Tag: Trip Hunter

To Boldly Go Where No Marketer Has Gone Before

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Many CMOs take their client base for granted. Even though they may put a lot of time and effort into building that base and retaining customers, most marketers are fortunate enough to have an existing network of consumers to work with. When Trip Hunter set out to promote Silicon Valley’s first-ever ComicCon in 2016, he needed to start from square one. Trip’s genius advertising prowess—along with some help from Steve Wozniak—helped the con bring in over 60,000 attendees. Great Scott!

Silicon Valley ComicCon wasn’t Trip’s first crack at delivering a dynamite marketing strategy. He’s been implementing cut-through tactics for nearly 20 years with brands like Renegade, Fusion-io, and Primary Data. A strong believer in the “no risk, no reward” theory of marketing, Hunter is the quintessential renegade thinker!

Trip Hunter discusses some of his boldest marketing ambitions on the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast with host and former business partner, Drew Neisser. You can listen to the episode here. If you don’t have time to listen to the whole podcast, you can check out these sample questions and answers below:

Drew: There were a lot of comic cons already when you started this two years ago. How did you make sure that Silicon Valley ComicCon was unique?

Trip: Steve Wozniak is one of the partners of both companies that I work at and he wanted to do a ComicCon that was not just about pop culture. He wanted it to include science and technology because in his mind, these two things drive each other. And so I don’t think there are many shows out there that balanced content between technology and pop culture as well as we do.

Drew: What role did social play in the overall marketing program?

Trip: We started with nothing two years ago—we had no social following at all. So it takes a while to build that up and once you kind of hit a certain level, it starts to grow pretty quickly. But one of the reasons that I think it was successful was, we focused on creating ownership. So we weren’t just talking to people, we were engaging them and asking them how they wanted to shape the event. That empowerment allowed them to recommend guests; one person said I want to do a cosplay show for dogs. I don’t think anybody had done a doggy cosplay, and that became a huge component.

Drew: How did it go?

Trip: The press loved that! That came directly from the people that we were listening to. So again I think it’s about listening and then giving people the ability to help shape and create the event.

Drew: What was one risky marketing stunt you pulled off at Primary Data?

Trip: For the launch of Primary Data, we wanted to do something that was also big and about moving just because moving data is what we do, and so we brought Nitro Circus into South Hall, which is a building at the San Jose Convention Center. These guys have these massive ramps that take all day to set up. The first guy goes off the ramp on his motorcycle—this is an enclosed building and the ceiling is 80 feet in the air—and as he goes by one of the giant lights he reaches out and taps the light. I went over and said, “Well, I’m not sure this is going to work.” And he said, “No, no it’s going to be fine. That light was a good three feet from me.” So we changed things around, but the next time he went off it, he did a backflip and it was right next to the ceiling. It didn’t seem to bother anybody, so away we went and Nitro Circus did a big indoor show and people loved that.

Drew: What was the story there?

Trip: Again, it had to do with moving data: showing that moving data is difficult, but also showing that there are very few people that know how to do it. Nitro Circus in this instance was one of those very special groups that knows how to do this and nobody else does. At Primary Data, what we’re trying to do hasn’t really been accomplished yet and so we’ve kind of put ourselves in that vein. Now granted, that’s a pretty thin line. It’s about Nitro Circus—they’re just amazingly cool to watch, and for a launch party, it doesn’t take much more than that.

Drew: What is the toughest lesson you’ve learned when it comes to marketing?

Trip: For me, the toughest lesson has been staying up with the evolution of marketing and I think it’s really easy for us to become complacent in the channels that we’ve tried. Just because it worked before doesn’t mean it will work again. It is one of the things that Silicon Valley ComicCon has taught me especially as I move back to B2B marketing is the importance of social and all of the different channels working together harmoniously.

