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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.

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, is in the business of big, dirty, greasy equipment—they are an online auction platform focused on things like construction and agricultural vehicles. So, think of it as eBay, but instead of a cute, $30 vintage sweater, you’re bidding on a $43,000 2012 John Deere S660 RWA combine to help harvest your next corn or soybean crop.

Believe it or not, marketing a company geared towards industrial agricultural equipment is a little different than marketing a company where you can sell your sibling’s old sweaters for some pocket cash. Purple Wave has devoted significant time to ensuring proper persona slicing for their efforts and have committed to building a strong community that can help them draw in both buyers and sellers. On this episode, Dave and Drew meet in Tampa at The CMO Club Summit in their escapes from Manhattan, KS and Manhattan, NY, respectively. They talk about company growth, community forming for customers and prospects, meaningful customer relationships, and more. Check it out!

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.

Things to Consider Before Abandoning Your B2B Brand Name

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 at Vertiv in April 2018, Renaud visited a customer who had not heard of her new company, but when she shared the name of the other brands, he said proudly, “oh great, do you want to see my Liebert?” It was at the moment that Renaud realized that bringing back the Liebert name, at least online, as well as the others, could have a dramatic impact on their business. She was right!

If you’re thinking about abandoning a brand name, then do listen in both to understand the risks and to hear ways of mitigating the downside. And for anyone who wants to make a case for growing brand awareness, you’ll find it especially interesting to hear what happens when that awareness is suddenly taken away. Fascinating insights await you. Enjoy.

 

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!