Renegade Thinkers Unite: Marketing Tips From Cmos And Expert Marketers

What happens when you put an incredibly articulate CMO in a cab with the host of Renegade Thinkers Unite? Genuine fast-paced goodness, that’s what!  Jennifer Renaud, CMO of Vertiv, a $4.5 Billion company that spun out of Emerson Power in late 2016, is absolutely riveting as she shares the stories of two large companies that abandoned well-known brand names with frightful results. The first company in question was Oracle. During her time there, Renaud witnessed the disappearance of both the Eloqua and Responsys brands in favor of the new Oracle Marketing Cloud. The initial results were not pretty as thousands of Eloqua and Responsys lovers searched in vain for those brands. Site traffic dropped off dramatically until they returned to using the old names at least on landing page. Amazingly, the same thing happened at Vertiv, the parent company of brands like Liebert, Avocent and Geist. While none of these are household names, it turns out they are well liked in their vertical markets. Shortly after her arrival

There is probably nothing more fundamental to marketing than your brand name. It usually takes years to build awareness and equity, especially the kind of equity that helps recruit employees, retain customers and attract prospects. So, when a company decides to change its name, that’s a really big deal or at least it should be given both the challenges of finding a new name and then rebuilding the lost equity. In this episode, Dave Deasy, CMO of TrustArc, formerly TRUSTe, walks us through their entire renaming process. Over the course of this interview, you’ll learn how to tell when a name change is in order and a concrete process for the development of the new name. Involving an outside naming firm was only part of the answer. Another important component was the role of the CEO and his insistence that the executive committee build consensus together. Along the way, Deasy shows his artfulness, encouraging his branding agency to “get crazy” when thinking about the logo design, a suggestion that resulted in the

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, world-famous influencer Nala Cat—who is, in fact, a cat—joins RTU to meow her thoughts on brand building, partnership marketing, and her general marketing philosophy. As she usually does, Nala brought along her two interpreters/owners, Pookie and Shannon, to help put the Nala Cat marketing philosophy into words. In the discussion, they’ll explore exactly what goes into building Nala Cat’s brand, which is notable for—other than being awesome and adorable—boasting 4+ million Instagram followers, earning Nala her own CAA agent (the only cat to do so), and so much more. Additionally, we’ll be donating $1 (up to 1K) for every download of this episode, and the money will go to an awesome charity selected by Nala herself: Love Your Feral Felines, an all-volunteer, registered 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to rescuing cats and giving them a second chance at life. Check out LYFF’s website, and make sure to check out Nala’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite!

If you’re a fan of renegade thinking, then you’ll probably be a fan of David Thompson, CMO of Freshworks, and serial bold marketer. His marketing has historically been fairly subversive, think responding to competitions’ hiring of Cindy Crawford with a RuPaul-led Superbowl commercial (in the early aughts). Or hiring a blimp with “#FailsForce” written on it to circle Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco, and home of Freshworks competitor Salesforce. When asked about being afraid of backlash to his marketing, Thompson responded that, if you aren’t a little afraid of your marketing, it’s probably not worth putting out into the world. He likes to partially gauge this by seeing how his CEO reacts to the pitch—if the CEO immediately mentions that the board will need to take a look, you’re on the right track. Learn more about bold, tactical marketing, rapid rebrands, bartending for Meryl Streep before a performance (her go-to before performing is whiskey), and more on this episode of Renegade Thin

What comes to mind when you hear “Spartan?” Probably some version of the imagery found in 2006’s blockbuster, 300. Scenes of great battle, troops acting in perfect unison to overcome odds in a gritty, ticket-selling fashion. While the Spartan brand we’ll be discussing in this episode doesn’t boast life-threatening battles, it does feature some dramatic challenges, the kind that help to build teamwork. And given the importance of building and sustaining teamwork for the success of just about every organization, you’re going to want to hear how the CMO of Spartan, Carola Jain, pulls this all together.   On this episode of RTU, Jain discusses the importance of a great team—and not just a supportive CEO or an understanding CFO; Carola emphasizes the importance of the people you work with, the people in the company trenches, not the owners or executives. She discusses how commitment to a purpose can help motivate employees, and how they can boost the effectiveness of internal rollouts. Beyond that, Jain explores l

