22) Quick Hits: Scott's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Scott on LinkedInLearn more about DeepLLearn more about Caspian Studios

Polished is out. Grit is in. If you want your brand to cut through the noise, it might be time to take a cue from the underground music scene.In this episode, we're taking lessons from 90s indie rock with special guest Scott Rayburn, CMO of DataArt. Together, we talk about how brands can market with meaning, stay relevant in the digital age, and create content that hits like your favorite song.About our guest, Scott RayburnScott Rayburn is the Chief Marketing Officer at DataArt. He's experienced in leading cross-functional, high-performing content, GTM/sales, comms, operations, and creative teams, and skilled in content strategy, sales enablement, demand generation, SEO, product marketing, website strategy, branding, partner marketing, and providing creative direction.Scott has been with DataArt since 2023. Prior to his current role, he served as Director of GTM & Content at global technology services company Wizeline. He has also led product marketing at companies like The Risk Management Association and Proscia.What B2B Companies Can Learn From 90s Indie Rock:Lead with authenticity.
Great marketing doesn't have to be glossy, it just has to be real. The best indie rock bands of the '90s didn't rely on flashy production or major label backing to build loyal followings. They embraced raw sound, DIY, and intimate venues, and that resonated deeply with fans. Scott draws a parallel to modern marketing: “People can see through BS… you actually generally will get better results from the kind of authentic stuff.”Think in lifetimes, not just campaigns.
The strongest brands create lasting emotional connections, much like your favorite bands. “These bands that started in the eighties are still filling up 5,000-person theaters today,” Scott explains. Why? Because their fans feel a deep, emotional connection. For marketers, this means nurturing your audience beyond the funnel. Build a brand people want to grow old with, not just click on once.Stay active on every channel.
Indie rock bands don't just put out an album and disappear. Scott says, “Even if they're not making new songs, they need these channels to stay relevant, to sell tickets, to sell merch. It's all kinds of tied to marketing. And this is a tie between the authenticity and customer lifetime value. It's really activating that in a digital age.” Marketers need to do the same. A strong multi-channel strategy ensures your message reaches people where they are, whether that's a blog, a webinar, an event, or a TikTok feed. Being present across platforms consistently helps brands stay top of mind, accessible, and adaptable to change.Quotes*“ This authenticity that we were talking about with these bands, people can see through BS. Whether it's like an Instagram reel or a LinkedIn ad, or an email campaign. It can still work. Your marketing can still work if it's completely polished. But I think, and I see from some results that come from a company work that DataArt is doing. You actually generally will get better results from the kind of authentic stuff. And this is kind of where you see brand maybe driving more revenue than demand generation, but who can actually count the dollars from brand? Well, not me, but maybe someone can let me know. So those conversations are happening.”*“ These bands that started in the eighties are still filling up 5,000-person theaters today… There's this multi-channel approach, which is a huge part of marketing and content marketing. You notice they're all on Spotify. They all have websites, they all have social media. Even if they're not making new songs, they need these channels to stay relevant, to sell tickets, to sell merch, e-commerce. It's all kind of tied to marketing. And this is a tie between the authenticity and customer lifetime value. It's really activating that in a digital age.*“ The number one thing I've noticed in content marketing is the huge need to transition from the faceless 1000-word blog post to something that's more interactive. The quote with somebody's face on your social media post is gonna perform five times better than the faceless five AI trends.”*“ You can't do everything yourself. Build a good team around you. Be T-shaped 'cause you're not gonna be a marketing leader if you're not T-shaped…And try to create some way that you can stay focused on your strengths, and then lean on others who have strengths of their own. Have this kind of holistically built type of leadership team.”Time Stamps[0:55] Scott Rayburn, CMO at DataArt[02:02] Why 90s Indie Rock?[03:53] What is Record Store Day?[04:55] The Role of CMO at Data Art[06:38] Origins of 90s Indie Rock[10:50] The Indie Rock Movement and Its Impact[20:30] Building Community Through Music[31:11] B2B Marketing Takeaways from 90s Indie Rock[38:39] How You Can Be More Authentic in Your Marketing[46:55] Advice for marketing leaders[47:29] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Scott on LinkedInLearn more about DataArtAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Bill Macaitis, Founder & CEO, SaaS CMO Pro, where he shares growth strategies for SaaS and AI companies. His past roles include CMO positions at Slack and Zendesk, and SVP of Marketing at Salesforce. Bill joins the podcast to discuss findings from a recent survey of over 300 B2B marketers that gives insights into marketing strategies and budgets. He shares what they learned about marketing versus sales budgets, the most common attribution model, and more. Key Takeaways:Companies that are growing the fastest, invest the most in marketing. While cause and effect of that correlation is unclear, it's an interesting finding. Pipeline generation was one of the most tracked metrics for CMOs, which is a nice move away from only looking at MQLs or leads. Unfortunately, awareness was rarely tracked, making it hard for marketing teams to invest in long-term initiatives. A lot of companies, 65 percent, continue to use first or last touch attribution models.  Quote:  So, what we learned is a lot of companies, I think especially in their earlier stages -  percent still use first- or last- touch.  It's kind of crazy. I'm still shocked by it.  I remember my time at Salesforce,  I was running the marketing ops team at that point, along with a couple other teams, and  I just did a deep dive into attribution. Like I really wanted to understand like, hey, how many touches are people having with us before they became a lead? And then how many touches before they became a customer? What we would see is people would have 10, 20, 30 interactions or touches with us before they became a lead, and then they'd have like another 20 or 30 before they became a customer. And just imagine giving all the credit to the very first or last thing. And by the way, it's one of the reasons Google got so big was because a very common last touch thing is they will search on your company name. Branded search, right? And it's like, oh, like the SEM guys are like, this is amazing, right? We need to spend more on Google because they're producing these massive deals. And it's like, well wait, what about all the stuff in the middle?Episode Timestamps: *(03:48) Marketing Strategies and Budgeting*(22:31) Attribution Models in Marketing*(26:44) Top Metrics for B2B SaaS and AI Companies*(31:06) Marketing's Role in Revenue and ExpansionSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bill on LinkedInLearn more about SaaS CMO ProLearn more about Caspian Studios

Siroui Mushegian, CIO at Barracuda, shares how she's building a smart, secure foundation for AI—-from setting up an AI council, to governing agents, and creating employee guidelines that protect innovation. She also shares how AI is transforming IT operations and unlocking new levels of productivity across the enterprise.About the Guest: Siroui Mushegian is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Barracuda. Siroui joined Barracuda most recently from BlackLine, where she was responsible for all aspects of BlackLine's internal corporate IT. Before BlackLine, she held executive IT leadership roles at PBS's WNET New York Public Media, the NBA, Ralph Lauren, and Time, Inc. Bringing more than 20 years of executive and IT leadership experience, Siroui has successfully built strong operational environments that eliminate technology silos, elevated the maturity and impact of technology within her enterprises and delivered measurable and scalable business outcomes. Siroui holds a Master of Business Administration in Management and Strategy from Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business and a bachelor's in mathematics and finance from University of Connecticut.Timestamps:*(04:10) -  Skills for Future CIOs*(07:00) -  Barracuda's AI and Automation Projects*(08:50) -  Tips for AI Security *(33:25) -   The Importance of Community and CollaborationGuest Highlights:“ A lot of people are worried they are going to work themselves right out of a job. It remains very important for us to keep our position as thought leaders to hold that mantle high.”“ Your partnerships with your colleagues and leaders across the enterprise will help you get more done than any AI agent will.”“ I love the concept of the education we're getting ready to roll out  in a curated way to people who are going to take these tools and come up with solutions that I could never in my life think of because I don't sit in their shoes every day.”Get Connected:Siroui Mushegian on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInResources:Learn more about Barracuda: barracuda.comHungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 58 - AI-Driven Workplace TransformationEp 57 - The CIO Roadmap to Executive LeadershipEp 56 - Best Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for CIOsLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

At 83 years old, Martha Stewart is still as relevant as ever, and she just released a new documentary to prove it. Martha takes us through the highs, lows, and reinventions of her iconic career.In this episode, we're diving into the world of Martha and the power of documentaries with our special guest, Amy Holtzman, Chief Marketing Officer at CHEQ. Together, we're exploring what B2B marketers can learn from bringing documentary-style storytelling into their marketing and the legacy Martha Stewart built. We're talking about how to build an authentic brand, own your unique style, and stay top of mind for decades.Because let's be real: who wouldn't want their brand to have Martha Stewart-level resilience?About our guest, Amy HoltzmanAmy Holtzman is Chief Marketing Officer at CHEQ. Amy brings 20 years of marketing experience to CHEQ, including tenure as CMO and head of marketing at Spring Health, AlphaSense, and Splash. She is also a founding member of Chief, a private network that connects and supports female leaders, and co-founder of NYC-based Women in Revenue Marketing.  What B2B Companies Can Learn From Martha:Resilience builds a legacy.
Martha Stewart's documentary doesn't shy away from the tough moments, and that's part of what makes her story so powerful. In business, as in life, setbacks are inevitable. Amy Holtzman puts it simply: “You gotta show up the next day… roll with the punches and figure out how you get through it.” Resilience and conviction aren't just admirable traits,  they're essential for building a brand that lasts for decades.Own your style.
