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Renegade Thinkers Unite recently moved to renegade.com! As a subscriber, you should have received an email with the subject line ‘Activate your Email Subscription to: Renegade Thinkers Unite’. It may be buried in your inbox, or even the spam folder, but if you click the link in that email, you’ll continue getting notifications when each week’s new episode is published, only now it’ll be to renegade.com.

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 addition of a fin to the logo and a whole new story line for the introduction. This is just one of the many insightful stories you’ll find in this episode.

Renegade Thinkers Unite recently moved to renegade.com! As a subscriber, you should have received an email with the subject line ‘Activate your Email Subscription to: Renegade Thinkers Unite’. It may be buried in your inbox, or even the spam folder, but if you click the link in that email, you’ll continue getting notifications when each week’s new episode is published, only now it’ll be to renegade.com.

Influencer Marketing: The Story Behind Nala Cat

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!

Renegade Thinkers Unite recently moved to renegade.com! As a subscriber, you should have received an email with the subject line ‘Activate your Email Subscription to: Renegade Thinkers Unite’. It may be buried in your inbox, or even the spam folder, but if you click the link in that email, you’ll continue getting notifications when each week’s new episode is published, only now it’ll be to renegade.com.

Ambushing Goliath

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 Thinkers Unite.

Renegade Thinkers Unite recently moved to renegade.com! As a subscriber, you should have received an email with the subject line ‘Activate your Email Subscription to: Renegade Thinkers Unite’. It may be buried in your inbox, or even the spam folder, but if you click the link in that email, you’ll continue getting notifications when each week’s new episode is published, only now it’ll be to renegade.com.

How Spartan Race Built a Strong B2B Brand

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 leadership, collaboration, purpose, highlighting the Spartan women, and adds in what might be a piping hot take in the business world: “don’t email.” Tune in for more!

Renegade Thinkers Unite recently moved to renegade.com! As a subscriber, you should have received an email with the subject line ‘Activate your Email Subscription to: Renegade Thinkers Unite’. It may be buried in your inbox, or even the spam folder, but if you click the link in that email, you’ll continue getting notifications when each week’s new episode is published, only now it’ll be to renegade.com.

How many languages do you speak?

No judgments 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 more about their most renegade marketing effort yet: a beautiful, printed book that tells the stories of 12 Smartling translators, both through beautiful prose and stunning imagery.

Renegade Thinkers Unite recently moved to renegade.com! As a subscriber, you should have received an email with the subject line ‘Activate your Email Subscription to: Renegade Thinkers Unite’. It may be buried in your inbox, or even the spam folder, but if you click the link in that email, you’ll continue getting notifications when each week’s new episode is published, only now it’ll be to renegade.com.

“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.