B2B ≠ Better to Bore

Posted on by Drew Neisser

stay-normal-and-be-boringOnce upon a time in the realm of corporate America, there lived a stalwart named B2B. His purposeful walk and confident grin belied his unwavering subservience to all the almighty Sales King, who demanded daily tribute in the form of leads, leads, and more leads. Then one day, quite without warning, B2B died. No one mourned. The end. (Note: If this article seems familiar, then you read it first on FastCompany.com).

Or was it?

Okay, enough with the fairy tale, but here’s the truth: Long synonymous with “better to bore” communications, B2B marketing is in the process of being reborn. Leading this rebirth is a new generation of marketers like Jonathan Becher of SAP and Trip Hunter of Fusion-io, who are overturning conventional wisdom and establishing four new B2B marketing decrees that just might stand for years to come.

Culture Trumps Strategy
When he became the new CMO of software behemoth SAP in 2011, Jonathan Becher (pronounced Becker) was keenly aware of the imbalance of power between Sales and Marketing. Sales demanded leads and Marketing kowtowed. To make matters worse, his team battled internally about metrics, tactics, and budget, not to mention the overall strategic approach.

To fix this, Becher eliminated departmental silos, moving staffers around every six months and committing all to the same primary goals. Staffers no longer just had “majors” but also “minors” that broadened internal expertise. As Becher explained recently at The CMO Club Summit, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so fix your culture to make your strategy work.”

The focus on culture went well beyond reorganizing his staff. Becher banned empty adjectives from internal documents in an effort to eliminate “SAPanese” and other self-indulgent communications. Applying this same “eliminate barriers” mindset to SAP’s external activities, Becher encouraged his team to get to know their customers as individuals, reminding them that “big glass buildings don’t buy products–people do!”

Pursue Hearts, Not Just Minds
When your product is truly disruptive and offers significant price and performance advantages over entrenched competitors, the conventional wisdom would be to focus on rational, feature-heavy messaging. As VP of Corporate Marketing for the rising tech star Fusion-io, Trip Hunter has taken an entirely different approach, finding uniquely “emotional” means of connecting with his targets.

Following the highly successful he engineered in 2011, Hunter has taken Fusion-io marketing to the top of the world–literally–by partnering with mountaineer and U.S. Memory Champion Nelson Dellis, who is currently making his second attempt to summit Everest. Along the way up, Dellis is also testing his memory and raising money for Alzheimer’s research.

Chronicled on a Fusion-io microsite, Dellis’ climb is a multi-dimensional metaphor for the new era of B2B marketing. Explains Hunter, “The Everest Memory Challenge is about getting to know us a bit better, beyond bits and bytes, by sharing something that we think is worthwhile, compelling, and has an emotional connection.” (Proud disclosure: My agency, Renegade, LLC, designed and architected this microsite.)

Less Really is More
As companies grow and products multiply, there is a tendency among B2B marketers to carve up budgets and splinter messages. When Becher took over as CMO, he heard from customers that they received as many as 50 different emails about SAP events and products in any given month; at one point, Becher even realized that multiple events were scheduled in the same week within a few blocks of the same customer. As you might suspect, this marketing onslaught did not endear SAP to its clientele.

In response, Becher and his team created a new evaluation process for events that emphasized quality of engagement over quantity of attendees; in doing so, SAP ultimately reduced the number of events around the world from 3,500 to 1,200. The event overhaul proved its success: A tiny 10-person event led to two deals valued at 70 million euros.

This process of optimization, Becher argues, is a marketer’s best friend, and he practices what he preaches by placing a small number of bigger bets in each of SAP’s communication channels. This also means avoiding what he calls “ego metrics” such as Facebook “Likes” and instead shifting to outcome-focused KPIs that also acknowledge the lengthy sales cycles that are inherent to many B2B efforts.

Content is the Message
Much has been made of content marketing as a powerful new discipline and complement to traditional messaging approaches. Inspired next-generation marketers aren’t bothering to make the distinction between what they say in their ads and the content that they create. For them, this “content” is in fact the message–a message they consider just as effective, if not more so, than traditional ads.