Martha's perfectionism is part of her brand. She's unapologetically herself, and it's helped her stand out for decades. Amy encourages marketers to take a page from that approach. She explains, “ Martha's an unapologetic perfectionist… Martha owns it, and it's what made her successful. And I think you have to not necessarily own Martha's style, but you have to own your own style.” In B2B marketing, embracing your quirks and leaning into what makes you different is more powerful than playing it safe.Build trust through authenticity.
Martha's documentary reminds us that connection comes from honesty. Her brand works because it's consistent and deeply personal. Amy says the same holds true in marketing, “As humans, we crave connection…I  think people shy away from it and B2B a lot of times because they're worried… I think that's what we want. And we can also kind of sniff bulls*** a mile away.” Don't hide behind jargon or trends. The more human your brand feels, the more trust you'll build.Quotes*“  You're gonna get knocked down…But you gotta show up the next day. You have to kind of do it all in stride. If you wanna make it right and make a name for yourself and for your business, you have to just like roll with the punches and figure out how you get through it.”*“ You gotta own what makes you special and unique, right? Martha's an unapologetic perfectionist. She insists on things being her way. A lot of times like women can get negative feedback about that and Martha owns it, and it's what made her successful. And I think you have to not necessarily own Martha's style, but you have to own your own style. It's hard to change. You can adapt in certain situations, but you're not gonna change who you are. And I do think you've gotta own it. You gotta own your own unique style. And sometimes that's not what everybody loves, but it's also what makes you and also your brand special and unique.”*“ I feel like as humans we crave connection and look for commonalities, right? And I think people shy away from it, and B2B a lot of times, because they're worried. What if somebody doesn't like that thing or doesn't have the same values that I have? We need to think about what those things are that we share, but also, there's room to be ourselves and be authentic, like Martha, a bit more too. Because, as humans, I think that's what we want, right? And we can also kind of sniff bullsh** a mile away, right? When somebody's not who they say they are. So I think there's room for a bit more.”*“ I know we're probably all sick of like everything AI, but I actually think it's incredibly important to stay really up to speed and think about it beyond productivity.”Time Stamps[0:55] Amy Holtzman, Chief Marketing Officer at CHEQ[02:07] Why Martha, the Martha Stewart Documentary[02:40] The Role of CMO at CHEQ[05:09] Breaking Down Martha[14:22] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Martha[19:57] The Importance of Authentic Storytelling[25:27] Why You Should Be Documenting Brand Moments[32:36] CHEQ's Marketing Strategy[36:14] The Power in Reinventing and Not Replicating[42:22] The Future of AI in MarketingLinksConnect with Amy on LinkedInLearn more about CHEQAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Jenny Force, VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, a company with a suite of solutions that spans media, social, consumer, and sales intelligence. Jenny discusses her experience launching the company's first big summit, as well as the work they have done to automate their inbound process to maximize each MQL.Key Takeaways:Launching a new big initiative and then proving ROI to the executive team requires careful positioning and careful measurement against KPIs.Automating the process for inbound leads through tech removes manual human intervention and puts the sellers into positions where they can do their job at a more impactful level.Imbuing campaigns with humor, while a little scary, can cause a big lift in engagement.Quote: We've been really investing and not just spending more money to get more MQLs. It's making, not to sound cliche, but every MQL count. It's about automating the process. Here at Meltwater, we're a 20-year-old company, we're very sales-centric and there's a lot of energy that used to be put behind outbound. So, it was changing the narrative around inbound. Until we totally make this change as a business where everyone in the business is shouting to get an inbound lead and are super excited about it, it's how can I get every single lead responded to in under an hour without any delays? And it's been a bit of a journey to put the right tech in place to automate those processes that we can, take out that manual human intervention and then put the sellers into the business so they can actually sell. So, I've got some tech around instant meeting scheduling, self-serve demos, a conversational email that we've put in. And honestly, I feel like that has already had such an impact on our conversion rates. I wouldn't get rid of it.Episode Timestamps: *(06:03) The Trust Tree: Improving inbound efficiency and increasing deal velocity*(14:32) The Playbook: Launching a summit and investing in automation *(45:53) The Dust Up: Changing inbound KPIs to get a seat at the table *(49:30) Quick Hits: Jenny's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jenny on LinkedInLearn more about MeltwaterLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Luke Arno, CRO at Transcend, a privacy platform that empowers brands to enhance regulatory stances and improve customer relationships through data transparency, consent, and control.Luke dives into the different marketing strategies needed when you are prioritizing data privacy and aiming to only engage with prospects who opt in. He also discusses making the sales function an advisor and consultant to potential customers. Key Takeaways:One size fits all messaging is not successful and does more damage than good. It needs to go. Marketing while prioritizing data privacy is a different ball game and requires a series of calculated investments based on the target market. Empowering your sales leaders as thought leaders, and asking them to act as advisors, makes them very valuable at events. Quote: “ How do we most effectively deliver thought leadership or ask the right questions from our customers about the problems they're solving? And we invest deeply in enabling our sales force  to be subject matter experts, and then therefore we rely on them to help scale, to meet our customers and open up the conversation in a trusted environment. Hence the name of the segment, the trust tree. But that whole process requires sales rep to put their sales position down and, effectively, ship the paradigm for how they think about engaging customers as more of a consultant or an advisor.  So, we try and delight our customers with a sales free experience, but we do rely deeply on the employees we hire at every function to effectively manage the conversation as a trusted advisor.”Episode Timestamps: *(07:47) The Trust Tree: Thoughts on marketing strategy from a CRO  *(21:52) The Playbook: The psychology of prospecting*(37:03) The Dust Up: Show up prepared to articulate your position*(40:45) Quick Hits: Luke's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Luke on LinkedInLearn more about TranscendLearn more about Caspian Studios

Saket Srivastava is the Chief Information Officer at work management platform Asana. Saket oversees Asana's IT organization, including optimizing technology systems and processes, connecting technology strategy to overarching business strategy, and ensuring that technology infrastructure supports organizational goals. Previously, Saket held executive positions at Square, Guidewire Software, and other leading technology companies. Saket holds a Master of Computer Applications (MCA) from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, and an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.Timestamps:*(01:30) -  Asana's Impact and Internal Operation*(08:15) -  AI and Employee Experience*(13:25) -  Collaboration and Cross-Departmental Partnership*(19:05) -  Future Trends and SkillsGuest Highlights:“When you add business understanding with technology understanding, that makes a deadly combination where you can serve and help move the needle for your business.”“The reality is we get sold all the time, every day. When you show up as a practitioner, as a peer, and you're ready to talk about the good, the bad, the ugly, there's a lot of power.”“ Good news is bad news being delivered early. It's so important to be able to create a healthy environment where you can talk about those risks.”Get Connected:Saket Srivastava on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInResources:Learn more about Asana: http://asana.com/Hungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 57 - The CIO Roadmap to Executive LeadershipEp 56 - Best Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for CIOsEp 55 - Engineering Leadership for Scale, Agility, and MomentumLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

Playing it safe doesn't cut it anymore. If you want to grab eyeballs, you need to be bold, unexpected, maybe even a little chaotic.That's the magic of Taskmaster, a competition show where thinking sideways often beats playing it straight. And in this episode, we're taking a page from its playbook with the help of our special guest, Vanessa Hope Schneider, Head of Brand at Descript.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from chaos, creativity, and knowing when to follow the rules (and when to completely ignore them).About our guest, Vanessa Hope SchneiderVanessa Hope Schneider is Head of Brand at Descript. There, she leads brand, content, product marketing and community. Her focus is growing the community of creators and communicators using Descript to make videos and podcasts. She's working to drive engagement and success through feature announcements and community education, and is developing campaigns that illustrate Descript's perspective on creative work, and the role AI should have in it.Vanessa has previously served as Director of Host Community at Airbnb, Head of Marketing at Clara Labs, and VP of Marketing at One Medical.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taskmaster:Think laterally. Lateral thinking is about solving problems creatively rather than relying on the most direct or traditional approach. Vanessa encourages marketers to lean into that mindset: “Sometimes your goal is most efficiently achieved by just doing the best practice... but other times you need to break out in your approach.” In B2B marketing, that might mean reimagining how you run events, pitch your product, or tell a story. It's not about copying what others are doing, but finding the unexpected angle. Like in Taskmaster, the real wins often come from knowing when to be efficient and direct, and when to be bold, playful, or completely off-script.Know when you're the picture and when you're the frame. Sometimes your brand should be the star of the show. Other times, you should be supporting someone else's spotlight moment. Vanessa explains, “It doesn't always have to be your brand. It shouldn't always be your brand. Sometimes it's the voices of your customers. It's their success stories.” In the same way, Taskmaster contestants might earn points by hyping up the host, marketers should recognize when to uplift others for the bigger win.Develop your signature style. In Taskmaster, contestants approach identical tasks in wildly different ways, and that's the fun of it. Over time, you start to recognize their unique flair. The same is true for brands. Vanessa says, “It is valuable and compelling to find your style and stick to it, and then approach each new challenge from that perspective.” A strong, consistent style becomes part of your brand identity and how your audience remembers you.Quotes*“ One of the keys to success on Taskmaster and when making content is committing to the bit. If you're self-conscious, if you're mugging for the camera, if you're trying to do too many things at once, if you're distracted, the audience isn't gonna go there with you. Your readership isn't gonna go there with you, your customers aren't gonna go there with you. You have to summon the will, the courage, the focus to go all in, and that's when exciting things are gonna happen. And you might be able to find different types of creativity because you're blocking all that other distraction out.”*” B2B marketers should enjoy lateral thinking. So, sometimes your goal is most efficiently achieved by just doing the best practice, doing it well, and task faster. That would be reading the task and just doing what the task tells you to do. But other times, you need to break out in your approach. You need to be more iconoclastic or more unexpected. You're not gonna win Taskmaster or marketing if you're only doing one or the other. You have to know when to be literal and direct and when to think in new directions. Sometimes you're gonna get the most points if you just speed run the task, but other times you're gonna get points for creativity.”*“ There are instances when you are, as a contestant on Taskmaster, absolutely the star of the show, and you wanna be boisterous and you wanna be attention-grabbing. And of course, we as marketers all can think of instances where we wanna do that with our brand, but in other instances. You kind of wanna be a supporting character. So in Taskmaster, sometimes the best thing to do is make it about Greg because he's a taskmaster and he is very ego-driven…And so the analog for marketers would be. Who are you uplifting in your work? It doesn't always have to be your brand. It shouldn't always be your brand. Sometimes it's the voices of your customers. It's their success stories, so find opportunities to do both.”*“ Your style is your brand…It is valuable and compelling to find your style and stick to it, and then approach each new challenge from that perspective.”*“ The challenge of making content about content is knowing when should I be specific and speak directly to those priority audiences and their priority use cases? And when should I pop up a level and speak in a more generalized way about capabilities and benefits, and trust that the audience will know how that applies to the specific thing they're trying to make?”Time Stamps[0:55] Vanessa Hope Schneider, Head of Brand at Descript[03:38] Why Taskmaster?[04:47] The Role of Head of Brand at Descript[07:09] Empowering Creatives With Descript's Tools[08:15] Descript's Company-Wide Film Fests[09:21] The Origins of Taskmaster[16:43] Understanding Taskmaster's Production Value[21:37] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Taskmaster[32:31] Importance of Investing in Content[41:31] Importance of Video in Modern Marketing[48:27] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Vanessa on LinkedInLearn more about DescriptAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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 (Head of Production). 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.