How many languages do you speak? No judgements here—just curious. But, a safe bet would say that the majority of people reading this have a primary language, and then a rudimentary understanding of a second (if that). Now, this is probably fine for the most part, but if you generate some content that needs to be consumed by prospects in other countries, you’ll need a translation service like Smartling. But, Smartling’s marketing doesn’t just revolve around citing how they solve business needs, it celebrates the translators—the people—who make it run, and the stories that each translator has. On this episode of RTU, Adrian Cohn, director of Brand Strategy and Comms, and Jack Welde, Founder & CEO, discuss how they do that. Smartling’s values highlight humanity and personality, and they’ve found considerable success taking those values to heart when marketing. Tune in to hear more about their efforts, how they engage employees before rolling out a campaign, their approach to measurement, and more. Plus, hear

 “When the time is right, you’ll know.” It feels like an almost trope-ish answer to many of life’s questions, or like the vague wisdom from a mentor in a karate movie. Unfortunately, the utility of that phrase really doesn’t extend to executing a rebrand. So, how did Acquia know it was time to rebrand?  Acquia, an enterprise software company, just topped $200 million in revenue, and has achieved 57% growth in the past three years. Clearly, they’ve been doing some things right, and can feel good about their recent decision to rebrand. So, how did CMO Lynne Capozzi know the timing was right? Well, it took a quite a bit of marketing know-how, a need to stand out in the market, and a desire to really emphasize the company’s purpose: to help people “experience digital freedom.” Tune in to this week’s episode to hear more about Lynne’s extensive marketing background, their approach to a successful rebrand, the importance of getting internal buy-in, and more.   

A major CRM company, Springbig, is blazing a trail. They’ve become a go-to provider in the industry they focus on, they’ve got a 98% customer retention rate, and have their entire staff supporting a brand purpose: Help retailers accomplish their goals, every day. On this episode, co-founder and CEO Jeffrey Harris explains how they managed to come into a new industry and quickly establish themselves as key players. The kicker? The area that Springbig pivoted to focus on is the rapidly flowering, marijuana dispensary industry. The cannabis tech industry—think martech, but specifically for cannabis companies—is booming. Updated legislature and an overall cultural shift in perception are two especially large factors in this market’s rapid growth, and as such, a massive new marketplace is opening up, meaning companies have huge opportunities, but need to move quick. Springbig recognized this and set to work identifying and understanding their target. Now, they’re sought out at industry conferences, expanding their

Most CMOs “only” have to focus on businesses or consumers as their primary target. Avid, a multimedia tech company, actually markets products to both audiences, a challenge that CMO Melissa Puls relishes. For Puls, the buyer in either market is still a human, a person with creative ambitions. And while a giant TV network might be spending a lot more money on far more complex editing equipment, their end goals are often the same – produce awesome content and share it with the world. As such, Puls helped the company rally around a shared purpose of “powering greater creators,” an idea that also helped hold all their global marketing efforts together. In our lively conversation, we covered virtually every facet of modern marketing, from what to do in the first hundred days to building a content marketing machine. Importantly, we spent a lot of time talking about the power of having a purpose-driven story statement that is unique, own-able, and inspires employees, customers and prospects regardless of job or busi

Simon Schaffer-Goldman, of Case Paper, is really just your run-of-the-mill CMO. Well, except maybe for starting out as a shepherd in New Zealand. Also, maybe his portfolio of stunning photography and his penchant for comedy writing are somewhat uncommon. Oh, and the willingness to lead a bold rebrand with a new approach that strays pretty far from the typical tone of B2B paper companies. Hm. Okay, maybe Simon isn’t so run-of-the-mill after all. Though, run-of-the-mill could make for some pretty decent paper industry puns... We’ll file that one away for now. On this week's RTU, Simon and Drew discuss Case Paper's recent update to their branding and marketing, including their new commitment to being "On the Case," how introducing a purpose-driven branding campaign can improve the company culture and operations, agency partnerships (including with yours truly!), and Case's history—and future—with absurdity, humor, and, generally, having a good time cutting through. Listen in for more!