This is certainly the case with Fusion-io’s two-year partnership with Nelson Dellis. Hunter notes: “The Everest Memory Challenge represents qualities that Fusion-io values and embraces. Like Nelson, the Fusion-io team and our customers are people who are adventurous, and take calculated risks to overcome obstacles.”

Prior to his climb, Dellis also appeared at several Fusion-io customer meetings where he could demonstrate his astounding memory skills, including one stop in Japan where he remembered the names of over 70 attendees after meeting them just once two hours earlier. Hunter concludes, “Attaching ourselves to something that is inspirational and representative of who we are as a company says much more about what drives us and our business.”

Final Note: Becher, also known as the “Social CMO,” delivered a keynote at The CMO Club Summit that was well-received by fellow CMOs and well-chronicled by other bloggers (link here). For more on Hunter, see my complete interview with him right here on TheDrewBlog.com.

This Ex-Renegade’s Thoughts on Social Media

Posted on by Drew Neisser

To help gain insight into the results of our soon to be published Social Media Fitness Study, I interviewed a number of marketing professionals including Trip Hunter, VP Brand Marketing of FUSION-IO, a recently public company that is doing really well on all fronts.  Trip, as many of you know, worked at Renegade for many years, so of course, I’m completely bias about his talents.  Nonetheless, I think you will find what he has to say quite informative and insightful.

DN: B2C companies outscored B2B companies in the Social Media Fitness study. Do you have any thoughts on why this might be the case?
B2C companies are much better at engaging with people as individuals. B2B companies market like the end consumer isn’t a human being. They are a collection of survey responses and data points. They’re not. They are real- live human beings too that get sad, and find things funny, and care about their overeating.

I also think there is a belief that the level of passion that consumers in B2C have for brands is a lot higher and more a part of ‘who they are’ than exists in B2B brands. People strongly identify with the brands in their life. They help define who they are. “I’m an apple person”, or “I drive a BMW.” You don’t hear so much someone say “I’m an HP 980 server guy”. So I think B2C brands are better positioned to capitalize on this. It is not always true, but it’s a perception among B2B that individuals don’t identify with B2B brands as much, so why bother?

DN: Do you think there is still skepticism among B2B marketers that social can help them achieve their business goals?
I do think there is skepticism here, especially among more established and mature industries, because it is difficult to find a point of view or create content that is newsworthy, or interesting, or engaging. If you can’t get people involved in your story, then you might walk away. Fusion is lucky in that it is a technology that is very innovative, and new, and because of that, techies really pay attention to our story. They are constantly talking about Fusion, and playing with our solutions, and benchmarking them against the existing status quo, and engaging with us. Their passion for Fusion is genuine, and we would be the fool not to engage and share and facilitate in the growth of that passion. A lot of people are asking a lot of questions, because what we do is so revolutionary. If we don’t answer, someone else less qualified will. By facilitating understanding, we ultimately help them find solutions for the current issues that plague traditional data storage architecture.

DN: What is social media doing for your business?
We consistently generate qualified leads through SM. When prospects ask the general community a question about Fusion, we put them directly in touch with someone at Fusion who can answer that question. More often than not, this leads to further conversations which lead to sales. As our director of social media said “I am the SM switchboard operator who connects people to the right person in the right department. I communicate with customers and potential customers directly and help them out. Our efforts are as much about customer service, if not more, than about lead generation.”

DN: Less than 1/3 of the companies surveyed had a disaster plan in place. What triggered the development of a disaster plan at FusionIO and did it work when you had to use it?

There are at least two kinds of disasters: Disasters that shake the house, and those that knock it down. Our disaster plan covers the former well. We’re working on the latter.

Disasters that shake the house happen almost everyday. Someone makes a negative or incorrect comment about us, or incorrectly compares us to a competitor. Our first negative comment through SM was back in 2009, and we have been creating our disaster plan ever since. As a result of that negative comment, we contacted the customer, helped him out, and turned him into an evangelist. He went on to make supportive and positive comments about us from then on. (see below) Recently we’ve been adding “what if” scenarios to the playbook. Being a public company, we have to be prepared.