This episode features an interview with Kamal Thakarsey, CMO at Smartling, an AI Translation Platform that helps companies grow globally, faster. Kamal shares his strategy to stand out in a crowded market. He also dives into understanding trends, educating your customer, and testing even your smallest hypothesis.Key Takeaways:Fight complacency in your messaging. Companies may be comfortable with what they are doing, and comfortable sticking with the status quo, so you need to demonstrate the value of changing their approach. Test everything, from button colors to CTAs and beyond. Testing often surprises you and proves your hypotheses wrong. If you're in a crowded market, focus on truly understanding your market and customers. Investing in that research can support your efforts to differentiate. Quote:   Being an established market, there's lot of kind of noise that's happening and every company kind of raising your hand and saying, we do this, we do this.I think for us also a big part of our strategy is like standing out really like trying to show the market that like we are kind of being industry leaders and helping the space move forward. , I think it's also really about for us, also about how we really highlight kind of the value we bring to an organization and a team. Not just like, tactically, here's some solutions, we help you kind of of do better, but like, what do we actually bring the table and how are we going to help you be successful? I think to me, that's really just like foundational to them, like how we kind of run our programs and campaigns and how more effective they can be, rather than just kind of de facto doing things because we should be doing them. So, you know, one thing I really stress is just really continue to do like market research and understanding, you know, what are their priorities? What are the business initiatives? What are their executives and leaders asking them on an ongoing basis?How can we then understand those trends and that feedback and really put together, you know, smart, timely, relevant campaigns that are going to reach them? Because, like I said, we're in a crowded market with a lot of different vendors, both in the software and the services side, and we have to stand out.Episode Timestamps: *(03:35) The Trust Tree: Capturing the marketing and targeting accounts *(12:24) The Playbook: Driving intent through search*(36:59) The Dust Up: Advocating for self-service *(41:50) Quick Hits: Kamal's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Kamal on LinkedInLearn more about SmartlingLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Gaurav Agarwal, COO and Revenue Leader at ClickUp, an all-in-one productivity platform that replaces all individual workplace productivity tools with a single, unified platform. Gaurav shares his thoughts on keeping your content strategy relevant and the iteration and testing needed to go viral. He also discusses maintaining a blend of B2B and B2C tactics to achieve scalable success.Key Takeaways:Content strategy and going viral is much more about consistency and iteration than it is about the spark of one amazing ideas. Rigorous and experimentation leads to long-term ROI. To stay relevant in marketing, you have to keep up to date on generational trends and new formats of reaching people. You can't get comfortable being a great marketer in an outdate channel. You have to keep bets in your portfolio that have an asymmetric upside, which you can only do if you are willing to take on a certain amount of risk. Don't get too excited about immediate ROI. Quote: A huge part of perfecting craft is you want to stay relevant.  I know amazing marketers  who are gods of Facebook and building viral content on Facebook.  And they fought the short form vertical video format with TikTok so much. They looked down upon it because they thought that this is cringy, this is shot on an iPhone. And I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? Like, do you not want to be culturally relevant in the next decade? So, a huge part of a great team is staying hungry and not thinking that you've arrived because content, media, consumer preferences, even software is a generational business.  You have to stay on with the formats of what the future is and keep moving towards that direction versus be so happy that I'm this amazing marketer on Facebook. Dude, like your time is up. Facebook pages don't get any distribution anymore. Episode Timestamps: *(03:29) The Trust Tree: Size of audience and LTV should drive your marketing strategy *(11:18) The Playbook: Strategic iteration to go viral on social *(38:03) The Dust Up: Adapt content to different channels and stay true to your brand ethos *(43:52) Quick Hits: Gaurav's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Gaurav on LinkedInLearn more about ClickUpLearn more about Caspian Studios

Simon Sinek says that a lot of organizations can talk about what they do and how they do it. But he says, “Very few organizations know why they do what they do.” And it's the ‘why' that is the most important. In this episode, we're taking this lesson and more from Simon Sinek with the help of our special guest, Guru Sundar.Together, we talk about finding your ‘why', looking for inspiration in unexpected places, and timing your content so it feels fresh. About our guest, Guru SundarGuru Sundar is VP of Marketing at Abridge, a leader in generative AI for healthcare. Guru has been with the company since September 2023. He previously served as VP of Marketing at Looking Glass Factory and Butterfly Network. Guru holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University and an MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Simon Sinek:Find your ‘why'. Figure out the reason your work is important and use that in your content. Guru says, ”Every company should have a ‘why' that's rooted in a large problem. And it may be broken into a subset of problems that you tackle over time, but like really focus on that ‘why.'”Look for inspiration in unusual places. Inspiration for your content can come from unexpected places. Guru says, ”Drawing inspiration from outside is culturally ingrained in how we do what we do at Abridge, because if you look at who's next to you, you're not going to innovate. But if you look way far out and break down like, ‘Oh, that brand or that person is having similar challenges, but they're making t-shirts, but I can draw some inspiration from them,' or like ‘That person over there is making music, or they're making some form of art that no one's ever seen before.'”Time your delivery so content stays fresh. Finesse is everything when delivering content to your audience. Guru says, ”No one likes fatigue. And so you have to keep fatigue, freshness, innovation in mind as you're generating these pieces of content. You could have like four or five different content streams. And people need to hear things multiple times, but they don't need to hear it seven times in a row. A lot of the content is developing the right things for your audience that are innately interesting. If you just ask someone, ‘Hey, is this interesting? Is this useful?' They say yes. But then serving it at the right frequency, at the right time, in the right form factor and package, is what I think differentiates okay marketers from incredible marketers.”Quotes*”Drawing inspiration from outside is culturally ingrained in how we do what we do at Abridge, because if you look at who's next to you, you're not going to innovate. But if you look way far out and break down like, ‘Oh, that brand or that person is having similar challenges, but they're making t-shirts, but I can draw some inspiration from them,' or like ‘That person over there is making music, or they're making some form of art that no one's ever seen before.'”*”Every company should have a ‘why' that's rooted in a large problem. And it may be broken into a subset of problems that you tackle over time, but like really focus on that ‘why.'”*”You can break marketing down into two mainstreams. It's like  amazing content that resonates with your audience, you know, your buyer, your end user, and then you have to serve it on all the right channels with the right frequency, usage, et cetera, like cut it up the right way. But content is everything. So it's like, what is it that's going to inspire your buyers? What is it that's going to inspire your end users? And it's keeping it provocative.”*”No one likes fatigue. And so you have to keep fatigue, freshness, innovation in mind as you're generating these pieces of content. You could have like four or five different content streams. And people need to hear things multiple times, but they don't need to hear it seven times in a row. A lot of the content is developing the right things for your audience that are innately interesting. If you just ask someone, ‘Hey, is this interesting? Is this useful?' They say yes. But then serving it at the right frequency, at the right time, in the right form factor and package, is what I think differentiates okay marketers from incredible marketers.”*”If I was to give advice to others, like, really understand your personas, and make sure you know what they need and do it in the most authentic way. If you don't believe in the content, don't serve the content.  And I think a lot of people in marketing just check the box. ‘We need to do emails. We need to do ads. We need to do a white paper,' but like, why are you doing it? And then assess like, ‘Did this work? Did this not work?' And use that as impetus to drive the next thing. But you have to really believe in your content. And I think a lot of people are very tactical and that's where I think it falls flat.“*”The way we operate at Abridge is like you almost have this mentality that this is the last time you're ever gonna create a piece of content. So make it last, make it meaningful.  At some point, you gotta pull back and appreciate everything you've done. Take stock of it. But in the moment, like, don't look back. Don't look too far forward. Focus on today and crush it. And when you think about content that way, it's like, ‘I'm going to really focus on this piece of content. I don't really care what we've done in the past. I don't care what we're going to do in the future. I want to make this count.'”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Guru Sundar, VP of Marketing at Abridge[1:53] Guru Sundar's Journey into Marketing[4:31] The Role and Vision at Abridge[7:35] The Importance of Brand and Inspiration[16:37] Simon Sinek's Golden Circle[19:29] Personal Mission and Healthcare Innovation[23:25] The Impact of Transparency in Healthcare[25:20] AI and Deeper Understanding in Healthcare[25:46] The Importance of Patient History[27:53] Marketing and Storytelling in Healthcare[31:41] Challenges in B2B Healthcare Marketing[33:09] Clinician and Patient-Centric Solutions[43:12] The Role of Content in Marketing[50:34] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Guru on LinkedInLearn more about Simon Sinek and “Starting with Why”About Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Ural Cebeci, SVP Marketing at Braze, a customer engagement platform that allows any marketer to collect and take action on data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels.Ural shares his perspective on the challenges and hesitations surrounding personalization, and his thoughts on how to move forward. He also dives into understanding digital body language and customer signals.Key Takeaways:A good demand strategy requires two things: GTM alignment and having the infrastructure to understand the business through data. To have a strong brand, you need healthy, long-term customer relationships, which requires understanding digital body language and customer signals. Marketers have valid hesitations around personalization, due to compliance and data privacy issues, and fear of eroding customer trust. As a result, using channels to continually get consent from customers adn actually delivering value is key. Quote:   ”In the end, in order to have a strong brand, you need to have healthy and long -term customer relationships. And we all acquire customers, users, through campaigns, but then retaining them really means connecting with the human behind that anonymous user or anonymous visitor. And that brings back the whole digital body language. Like we understand what that user is signaling, like what is at the surface versus what they are saying with their engagement, like what they say and collect that data and then like use that to drive better and more meaningful customer relationships.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:55) The Trust Tree: Understanding the business through data*(11:46) The Playbook: Any channel is cuttable, you need to understand your marketing mix*(25:59) The Dust Up: Alignment and committing to the same idea*(27:43) Quick Hits: Ural's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ural on LinkedInLearn more about BrazeLearn more about Caspian Studios