On last week's RTU episode 155, Kim Whitler and Drew dove into a wide range of marketing topics, including exploring the CMO/CEO relationship in detail. Given the subject matter, it was only appropriate that the episode was recorded in the presence of 6 B2B marketing leaders. Now, in the second part of the interview, those marketing leaders start guiding the discussion. Tune in to hear their questions on the subjects of branding vs. demand budgets, how CMOs should engage with other C-suite members, and whether modern CMOs should skew towards a quant-mindset or a creative mindset.

What do you get when you combine a dash of academic rigor, a hint a marketing obsession (in the best way possible), a few critiques of modern CMO tendencies, and a live audience of some of the sharpest B2B marketers out there? That’d be this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, with Kim Whitler, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at UVA’s Darden School of Business. Host Drew Neisser and Kim cover quite a bit of ground on this one, drawing on Kim’s 250+ published Forbes Articles—including a comprehensive look at some CMO challenges, in The Trouble With CMOs, published in the Harvard Business Review—Drew’s 300+ CMO interviews, and the shared knowledge of 6 B2B marketing leaders weighing in. The conversation explores the often tenuous relationships with CMOs and CEOs, how those can be improved, the ideal type of CMO to lead an effective marketing team, how leadership can change consumer behavior, and much, much more. Given the expansive subject material, this episode will actually be broken int

In the age of 1:1 personalization, it might be considered heresy to suggest that persona-based marketing is a false idol. But hey, we’re renegades, so of course we’re going to challenge convention. The idea of personas is not necessarily bad. You can never know enough about your target audiences especially when facing 11-person buying committees as is the case with so many enterprise sales efforts. But there is a big difference between 1:1 personalization and personas, which are often an amalgamation of clichés by job title-- like all CFOs are risk averse and all IT people are data-driven.  Sure, many CFOs tend to be risk averse and many IT people like numbers. Now what?  Does that mean you present you product as the least risky to the CFO and the most data-rich to the IT person?  In a word, no. As it turns out the different story for different targets approach simply doesn’t work when you’re selling large solutions to large companies and Gartner’s Brent Adamson has the research to prove it. In this episode,

When Intuit’s Mary-Ann Somers took over as SVP & Chief Growth Officer of the Consumer Group business unit, she wanted to build upon the success of her predecessor, and encourage a culture of experimentation. She wanted a marketing machine that led with inquiry, holistically understood the business, and got close to its customers. She wanted big things for the consumer business—of course, when you're Intuit, which pulls in about $7B in revenue annually, employs over 8,000 people, and has a consumer product portfolio with names like TurboTax and Mint, you're already going pretty big. Still, Somers and her team were ready to continue building on the software giant's momentum. On this episode, she discusses her past in consumer packaged goods, including championing digital marketing at Hershey's (and moving 35% of their efforts to digital in just 6 months), her commitment to clean, crisp, and single-minded messaging, brand management, and why marketers ought to operate with a holistic view of the company. Lis

At Drugstore Publicis, a luxury shop on Champs-Élysées, you’ll find more than a typical pharmacy. You’ll find Joel Robuchon’s L’Atelier Etoile restaurant, a bookstore, a cinema, imported olive oils, cigars, and wines. Plus, they are also actually a drugstore in case you need a prescription filled. This summer, you may have also found host Drew Neisser chatting with Corneliu Vilsan, Director of Marketing Operations EMEA & LATAM for Pernod Ricard. Running the marketing of an international beverage titan, with a portfolio ranging from Jameson Whiskey, to Malibu Rum, to Absolute Vodka and far beyond, is certainly a tall order. On this episode, listen in as Corneliu shares how he does it, and the wide range of tools he uses, from influencer marketing, to cultural analysis, new approaches to data analysis and social listening, and more.