In general, we’ve learned that the quicker we are able to respond, the more favorably things go. There’s no way to fully measure the impact of our direct communications with followers, whether they be customers, fans, or critics, but we believe it’s invaluable. Because we have been very approachable and communicative, people expect honest and quick answers from us. They know they can reach out to us via social networks and we will respond and help them.

One key component of our plan is to be measured in our response. Sometimes people just want attention-want to be recognized, and you have to know when to walk away. What we have learned is that there is a code of conduct in the community, and many times it is self regulating. Recently a guy made a video about us that wasn’t based in fact. We responded saying we would love to discuss his POV offline as is would be a rather in-depth discussion. He had no interest in doing this-he was looking for attention. But the community dealt with him, discounting his claims and eventually stopped listening. This was a huge homerun for us-So much more credible than if we are telling him he is wrong.

DN: Most companies especially B2B struggle to develop engaging content and get their customers to pitch in. How have you been able to accomplish this?
We are always trying to grow engagement with our customers, and we are not as far along as we would like to be. That said, we are so new that a broad understanding of our technology doesn’t exist yet. People want to know more, so getting them involved is not as hard as it might be for others.

We treat them like the intelligent, opinionated, passionate human beings they are. B to B companies’ customers are still consumers and human beings. We may not have the massive number of followers that consumer brands do, but our fans are just as loyal and passionate.

DN: You mentioned that you are in the process of auditing all of your social channels — what do hope to learn from this audit?
We are hoping to learn a lot of things, especially where we stand relative to our competitors. Since we sent you that answer, we have gathered some revealing numbers. Even though we’re much tinier than our largest competitor, we are gaining followers as a percentage of overall audience faster than they are, and in the area of measurement that really matters–shares–we are also ahead. People click on our links and share our content on Twitter more than they do with our largest competitor, so that is promising.

We also want to find out what we need to do better. B2C companies are known for creating very engaging content on channels such as FB and Twitter-we can learn a lot from them and how some types of B2C efforts can translate across to B2B.

Behind Fusion-io’s Crappy Code Games

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Interview with Trip Hunter & Mat Young, Co-Marketing Directors for Fusion-io in Europe about a new promotion called the Crappy Code Games which I will be writing about on FastCompany.com.

When do the games begin?
TH: The Crappy Code Games will launch in the UK, and take place over three events in March and April. The first event is at Revolution, a modern nightclub/bar in Manchester on the 17th of March. The second event is at Revolution in London, on March 31st, and the third event, which doubles as the Grand Finale, will take place in Brighton on April 7th, on the first night of SQL8, which is the largest SQL community event held in the UK, and be hosted by Apple co-founder and Fusion-io Chief Scientist Steve Wozniak.

What is the idea behind the Crappy Code Games?
TH: The Crappy Code Games highlight the problem that most SQL programmers are constantly experiencing in the workplace, and demonstrates the performance and efficiency gains of Fusion-io Memory.  Badly written SQL code can really stink up an enterprise database, resulting in poor performance, increased resource allocation and ultimately system breakdown. But cleaning up crappy code hasn’t always been easy. It can mean hundreds if not thousands of man hours spent rewriting inefficient code to conform to best practices. Until now. Fusion ioMemory is so powerful, that it actually flushes away crappy code.

Where did this idea come from?
TH: Crappy Code is not a term that Fusion-io made up. If you do a Google search on Crappy SQL code, you will see that this is language that the community understands and uses to quantify this problem. We are just using this insight to engage our audience in a more entertaining way. Crappy code is the problem. Fusion is the solution, but if we talk about how great our solution is it is just marketing, and no one will pay attention. By engaging our audience through the problem, we can show people how our solution works, which is much more fun, engaging and effective.