AI is changing so much about how we create content. So we thought we'd bring in the founders of a brand new tool for making rich, interactive 3D content using AI.We're talking with Co-Founders Charles Migos and Bharat Vasan.And together, we talk about how to make the most out of AI tools, including mocking up ideas, iterating quickly and taking risks.About our guests, Charles Migos and Bharat VasanCharles Migos is Co-Founder & CEO at Intangible. He has over 30 years of experience in the tech industry, specializing in UX and product design. He has previously worked for Microsoft and Apple. Prior to Intangible, Charles served as VP of Product Design at Unity Technologies, where he established a core design practice, principles and philosophy. He also founded a centralized design organization and drove double-digit NPS, CSAT, engagement KPIs and revenue improvement across their portfolio with product design efforts.Bharat Vasan is an experienced investor, executive and board member with 15+ years of leadership in technology. He has a strong track record as a founder and operator in multiple sectors:• Connected Sensors & Devices• Consumer Software and Media• Healthcare, Fitness & Wellness• IoT Sensors / Smart HomeBharat is currently a founder of Intangible.ai, which uses AI to build the world's simplest 3D storytelling tool for creators in games, film, web and XR.Prior to Intangible, Bharat was an investment partner at The Production Board, a $450M venture capital fund, where he built on his experience as an angel investor with a deep network of founders. He helped invest in and create value at businesses ranging from foundry/seed, all the way to growth/IPO. As COO for fund, he also helped the firm fundraise and navigate market cycles in 3 of the most volatile years in venture capital.Bharat also has a strong track record as a P&L operator for growth and early-stage companies, having led his businesses through multiple rounds of financing and acquisitions. Bharat has raised over $500m for his companies, with multiple exits (founded BASIS Science, acq. by Intel; President August Home, acq. by Assa Abloy; CEO of PAX Labs, achieved unicorn status).Bharat is an active public speaker and Board member for venture-backed startups, and nonprofits.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Intangible.ai:Mock up ideas. You can make effective prototypes of a content idea with AI. It lets you get your idea across without having to invest a lot of time or money in a first draft. Charles says, “A storyboard is probably the most important artifact in the process after the script itself. Why? Because it is very low fidelity, but there is very high bandwidth in what it communicates. So like, I as the cinematographer, the director, the set designer, the costume designer, the visual effects supervisor, whomever, looks at A 2D sketch and understands exactly what it means for them creatively. So that idea that you can work from very low or coarse levels of detail, but get to very high levels of detail over time in the way that the process requires is super important. And is as enabling for those film creators or game creators as it will be for these other use cases we hope to activate around live event and architecture, urban design, live event productions and theater and all of that good stuff.”Iterate quickly. Something not quite right with the first version? Iterate quickly using AI. It can even give you multiple drafts or versions of the same idea. Bharat says, ” If you're trying to do a Pixar movie or a documentary, or you're trying to make an interactive game, that's the stuff that feels harder. And it feels like AI can simplify some of that. I can give you a first draft, I can give you a second draft, and I can do it in real time.” Take risks. Because you're not having to spend too much time or money mocking up your ideas with AI, it allows you to take some risks. Get really wild and see how far your ideas can take you. Bharat says, ”One thing that's happened to businesses because budgets have gotten so big, everyone's super risk averse, so you get more lookalike content. And one reason you don't see great content on channels like we used to, or the box offices, because, you know, when your budget is that large, you can't afford to take a lot of creative risks.  So one reason we started the company where we are is if we can make that beginning process easy, if it's easier for Netflix to review more pitches, if it's easier for them to get a better scent, maybe they start taking more diverse bets.”Quotes*” When we found ourselves in this moment around generative AI, I knew that the time had come. Like we could apply generative AI in a way that was designed for creatives to do their best work ever. And I'm an ardent believer that creativity is a team sport.” - Charles Migos*” There's a lot of anxiety about, is AI gonna take over jobs? What is it gonna do to the creative industry? I see it slightly differently. I see it as a way to revert back to the original joy.” - Bharat Vasan*” Those people who feel somewhat threatened by the technological advance, we want to re-weaponize them so that they have more tools and skills that they can employ in different ways to ensure that bright, creative minds are in charge of the content that we enjoy as lovers of the space and consumers of that content.” - Charles Migos*” If you're trying to do a Pixar movie or a documentary, or you're trying to make an interactive game, that's the stuff that feels harder. And it feels like AI can simplify some of that. I can give you a first draft, I can give you a second draft, and I can do it in real time. But the agency that people feel when they're able to do that in real time is really, really powerful. And they share that with other people, other people give them feedback. At least when I build stuff, that gives me energy. I made something as a kid, you know, with my little Lego bricks. I shared it with my friends. They go, ‘That's really cool.' They want to build it with me. That's the fun part about being in this business.” - Bharat Vasan*”Now that AI has come along, we feel like that's the last unconquered thing. You can set up a 3D set, you can figure out how to film it before you spend a dollar on production. And then people know what it looks like, feels like, when you're pitching that to a client, to a movie studio, they get a sense of what that's like as well. And so everyone gets more confidence on the creative project before going into production. And one of the things that's broken about the business is everyone has to place that bet in millions and millions of dollars without knowing what's going to come out of it at the end of the day. And often it might not even be a storyboard, it might just be a script or a blurb. And then you're just hoping and praying that someone's going to do something good with it.” - Bharat Vasan*”A storyboard is probably the most important artifact in the process after the script itself. Why? Because it is very low fidelity, but there is very high bandwidth in what it communicates. So like, I as the cinematographer, the director, the set designer, the costume designer, the visual effects supervisor, whomever, looks at A 2D sketch and understands exactly what it means for them creatively. So that idea that you can work from very low or coarse levels of detail, but get to very high levels of detail over time in the way that the process requires is super important. And is as enabling for those film creators or game creators as it will be for these other use cases we hope to activate around live event and architecture, urban design, live event productions and theater and all of that good stuff.” - Charles Migos*”One thing that's happened to businesses because budgets have gotten so big, everyone's super risk averse, so you get more lookalike content. And one reason you don't see great content on channels like we used to, or the box offices, because, you know, when your budget is that large, you can't afford to take a lot of creative risks.  So one reason we started the company where we are is if we can make that beginning process easy, if it's easier for Netflix to review more pitches, if it's easier for them to get a better scent, maybe they start taking more diverse bets.” - Bharat VasanTime Stamps[00:55] Meet Intangible.ai Co-founders Charles Migos and Bharat Vasan[01:34] Charles' Early Inspirations[03:26] Bharat's Journey and Inspirations[04:26] Founding Intangible AI[04:30] The Vision Behind Intangible AI[05:59] Challenges in the Creative Industry[09:38] The Role of AI in Creativity[20:42] User Experience and Design Thinking[26:01] The Complexity and Fear of AI in Creativity[27:53] Supporting Creative Intent with AI[29:06] Generative AI and the Future of Content Creation[30:33] Revolutionizing B2B Marketing with AI[36:07] The Role of Taste in Creative AI Tools[42:14] Simplifying the Creative Process[46:44] Empowering Original Ideas and Risk-Taking[51:19] Final Thoughts and Closing RemarksLinksConnect with Bharat and Charles on LinkedInLearn more about Intangible.aiAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Emma Robinson, B2B Marketing Lead at Canva, a global online visual communications platform on a mission to empower the world to design.In this episode, Emma dives into Canva's shift from individual to enterprise functionality, sharing her thoughts on the inherent value of investing in brand at any stage. She also dives into the increasing importance of word-of-mouth and avoiding the sea of sameness in B2B marketing. Key Takeaways:Brand and creative help you to get potential buyers thinking and feeling, and help you differentiate among a sea of sameness in B2B marketing, and pushes buyers towards action. While analyst relations are still important, word-of-mouth and peer-driven buying are increasingly important, potentially reducing some of the importance of analyst reports. Traditional SEO is changing, and having high-quality, insight rich content with an authentic point of view will be important. Quote:  Traditional SEO is probably changing somewhat. I mean, most of us who have searched something in recent times will not necessarily be searching just in Google. So, finding ways to make sure that our content will be trained by an LLM in the right ways, you know, people still need answers, but they're getting them in a very different way now.  Image search and, you know, tech search  and all these different things that will inevitably change what we know  as traditional SEO. So, I think for that, it's again, back to the point about being grounded in really good quality content, like colored content that has a point of view that does feel less AI oriented and more  really rich in insights insights, for example, like primary research, those types of things, but that's still going to stay. And then I think influencer marketing and things like podcasts and so forth, like all of those sort of authentic moments are going to matter in kind of the new world. So, we're definitely rethinking our search strategy there, and so more to come on that.Episode Timestamps: *(03:33) The Trust Tree: Changing perceptions and moving into enterprise*(23:16) The Playbook: Thinking and feeling to action *(39:53) The Dust Up:  Do you invest in brand equity for the long term? *(43:53) Quick Hits: Emma's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-robinson-mtkg/Learn more about Canva: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/