If someone ran up to you and said, “Congrats, you’re now the CMO of a $165M tech company with about 500 employees,” what would you do? First, maybe celebrate a bit—that’s a pretty significant achievement—but next, you’ve got to form a plan. Are you pursuing growth? Acquiring companies? Rebranding? Pivoting away from tech and towards producing artisanal hand soaps? Granted, Sara Larsen, CMO of Brightcove (a $165M cloud video platform with about 500 employees), didn’t just get her role from some random guy on the street—she’d stepped into it after an extensive career in tech marketing at companies like IBM and SAP—but hopefully that thought exercise gave you just the slightest glimpse into the sort of decisions that need to get made when you take the helm of a ship like Brightcove. Coming into the role, Larsen wanted to aim for growth, but not just for the company; the entire category of online video could be expanded with the right approach. Now, ten months later, the company has grown and is hard at work push

What’s it take to be a marketing leader? Well, you can have boundless knowledge of metrics, have a mind for strategy somewhere in the neighborhood of Sun Tzu’s, and write copy that would make Hemingway blush, but just having the sharpest tools on your belt won’t cut it. Above all else, you need to able to mobilize your team. As Thomas Barta puts it, you need to be energetic, you need to inspire, and you need to be a role model. As the authority on marketing leadership, you’d be wise to heed his call. Barta was a partner and senior marketer at McKinsey, led the world’s largest study of marketing leadership (68k+ assessments!), published a book on the subject, and is a regular contributor for multiple news outlets. He’s consulted and marketed for 20+ years, in 14 industries, across 45 countries. You could say he’s picked up a thing or two on the way—tune in to this week’s special episode, recorded with a live audience of top-tier marketers and CMOs (who contribute along the way), to hear more about marketing le

In this special episode, three accomplished CMOs share their experiences as women in the marketing world. The featured guests include Kathy Button-Bell, SVP & CMO of Emerson, Tolithia Kornweibel, CMO of Gusto, and Jean English, who was CMO of NetApp at the time of this interview (she’s now at Palo Alto Networks). While the glass ceiling seems to have been broken for CMOs awhile ago, distinct challenges remain. Each of the guests explore the barriers they’ve overcome and share hard-earned advice on navigating the modern workplace. It’s important to note that these women have been vocal advocates for change, having worked to organize and develop female leaders within their organizations. Tune in to hear more.

Bon jour, and welcome to the first-ever overseas RTU! This episode was recorded from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport. Why? This beautiful airport, in the spirit of the show, serves as a perfect symbol of breaking into new territories, and acts as a wonderful hub for exploration. Well… That, and this week’s guest, Jan Huckfeldt, had a flight to catch after this interview. After all, the former Global CMO of Motorola and Lenovo, and current chairman of Ledger’s advisory board, has quite a few places to be. Still, his busy schedule didn’t stop him from taking some time to dive into a few crucial traits every great marketing leader should have. Jan helps break down how leaders need to approach inspiring and engaging employees, but also how to work towards a purpose, how to protect your marketing, and how to instill trust. He explores the subject in more detail, and also discusses broader brand strategy tactics, and his extensive marketing career, in this interview.

Lorraine Barber-Miller, CMO of ADP, has a tough mission: make ADP a category of one. That means helping push her legacy brand past its perception of just being a payroll solution. And, though it's a tough goal, ADP's marketing machine has been firing on all cylinders and getting it done. Lorraine and her team have been hard at work implementing the company's first-ever marketing plan. They've crafted a new brand purpose to help differentiate in a crowded field, made a new character the hero of their story, and have invested in massive outdoor, digital, and print campaigns to bring their reinvigorated brand to the world. Tune in to hear how they told a story that no one else could, and how they made it real.