How are you measuring success?
TH: On a number of different levels; PR impressions is certainly one, as is event attendance, which we are hoping will be around 125 SQL coders for each event, and 300 for our final event at SQL8 in Brighton. We will also be conducting pre and post interviews at each event which should gauge how well Fusion is telling their story, and how compelling it is to our audience. We also have a robust social media program, so success will also be judged by the number of followers and level of engagement we can drive through social media efforts.

Why do you think your target will respond to this promo?
TH: Because the Crappy Code Games, despite its name, actually celebrates great coding. In order to win these challenges, you have to be really good at what you do. This is a very competitive community. Every SQL coder in the UK will want to prove to their peers that they are the best. The Crappy Code Games is the perfect platform to do this. Not to mention that there are some really great prizes that you can win, like developer laptops, win-mo phones, X-box 360’s, and more.

How are American tech companies perceived in Europe?
MY: In general American tech companies and their products are very well received over here in both the UK and wider EMEA. From my personal history there is quite a good amount of UK folks that go and work for US tech companies at their HQ in product development and that can further reinforce that bridge.

Why are you starting this promo in the UK?
MY: What I find interesting is that in general the UK and Germany tend to be early adopters of new technology, especially if it makes a radical change to the value the business derives from it. That’s not to say there aren’t innovators in every European country but the others in general terms tend to wait until there are a number of good cases studies, at that point they move quickly to adopt.

Why do you think the Crappy Code Games will cut through in the UK?
MY: In the UK market there a number of major players with large budgets that dominate pretty much all traditional marketing approaches but to my mind with limited real engagement. What we are trying to do is engage in a slightly humorous way, educate and then let the prospects decide (we know how good our products are and believe in them).  Also, the technical heart of Crappy Code Games is based around some very real performance issues.

What does the fact that you are running a Crappy Code promo say about Fusion-io?
TH: It says that Fusion understands the day-to-day challenges and issues facing our customers. It also says that while our solutions are completely serious, we as a company like to have a little bit of fun.

Do you see a risk in this approach?
TH: I’d be foolish if I said no, but if we weren’t taking calculated risks, we just be one more boring,  invisible marketing program. As we see it, risk is proportional to reward. So obviously, we believe that the potential reward is greater than the potential risk.

What are you really selling?
TH: Fusion-io sells a family of NAND flash-based ioMemory technologies that offers an entirely new building block for data center applications. Containing 100 times the density of RAM, ioMemory overcomes the physical and thermal limitations of the medium and provides near limitless amounts of fully scalable memory for accelerating throughput, driving higher performance density and efficiency in applications server platforms.

What problem(s) does your product solve for your target?
TH: Fusion ioMemory reduces latency so markedly that CPU’s can be used more efficiently, enabling our customers to do far more with far less than they could with other storage technology solutions.  In a recent survey of 274 Fusion customers, 95% said they bought us for performance gains, and 75% of them experienced performance improvement of 3-10x over what they had prior to deploying Fusion.

AmEx Open for Service

Posted on by Drew Neisser

American Express has been committed to the notion of Marketing as Service for a long long time and their programs have been featured in this blog (many, many times). This commitment continues even in the current economy as reported by fellow Renegade, Trip Hunter:

Yesterday at the B-B breakfast I saw Marcella Shinder, the VP of Brand Strategy for Open from American Express speak about their marketing efforts during these troubled times. Aside from the fact that she was the only optimist of the group, what appealed to me most was how Open is using Marketing as Service to deepen their relationship with their customers. Marci explained that their mission is to provide tangible ways to help small business manage and grow that are appropriate to the times.

Sounds like a bunch of marketing speak until you visit openforum.com, a social networking/resource site designed to facilitate information sharing among small business owners. Besides the wealth of information that many small business sites have, Open Forum seems to go a step farther by creating a robust social network where members can engage with the best small business bloggers, or join forums concentrated around their topic of choice.

Home page of American Express Open Forum
Seems like a good time to me to be charged about Marketing as Service. Assuming small businesses continue to use this service and find ways to survive now, surely they will be that much more loyal to American Express when its time to thrive.