You would never send a postcard instead of an email, create a zine instead of a white paper, or take polaroids instead of digital headshots. But that's why you, the digital marketer, should do it.There's an appeal to all of these lo-fi, analog mediums that call back to yesteryear. A nostalgia. A deliberate denial of modernity. Not only would it surprise your audience, it would lure them right in.So in this episode, we're making a case for lo-fi content. We're doing so by pulling marketing lessons from Ken Layne's Desert Oracle.With the help of our special guest, Chief Evangelist at Contentful, Nicole France, we talk about creating lo-fi content, bucking convention, taking a distinct perspective, and much more.About our guest, Nicole FranceNicole France is Chief Evangelist at Contentful. Nicole is a passionate customer advocate evangelizing new ways of thinking about content and organizing the work of digital business. It's the wave of the future — and her mission is to make sure everyone knows why. She brings the perspective and critical thinking of an industry analyst and the first-hand experience of a practitioner. Before joining Contentful, Nicole worked as an analyst at Constellation Research and Gartner. She also held a variety of strategy and marketing roles at Fujitsu, Equinix, ITSMA, and Cisco. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Nicole enjoys the outdoors, flying small planes, and embarking on yet another house project in her spare time.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Desert Oracle:Create lo-fi content. Make a zine, a radio show or podcast, a book or comic book. Something your audience can touch and can use to get a bit deeper into your world. Make your brand real for them. Nicole says that when it comes to Desert Oracle, “There's something here that kind of harkens back to what the arts and crafts movement was. In the industrial revolution, you know, this idea of kind of going back to this craft, this artisanal, this very human, this very lo-fi way of doing things. And ironically enough, I think there's a real space for that, even in these digital channels.”Buck convention. Feeling disillusioned with the mainstream take on building an audience? Ken Layne grows his audience by creating niche, tangible content with a strong sense of place and it has garnered a dedicated following. In 2024, 44% of Spotify listeners were new to the Desert Oracle podcast, and it ranked among the top 5 or top 10 podcasts for 5,000 listeners. Nicole says, “ [Ken Layne] is actively rejecting conventional wisdom about how you build an audience. And yet that is absolutely part of what is making him successful at doing it. And it's almost like the extent to which I think of Patagonia a lot of times in this kind of context, where Patagonia is telling you, like, use the stuff you already have. And that somehow is part of what makes you want to keep going back to Patagonia. This is what makes people so loyal to Patagonia is the bigger mission. And like weirdly telling people not to buy it somehow is what makes them want to go and buy more, which is sort of, but not actually their intent.”Take a distinct perspective. What is the story that is unique to you? That's the story you want to tell. Nicole says, “ That distinctiveness in that perspective and that point of view, I think that's something that really effective brands gravitate toward anyway. They're good at it consciously and sometimes unconsciously as well. And I think B2B marketing needs more of that. You know, where what we offer our customers, regardless of what we're selling is typically not generic stuff. So why should our marketing sound like generic stuff? And yet a whole hell of a lot of it does. For a long time, we've been in a world where there's a tremendous volume of noise and the kinds of things that get cut through are things like Ken Layne's curmudgeonly, somewhat dismissive and yet somehow totally compelling take on the world. That's what draws people in."Curate an experience. Ken Layne curates an experience that captures the mystical nature of Joshua Tree and the greater Mojave Desert. And he does it by appealing to the senses - more than just the sight that digital content requires. You hear the voices of the desert through his podcast and radio show. You can hold an artifact of the desert: the Desert Oracle zine. His multimedia approach creates a world unique to Desert Oracle. And you get the inside scoop. Nicole says, “ There is a very specific point of view, it is Ken Layne's point of view. But he also brings in a bunch of stories from other people and from other places and sometimes from other times as well.  he's curating an experience for you. And I think that is a really powerful takeaway here.”Quotes*” What Ken Layne does with Desert Oracle is paint this very compelling picture of a place. In some cases, a literal place, like when he's hiking out in Joshua tree, or in some cases, it's more of almost like a spiritual place, a conceptual place that we want to be in.*” How do we get back in touch with the things that are really fundamental, that really are the most important in our existence and nature and, you know, as people? And then how do we associate those meaningful things with what we do in the rest of our lives?”*” [Ken Layne] is actively rejecting conventional wisdom about how you build an audience. And yet that is absolutely part of what is making him successful at doing it. And it's almost like the extent to which I think of Patagonia a lot of times in this kind of context, where Patagonia is telling you, like, use the stuff you already have. And that somehow is part of what makes you want to keep going back to Patagonia. This is what makes people so loyal to Patagonia is the bigger mission. And like weirdly telling people not to buy it somehow is what makes them want to go and buy more, which is sort of, but not actually their intent.”*” When you have a really compelling idea or message at the core, you can find all of these different ways of communicating it really effectively.”*” We found the podcast and then we found the publication. And I guess it really speaks to this idea that multimedia is everywhere. It's in a whole bunch of different stuff. And I think that is actually a really important message and takeaway here, too.  I think that  this idea of being able to explore different aspects of the story and the story world is really key.  Knowing where your audience is, but also being able to bring your audience to where you are, or where you want them to be.  Like, I have totally been brought in and then bought into the world of Desert Oracle. How I got there is almost immaterial, but like there are all these different places that I'm getting this enjoyment from, being part of that world and I feel like I have found a path that brought me in there.”*”[Desert Oracle] is not for everybody for sure, but boy, it creates an incredibly loyal and dedicated audience. That's actually what we want to do as B2B marketers as well.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Nicole France, Chief Evangelist at Contentful[3:45] Nicole France's Role at Contentful[4:54] The Creation of Desert Oracle[7:07] Ken Layne's Career Journey[10:17] Marketing Lessons from Desert Oracle[13:57] The Power of Authenticity in Marketing[14:49] The Role of Generative AI in Marketing[39:06] The Importance of Longevity in Content Creation[41:34] Final Thoughts and ConclusionLinksConnect with Nicole on LinkedInLearn more about ContentfulAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Jean-Christophe Pitié, CMO and Chief Partner Officer at Contentsquare, an experience intelligence platform that helps you gain a deep understanding of your customers' whole online journey.In this episode, Jean-Christophe shares his approach to merging brands while minimizing friction and negative impact. He also discusses the future of SEO and how they are experimenting with influencing LLMs.Key Takeaways:The future of SEO may shift to thinking about how to influence LLMs, and what they say about your brand. While it's currently unclear how to do this, it will likely become increasingly important in the coming years.When merging multiple brands, move slowly and very carefully monitor your work to look for friction and negative impacts.Investing in the martech stack is uncuttable since data is essential to the modern marketer.Quote: We did two major acquisitions in the last two years, and we had three websites under three brands. So we are going through this major rebranding, combining and merging the three brands and phasing out two of the three brands. And so I would say that's a massive project and experiment too. It's like, how do you merge these brands and which have followers, minimizing the business impact, minimizing customer friction? Break things along the journey, so you have to take things. So this, you can identify what you bring to customer journeys or customer flow you're breaking. And as you shift the traffic, for example, SEO, as you start to rebuild SEO, it takes time. Paid search, you cannot do it all. So we said the main learnings are, we knew that would be things breaking and it's happening. So take it slowly, monitor, monitor, monitor very quickly. And we have a weekly committee where we monitor how it's going and the transition is happening. So yes, be slow and patient. Don't break things, or as little as possible.Episode Timestamps: *(03:04) The Trust Tree: Useful organizational design structures *(08:57) The Playbook: Influencing LLMs*(31:51) The Dust Up The challenge of monetization*(33:54) Quick Hits: JCP's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jean-Christophe on LinkedInLearn more about ContentsquareLearn more about Caspian Studios

