Renegade Marketers Unite

It's tough enough to build a company's marketing engine from the ground up, but Isabelle Papoulias, CMO of Mediafly, successfully navigated through not just one, but two acquisitions within a six-month period. What did she learn? Not all acquisitions are created equal: it was two weeks before their second acquisition announcement when Isabelle, in conversation with her CEO, realized they had an op...

When purpose moves front and center, a company can attract better talent and better customers. This is not conjecture. Dov Baron, via his leadership consulting practice, has proven it over and over. Dov, who is also a top podcaster, best-selling author and speaker, gets to purpose by asking the tough questions. No wonder he sees himself as the "father of dragons," helping executive teams find thei...

Sometimes, the big ideas sort of just happen. That said, some magical brand moment isn't going to just appear without some planning or effort—but sometimes, some small bit of genuine authenticity can grow into a brand pearl. That's part of what happened with White Ops, and on this episode, Dan Lowden, CMO, discusses how. White Ops is fueled by their purpose-driven mission to disrupt the illicit ec...

"It's not if—it's how." That's how Karen Jones, CMO of Ryder, a supply chain management and logistics company, started wrapping up our interview. It's also what she tells her team often, and an integral part of how they approach business hurdles. The key to their success, though, isn't just relishing the opportunity to overcome a challenge—they also rely heavily on a deliberate, test-heavy approac...

In this interview, host & Renegade CEO Drew Neisser actually sits down with, well, Drew Neisser. Maybe it's half interview, half monologue. Either way, on this episode, Drew explores the concept of CATS. Not the fluffy, loveable-yet-tempestuous pets, but the four key traits for being an effective marketer that are absolutely crucial in developing an effective B2B marketing strategy. Listen in to l...

In 2017, Jeff Perkins was champing at the bit to get started as CMO of ParkMobile, a parking assistance app based out of Atlanta. He saw the 7.5 million users, the hundreds of thousands of new users each month, and the awesome product driving everything. However, when he got going, he began to notice his enthusiasm wasn't exactly the norm. Jeff joined the team following some significant board chan...

One of the integral questions most marketers face is: How do I expand my audience? Well, you could draw up a new campaign, make a new product—heck, you could even bite the head off a bat; Ozzy Osbourne definitely reached quite a few new people in the 80's with that stunt. Well, maybe that last one isn't the best idea for businesses. Anyways, an important aspect is: you have to do something that wo...

As a veteran of Silicon Valley with tenures at multiple massive, industry-leading tech companies, Carl Tsukahara has developed a serious taste for adventurous testing, especially in B2B. That doesn't mean just running around pushing buttons and selecting metrics at random, it means breaking free from the common snare of planning multiple meetings and emails before adjusting a small facet of the la...

When Matrixx started out in 2008, they were a David among Goliaths. People thought they were crazy to even try cracking a pretty crowded SaaS market for communications and digital services provider. Skip ahead a few years and they're boasting 70% growth (for 3+ years!), 15% responsibility for the lead pipeline—which in a niche market like Matrixx's is quite a feat—and, perhaps most impressive of a...

Ask most senior marketing executives to describe their company, and you'll often hear words like "workflow," "optimization," or "disruption" get thrown around. When you ask Dave Brotton, Vice President of Marketing, about Purple Wave, you'll get something a little different—they like to say they "sell big, dirty, greasy equipment." Now that's a description with character. Purple Wave is, in fact,...

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...

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...

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...

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 b...

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 team...

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 Smart...

 "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 5...

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 themselve...

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, the...

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,...

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 quest...

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 Neis...

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...

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'...

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 Mar...