A fly fisherman goes to part of the river where the trout are feeding, uses a fly that mimics the insect hatching at that time, and times their cast to land just-so.A marketer goes where their target audience is, posts content in-sync with what's trending, and times their campaign to land just-so. It's that same idea of tuning into the media landscape and knowing your audience that will land you the big fish. There are so many marketing lessons we can take from fly fishing. And in this episode, we're tying the two together through an analysis of A River Runs Through It.With the help of our special guest, CMO Simpro Rachel Truair, we're talking about how rhythm and timing are everything, going where you're most likely to find success, and much more.About our guest, Rachel TruairRachel Truair is a seasoned marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in driving revenue and growth for high-growth startups and Fortune 100 enterprises. She combines foundational best practices from her corporate background with agile and innovative approaches from her scale up experience, leading and mentoring teams through successful exits in IPOs and acquisitions. Her teams have won the Forrester Return on Integration Award, the Oracle "Markie" Award, and nominated for the 6Sense Breakthrough Award.Currently, as the CMO of Simpro, a $120M+ ARR private equity-backed field service management software company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, Rachel is responsible for aligning marketing strategy to business outcomes and creating predictable, scalable sources of revenue. She leverages her expertise in go to market strategy, account based marketing and leading global marketing teams to source pipeline driving ninety percent of Simpro's annual revenue.As an equestrian and fly fisherwoman, Rachel is passionate about conservation and the outdoors, serving on the non-profit board of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center. She is a mom of two and holds a BA from St. Edward's University and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business.What B2B Companies Can Learn From A River Runs Through It:Rhythm and timing are everything. Marketing, like fishing, takes practice, skill and finesse. Rachel says when it comes to flyfishing, “ It's not about strength. It's not about muscling it into something. It's about understanding the rhythm and the timing. A lot of times you want to just try to get to the end and be really perfect at something and put all of your strength into it and throw it as far as you can. But the reality is that actually makes it worse. It makes it harder. And if you can start to learn the rhythm, the feel, the timing of it, you can really start to see improvement.” Go where you're most likely to have success. In other words, go where your target audience is. Whether that's social media, email, podcasts, or wherever. You're literally fishing for customers. Rachel says, ” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”It's all about storytelling. We all know about big fish stories. With fishing, just like marketing, it's all about having a story to tell. Ian says, “It is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?' You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. '” What's your story?  Quotes*”Cost per lead these days really doesn't mean anything. I could spend a dollar on 3,000 spam leads and that doesn't mean that I'm going to get any new sales or great deals out of it. What is hard is to measure the value of what you're spending money on that creates valuable, sustainable growth. And customers who love the product and have success with the product. That's really not just about spending certain money up front to attract those customers, but also following those customers in their journey and understanding. How are you going to make them successful?”*” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”*”Marketing [like fishing] is about the story, it is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?' You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. '”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Rachel Truair, CMO at Simpro[4:20] The Story Behind A River Runs Through It[9:36] Fly Fishing Techniques and Marketing Parallels[15:17] The Deeper Meaning of Fly Fishing[22:22] Personal Fly Fishing Experiences and Marketing Insights[25:51] Focusing on High Probability Areas[26:39] Defining Success in Marketing[28:06] Fly Fishing Team Building Experience[[38:39] Fishing Stories and Marketing Lessons[44:52] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Rachel on LinkedInLearn more about SimproAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Drew Chapin, CMO at Certinia, a platform that connects all aspects of services operations, from services estimation and delivery to customer success management and financial planning and accounting. In this episode, Drew discusses monitoring buying signals and generating the right traffic to your website. He also dives into inheriting a rebrand and some of the nuances of marketing in a private equity owned company. Key Takeaways: Cold calls, cold emails and the days of expecting someone to fill out a form to get content are over. B2B marketers need to stop making friction or blockers.Nothing fails like success. If you just continue to execute what has worked in the past, you're going to miss innovation opportunities. Aspire for a champagne flute funnel over a martini glass funnel. Maybe not as many leads are coming in at the top, but they are higher quality and converting and much higher rates through the funnel. Quote: “85 percent of the time the buyer will go with the first vendor that they contact. So, building that trust with the buyer over time is critically important. And so, you know, in the old days, you put a form in front of every piece of content and we would optimize around the contact information.  And then you'd pass that along to some BDR and they would just be banging their head against the wall, calling people who weren't on the buying committee. They weren't ready to talk to a salesperson, you know, and it just was waste so much waste. And so what we're trying to do now is we're trying to monitor the activity at the target account level and look for buying signals”Episode Timestamps: *(02:51) The Trust Tree: Stretching the dollar in a PE-owned company*(06:28) The Playbook: Generating quality traffic to the website *(24:28) The Dust Up: Proving ROI to the board *(26:59) Quick Hits: Drew's quit hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Drew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapindrew/Learn more about Certinia: https://www.linkedin.com/company/certinia/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Over 85 million people play Pokemon Go every month.* They're out there, wandering the real world, finding, catching and battling with their cute little virtual creatures. But the experience is real and the people they play with are real. You could say it's one of the most successful in-person activations ever. Pokemon Go is proof that in-person activations act as an extremely effective marketing strategy.That's one of the lessons we're taking from Pokemon in this episode with the help of our special guest, fractional CMO Veronica Saron. Together, we also talk about providing game balance, paying attention to metrics, and much more.*As of the first half of 2024About our guest, Veronica SaronVeronica Saron is a marketing leader, formerly of Niantic (Pokémon GO) and AI-powered Neeva (acquired by Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) in May 2023). Her journey has led her through the worlds of gaming, DAOs, artificial intelligence, web3, and the metaverse. Recently, she led the marketing team at Neeva, revolutionizing the search experience by embedding AI answers into an advertiser-free search engine. Her team's efforts around Neeva's AI-powered positioning – paired with frequent high-profile updates – illuminated their innovative approach, attracted industry leaders and led to their acquisition by Snowflake.Over a decade ago, Veronica co-founded OwlSpark, Rice University's entrepreneurship accelerator, marking the start of her tech journey. After serving Fortune 500 and Global 2000 clients as a strategy consultant and having a stint as a coordinator at Google, she joined Niantic. There, she led the team that transformed Pokémon GO into a global phenomenon, collaborating with esteemed partners like Google, Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, McDonald's, Verizon, Longchamp, Gucci, Northface, and 7-Eleven, as well as countless global SMBs, community creators, and influencers. She has since stepped into roles as an investor and advisor, shaping the future of tech startups. Outside of work, she enjoys stovetop espresso, practicing muay thai, and playing the saxophone. What B2B Companies Can Learn From Pokemon:Provide game balance. Veronica says, “ When people talk about gamification, it needs to be at the right level of difficulty for you to not just get frustrated and give up. A really good game  will start you off on level one and then you progress through difficulty levels.” And when you apply this to marketing, Ian says, “ Your sales process getting really hard for no freaking reason is the most frustrating thing ever.” So take your customers on a journey, and give them the experience appropriate to where they are in their buying process.Look at the metrics. And give them more weight than verbal feedback. Data speaks louder than words. Veronica says, “ When Pokemon Go was in beta, the metrics were really good. Like the retention rates, the activation rates. All the metrics were up and to the right. But people were giving really bad feedback. They were like, ‘I hate this. Why is it not like that? Why isn't it working this way? Why isn't it doing that? Why isn't it doing this?' And the reason why the team launched the game is because the metrics just spoke louder than what people were saying.”Plan in-person activations.  And create immersive environments for your audience. Veronica says, “ When you think about B2B events, you think about conferences and these kind of old school vibes, and I  don't think that's the cutting edge anymore. If you want to do B2B marketing well, take a page out of B2C. There've been some incredible in-person events.” When she worked on Pokemon Go, they were able to do successful in-person events even during COVID and they were able to grow the business despite restrictions.Quotes*”  With Pokemon Go and with any product, there's always going to be core users who are like super users. And they will have all these ideas. They'll want certain features. They'll want certain things fixed. They will be really loud. And then you get the rest of everybody that's the silent majority. A huge part of what product marketers have to do is prioritize feedback based on what is actually going to move the needle in terms of our goals. Because if you just listen to the core users all the time, you'll just make this thing that's only for a very specific super user. You have to balance that feedback with what's going to work for the majority as well.”*”Figure out what problem you're solving. Who is it for? Figure that out first and then you can start to think about being precious about your brand. Once you have something to protect, like the Pokemon company, then you can get precious about it.”*” Sometimes we get caught up in our own core mindset and we forget we have to take the customer through a journey and through a ‘balanced game,' if you will.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Veronica Saron, Fractional CMO at early stage startups[1:33] Veronica's Journey with Pokemon[5:02] The Origin Story of Pokemon[10:07] Pokemon's Global Impact[16:01] Marketing Pokemon Go[29:16] The Business Model of Pokémon Go[35:06] B2B Marketing Lessons from Pokémon Go[35:53] The Importance of Game Balance in B2B[41:46] Brand Consistency and Product Market Fit[46:44] The Power of In-Person EventsLinksConnect with Veronica on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Niloy Sanyal, CMO at LeanTaaS, a growth-stage company that creates software solutions combining lean principles, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and machine learning to transform hospital and infusion center operations.In this conversation, Niloy and Ian debate the merits of last touch versus multitouch attribution models. They also dive into the potential of AI SDRs and the benefits of ungating the content on your website. Key Takeaways:While reporting last touch attribution may help CMOs establish credibility, there are benefits to thinking in terms of multitouch and how to best determine the next best touch. B2B still has a way to go to fully leverage the capacity of our current LLMs, not to mention the new versions coming out. There is immense opportunity in AI SDRs and BDRs. If you may the CEO fill out a form on your website, you've lost them. Ungating content allows high level prospects to consume the information they need. Quote: I am absolutely bullish on the impact of generative AI in the tactic of, to start with BDR and AE sales motions as part of our broader ABM execution. But very soon our comms execution, and every part of the marketing execution. But right now, early days, so I don't want to oversell it. But, the promise of what this can do without any improvement on the LLM. Like we were having this debate last night with another thought leader and I don't need chat GPT 5 to come out. I think 4. 0 or 4 is good enough and it's actually great. We just haven't caught up in a B2B environment to take advantage of it. And what I'm seeing from our early experiments, we've been at it now for three, four months, is absolutely astounding in what it can do. It's not going to replace BDRs. Let's be clear, you're in the Bay Area. If you  drive from, you know, Peninsula to the city, I almost feel half the billboards these days are on like AI-automated SDR, BDR type of a thing. Not in my space. It's not going to automate that any, replace rather, but it can supercharge. Those individuals and it can supercharge. So I'm very excited about where we are. Episode Timestamps: *(04:00) The Trust Tree: Last Touch Versus Multi-Touch*(30:07) The Playbook: The Potential of Gen AI SDRs and BDRs*(44:05) Quick Hits: Niloy's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Niloy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niloysanyal/Learn more about LeanTaaS: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leantaas/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Not all remakes are created equal. The Dune of 2021 is not the Dune of 1984. Maybe we should say not all “retellings” are created equal. Because both movies are based on the 1965 book. But film critic Roger Ebert scathingly called the first one "an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion." Ouch.The second one - the one we're talking about today - is a different story. It's been called “aesthetically perfect,” and the “faithful retelling of a complicated story.” And it won a handful of Academy Awards.So we're talking about what makes a great retelling and how to use those lessons in your marketing content. With the help of our special guest, VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, Ryan Mattison, we also talk about delivering a singular experience, doing partnership-driven marketing, and much more.About our guest, Ryan MattisonRyan Mattison is VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, where he leads the corporate marketing team, and looks after brand, creative, communications, and events. Prior to joining Cribl in July 2024, Ryan served as VP of Brand & Communications at ThoughtSpot. There, he led brand, creative and design, communications, PR and analyst relations, customer marketing, employee advocacy, investor relations and content marketing functions. Since joining as an individual contributor in 2017, he built the team from the ground up to deliver world class campaigns that cut through a highly competitive landscape, improve ThoughtSpot's reputation and awareness among key audiences, and generated pipeline that led to revenue.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Dune:Deliver a singular experience. And deliver it in the format that optimizes the experience. Like how Dune was presented on iMax. The large format made the experience of the sounds and the vast landscape of the film a more immersive and real experience. Ryan says, ”Deliver an authentic experience, and people will pay for it. That idea of being intentional and connecting it with a really authentic value prop, that for Dune was super real. That large screen format with the premium sound is going to really, really differentiate your experience with the movie.”Partner up.  Find other companies to cross promote content with. Dune did this with the video game Fortnite, allowing players to buy a “skin” so their avatar looks like a Dune character. Ryan says, “Dune also did probably one of the best jobs in recent years of doing partnership-driven marketing. Theater going is skewing older and older, but something like Fortnite,  has a much younger skewed audience. They were like, ‘We need to target a younger demographic because if we can get kids or young folks to ask their parents to go see Dune and their parents were already kind of thinking about going, now it's a family thing. And you're not selling one ticket or two tickets. You're selling four, five, six tickets at one time.” Ryan adds, “ How do you find the right partner that's not just the easy partner, but the partner where you're able to find or open up new channels, new demographics, new audiences in a way that feels like there's intentional value being delivered?”Create a remake. Or as Ian says, “Try it again for the first time.” Because the movie Dune that came out in 2021 was a remake of the 1984 movie. Or really it was a retelling of the same story with little regard for the first version. And because of the generational difference between viewers, Ian says, “This [2021 version] was the first interaction with Dune for, I would bet, a massive percentage of the audience that saw this. They never read the books. They didn't watch the first movie.  But for people like your mom, it's like, ‘Hey, try it again for the first time.' Like, ‘Yeah, I know you saw the old movie. This is nothing like that. Just try it again.” It reframes everyone's idea of the original story, and gives a totally new experience of it. So make a remake but keep it fresh.Throw the party. Ian says, “ If you make something worth talking about,  throw the party so that the people can talk about it.” That's what this podcast is all about, getting people to talk about Remarkable content and spreading knowledge of it through word of mouth. He adds, “ If you make content also make the event, make a premiere, make a big deal out of it.” Also because you deserve to celebrate good content and the hard work that went into it.Quotes*” There is no time when somebody is engaging with any facet of your brand or your business in which you shouldn't be representing the perception that you want to drive.  Every one of those is an opportunity to tell your story in a potentially different channel, different way.”*”Deliver an authentic experience, and people will pay for it. That idea of like, being intentional, and connecting it with a really authentic value prop, that for Dune, was super real. That large screen format with the premium sound is going to really, really differentiate your experience with the movie.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Ryan Mattison, VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl[0:56] B2B Marketing Lessons from Dune[4:11] Marketing at Cribl[7:16] The Storytelling Power of Corporate Marketing[9:18] Dune: From Book to Blockbuster[12:09] Denis Villeneuve's Vision for Dune[15:28] Marketing Strategies Behind Dune's Success[22:56] Partnership-Driven Marketing Insights[27:24] The Challenge of Marketing B2B Products[27:46] Lessons from the Dune Movie Marketing[28:57] The Role of Mega Stars in Movie Success[31:23] The Importance of Authentic Marketing[35:32] Building Anticipation and Word of Mouth[44:20] The Power of the CEO's Voice[48:52] Upcoming Events and Final ThoughtsLinksConnect with Ryan on LinkedInLearn more about CriblAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Melton Littlepage, the CMO at 1Password, a password manager trusted by businesses and consumers alike. In this episode, Melton shares his thoughts on building big bets into your budget and how the lightning strike strategy can increase awareness, even on a limited budget. He also talks about how he's structured his team to create harmony with sales and the importance of focusing on expansion marketing. Key Takeaways:The lightning strike strategy, spending a large portion of your marketing budget on a message over a number of weeks, can increase awareness better than spreading your budget evenly across the  year. CMOs can be very focused on acquisition, but they should not forget to focus on expansion marketing and the value they can generate there. One-on-one sales and marketing partnerships can help ensure both teams are on the same page and operating in harmony.Quote:  I'm a huge believer in lightning strikes. Lightning strikes are so important to us. If you're not familiar with the lightning strike concept in marketing, it's when you align the entire business, everything about the business where you could possibly project the message into the market, the website, all digital marketing, organic, social, paid social, the sales behavior, your presence at an event, everything in this tiny period of time says one thing. And you say it in deafeningly loud. You deploy 25 or 30 or 40 percent of your marketing budget into a window of time that could be just one or two weeks. And you absolutely blast your way into awareness inside your target buyer audience. This goes against the nature of the CMO, right? The CMO, like we all have these spreadsheets of targets where I need to deliver exactly this many MQLs consistently month in and month out with a little bit of seasonality built in and I can't afford variability. Like I definitely can't miss a month. And I don't know if a lightning strike is going to move the needle and so I peanut butter spread my budget evenly. But the problem is unless you have a massive budget, and most of us don't have a massive budget, then you're constantly below the visible line. You're just relegating yourself to being below the visible line.”Episode Timestamps: *(06:52) The Trust Tree: Leveraging solution marketing as you move to enterprise selling *(23:05) The Playbook: Lightning strikes and increasing awareness *47:00) The Dust Up: Navigating CEO-decisions *(49:00) Quick Hits: Melton's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Melton on LinkedInLearn more about 1passwordLearn more about Caspian Studios

Everyone loves getting the insider view.It's like getting let in on a secret. There's an exclusivity to it that's all too appealing. So why not lure your audience in with the chance to be a fly on the wall in your story?That's one of the things we're talking about today with the help of our special guest, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at CSG, David Pendery. Together, we're taking marketing lessons from The West Wing including pitting two characters against each other with opposing views, going for the walk-and-talk, and much more.About our guest, David PenderyDavid Pendery is an award-winning creative, business-focused enterprise marketing & communications leader with extensive experience building brands and businesses, connecting stakeholder needs to company solutions and driving impactful results for 10-figure and Fortune 500 B2B and B2C organizations. He has more than 20 years of experience elevating the visibility, media sophistication and global internal and external interactions of diverse national and international public and private organizations in a wide variety of industries, representing some of the most well-known B2B and B2C brands.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The West Wing:Give the fly-on-the-wall insider view. Let your audience in on the inside scoop of your story. David says in The West Wing, “ It was like you were a fly on the wall in these super secret conversations, right? The way it was written, I think is what was so successful about it.  You just felt like you were the secret observer and it drew people in.” And Ian adds that “ fly on the wall content is crazy valuable.  You feel like you are intruding on a conversation that you are not invited to. And like, that's incredibly cool for the audience.”Pit two characters against each other with opposing views. It's an easy formula for a compelling plot, it's repeatable, and it works every time. Plus you have one of the greatest writers - Aaron Sorkin - using it in his content. Ian says, “ The way that Sorkin wrote the show, is The West Wing happens in the west wing of the White House. So he would repeatedly say to his staff, ‘Our show is at its best when it's one of our characters that we love, they're disagreeing with another character that we love, and they are on either side of something. And it is happening in the West Wing.'”Go for the walk-and-talk. In The West Wing, a character is often walking down the hallway and other staffers are coming up and updating them or giving them important information on the way. The movement gives the information immediacy and importance. Which are great attributes to lend your content. Ian says, “ I think it's an interesting thing to put your CEO or executive or whoever it is - your persona - and it's a really good way to get video content, right? It's like having them walking and having other people come up to them and jump in and do this. You never see that in B2B, never. You never see that. And it's funny. It's pretty cool.”Quotes*”The biggest thing is you've got to establish some credibility with the stakeholders. So I think it's not really something you're going to be able to come in and do on day one, but if you can prove some value, if you can deliver on the results that you've been tasked with delivering, you'll build up this credibility bank and your stakeholders will let you push the envelope a little bit more.  That credibility allows you to be a little bit more experimental, a little bit more agile, and not get too hung up when things don't always work exactly the way you had hoped.”*”Have your A players up front, make sure you've got the right people surrounding you. Having the right people in the right seats on the bus, so to speak, I think is super important because you wouldn't have that same sort of beautiful orchestration that you saw with The West Wing if it wasn't for the right blend of talents and personalities and experiences in all the right seats.”*”Well, so much B2B marketing is so perfectly staged, right? You've got the perfect talking head and everything's polished and overproduced. You've got the perfect soundtrack and the perfect graphics and everything else. And I think sometimes just getting something a little bit more raw like that walk-and-talk kind of gives you that. It's a little unfiltered. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be the 15th take to get the talking points just right. It's just a real, authentic kind of moment that I think is a lot more endearing. And people are much more interested in something that isn't perfect, cause it's more relatable.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet David Pendery, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at CSG[1:41] Why the West Wing?[4:00] The Origins of the West Wing[11:52] Marketing Lessons from the West Wing[26:24] Embracing Raw and Authentic B2B Marketing[26:59] The Importance of Creativity in Marketing[28:36] Understanding Customer Needs Through Direct Conversations[30:57] Timing and Flexibility in B2B Marketing[37:59] The Role of Personal Branding in Company Success[43:54] Investing in Content and Brand Strategy[47:03] Exciting Trends and Future Plans[48:00] Final Thoughts and Advice for CMOsLinksConnect with David on LinkedInLearn more about CSGAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.

This episode features an interview with Alex Saric, CMO at Ivalua, a company that empowers businesses to effectively manage all categories of spend and all suppliers, increasing profitability, improving ESG performance, lowering risk, and improving employee productivity. In this conversation, Alex shares his insights into pitching to and engaging with analysts, and how Ivalua has lead in reports since he joined the organization. He also dives into the ways he supports his team in building a dynamic website and when events with significant impact aren't measurable in terms of ROI. Key Takeaways:There is a strategy to sharing your value with analysts in order to lead in their reports. Sharing strategically chosen customer stories and assessing what influences each analyst can go a long way. In addition to the basics of creating a great website and tracking traffic, you need to create a dynamic website. Empowering your team to make minor changes and request major changes can allow you to adjust quickly and improve your website strategy. There is a tendency to focus on fixing problems, but don't forget to also assess how to improve and scale what is working well. Quote:  Yes, I'll say when I joined,  we at the time were not a leader in almost any of these reports that were out there. I think we had broken into one. In the  7 years, and knock on wood, I don't want to jinx myself, we've been the leader in every single report from Gartner and Forrester since then. And I'd say, you know, what I really did, it was probably one of my first priorities, given how important it is in our industry, I reached out to the analysts, started meeting one-on-one with the key analysts there. And of course, you know, I'm going to tell them my pitch,  but they're smart enough to know take it with a grain of salt. I think the important thing is to start introducing them to customers because that's where you get a lot of credibility, if the customers back up what you're saying. And you can be very strategic. So, you know, I was very careful in, the competitor that was kind of the top competitor at the time, making sure I introduced the analyst to customers that had switched from that competitor, which would privately both talk about us, but also kind of badmouth,  their past vendor and that really helped kind of flip the switch and start building credibility what I was saying was actually true. And also improving the rankings. And besides the rankings, they're also influencing a lot of deals behind the scenes and I think they start recommending us a lot more after that. Episode Timestamps: *(03:27) The Trust Tree: Structuring the team to tap into regional expertise *(09:27) The Playbook: Engaging with analysts and leading in reports *(33:34) The Dust Up: Healthy tension with other functions*(34:42) Quick Hits: Alex's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsaric/Learn more about Ivalua: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ivalua/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Every person on your team has strengths and…non-strengths. So position them to make the most out of their top skills.It's like how in soccer, you position your top goal-scorer as a forward, not running defense, right? The same is true with marketing. In this episode, we're drawing parallels between soccer and marketing. With the help of our special guest, former Director of Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Advocacy at Ciscy, Cindy Valladares, we're taking marketing lessons from the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team. Together, we talk about using your talent the right way, taking calculated risks, and putting fear in the heart of your competitors.About our guest, Cindy ValladaresCindy Valladares is a marketing executive who recently led brand strategy, storytelling and advocacy for Cisco's cybersecurity business unit. A product marketer at heart, she lives by the NIHITO (nothing interesting happens in the office) motto. Cindy has been a speaker at various security, risk and privacy conferences in North America, Europe and Latin America, where she focuses on topics that affect the information security industry. She is a regular contributor at the Cisco Secure blog, shares her perspective on Twitter @cindyv, and can also be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/cindyvalladares/. She holds an international MBA from the University of Ottawa in Canada, and a BBA in Marketing and International Business.What B2B Companies Can Learn From the USWNT:Take calculated risks. You have to try new things and take some risks. That's how you keep your content fresh and find the big successes. Cindy says that when Emma Hayes took over coaching the U.S. Women's National Team, “she made some very unpopular choices, right? Alex Morgan, who everybody thought was going to be called in the roster, she was left out. And so [Emma] had new creative ideas that she wanted to try, and took some calculated risks. And like we say, nothing tried, nothing gained, and you can see the results.” And a few months later, they won the 2024 Paris Olympics.Use your talent the right way. Match their strengths and skills to the role. And put them on tasks they'll perform well on. When everyone is doing work they're good at and that utilizes their strengths, it benefits the whole team. Ian says, “ Part of the Emma Hayes thing is Trinity Rodman flying down the right side of your team is super valuable because she's like one of the best in the world and she's fast and athletic and all that. Having her spam a cross into nobody even though she's good at that too doesn't help your team. That's not a more valuable action. Whereas her trying to take on the defender one on one, if she does win, and now she's driving at the goal with nobody in between her and the goal, that's way more valuable. And like, I think that that's part of what marketing is about, is figuring out what are the more high leverage things that you can do that make a huge difference.”Put fear in the heart of your competitors. Or more like envy. You want your competitors to look at your content and be jealous. Ian says, “ Every team that we played in the Olympics  is absolutely terrified of the front three of our country sprinting after them  with their defenders on their heels. It's like the most terrifying thing in the world is Trinity Rodman sprinting at their backline, right? And I think about this with competitors with your content campaign. Like I talk about the edutainment graph, rated on a scale of one out of 10 educational, one out of 10 entertaining. So rank your content on the graph and before you even plan to make something, is your competitor going to see this and be like, ‘Oh, I'm so jealous, this is great,' Or is it just something that they're gonna like, ‘All right?'” Quotes*”It's  really important in marketing organizations to lead with a leadership style that creates empathy and allows others to do their best, not a culture of fear.”*” That's an important element of a leader, understanding who you have on your team, what motivates and drives them, and how can you create an environment where they can perform and outperform?”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Cindy Valladares, former Director of Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Advocacy at Cisco[3:41] History and Achievements of the US Women's National Soccer Team[6:38] Equal Pay and Gender Equality Advocacy[8:09] Emma Hayes' Impact on the US Women's National Soccer Team[13:36] Marketing Lessons from Soccer[21:38] Emma Hayes' Coaching Strategies[24:25] Recognizing and Utilizing Team Strengths[25:17] Leveraging Senior Executives in Content[26:49] Maximizing Talent and High-Value Actions[29:11] Understanding Your Audience in Content Strategy[32:36] Creating Impactful and Entertaining Content[35:30] Balancing Brand Awareness and Demand Generation[39:27] Favorite Content Campaigns and Their ImpactLinksConnect with Cindy on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction 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.