Huddlers in the News

“Penguins matter!” preached the Penguin-in-Chief of CMO Huddles. (Some people think I go too far with the penguin thing. I’m just getting started.)

They matter ecologically.

Penguins are among the few species that live both on land and in the sea, making them an environmental bellwether. When things go sideways, they feel it first.

And things are going sideways.

As the New York Times reported earlier this month, emperor penguins have now been moved to endangered status, with populations declining as the sea ice they depend on “has hit record-low levels in the past few years.”

Let that sink in.

Why Penguins Matter

“The birds will not be able to survive without sea ice,” one researcher noted, calling for urgent action. This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening.

Which brings me to why penguins matter even more than most people realize.

They matter as a metaphor.

Because penguins have figured out something that most humans, and certainly most CMOs, are still working on: How to survive brutal conditions… together. Scientists call it social thermoregulation.

Penguins huddle.

Not because it’s cute. Because it’s life or death.

When temperatures drop to extremes, they rotate in and out of the center, sharing warmth so no one penguin takes the full hit. The result? A differential of roughly 70° between the outside and inside of the huddle.

Seventy. Degrees.

The Power of Huddling

“It’s cold as hell in our sea-suite,” I joked at last year’s Super Huddle, dressed head to toe as a penguin in front of 100 marketing leaders. But the joke lands because it’s true.

You’re dealing with relentless pressure. Shrinking budgets. AI-driven reorgs. Increasing expectations. Orca-level threats that come out of nowhere.

And yet…most marketing leaders are still going it alone.

Penguins don’t.

They communicate. They coordinate. They rotate. They protect the group so the group can protect the individual.

That’s the idea behind CMO Huddles.

Not networking. Not webinars. Not another Slack group (although we have one!).

A huddle.

A place where experienced leaders step in, warm up, share the load, and step back out stronger. And just so we’re clear…

We’re not animal appropriators.

CMO Huddles donates 1% of revenue (not profit) to the Global Penguin Society, led by the inspiring Jorge Pablo Garcia Borboroglu ("Popi"), who has done more for penguin conservation than just about anyone on the planet. Which makes me wonder…

Hey Pittsburgh Penguins. Hey Munsingwear (Perry Ellis International). You’ve been riding the penguin brand for a while now. Maybe it’s time to huddle up and give a little back? Just a thought.

Here’s Where You Come In

So here are your two calls to action dear reader, on this World Penguin Day:

• If you’re a marketing leader trying to weather your own version of Antarctica, join a community. Preferably one that actually warms you up.
• And regardless of what you do for a living, support penguins by donating to the Global Penguin Society. They could use the help.

Because penguins matter. More than ever.

Written by Drew Neisser

Listen Here | From Renegade Marketers Unite, Episode 515: Differentiate or Die: Winning in a Sea of Sameness

If your brand sounds like everyone else’s, you’re not competing. You’re interchangeable.

Claims like “customer-centric,” “trusted partner,” and “AI-powered” don’t do much when buyers hear them everywhere. True differentiation is bold, precise, and hard to confuse with the rest of the category.

In this episode, Drew Neisser brings together Scott Morris (Sprout Social), Gary Sevounts (Netris), and Lesley Davis to explore what real differentiation requires in B2B. They get into how companies clarify their story, align internally, and carry that differentiation from product to pitch to customer experience.

In this episode:

• Scott explains why strong positioning only works when the product actually delivers on the promise, and how Sprout is building its brand around “social intelligence for breakthrough brands”
• Gary shares how a shift from selling “just another fraud tool” to an “identity trust network” transformed growth, increased deal size, and helped drive a major acquisition
• Lesley breaks down how differentiation shows up in a services business, especially in RFP-driven categories, where the real win comes from understanding the problem behind the problem

Plus:

• Why pipeline without differentiation leads to smaller deals
• How strong positioning starts with customer frustrations
• The difference between bold positioning and empty promises
• Why differentiation only works when the whole company reinforces it

If you're a B2B CMO trying to differentiate your business and make your brand impossible to ignore, this one’s worth your time!

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcast/

I went to the HumanX Conference last week and had a mildly unsettling realization:

I have no idea what half these people are talking about.

It started in the opening keynote. AI as a five-layer cake. One of the layers? Inference. Everyone around me nodded like this was Marketing 101, and I’m sitting there thinking… should I know this?

So I did the only sensible thing. I wandered the floor until I found a booth with “inference” in the headline and asked, “What is that, exactly?” (We’ll come back to that.)

Get Curious on Purpose

There’s something oddly powerful about putting yourself in a room where you don’t speak the language. It’s like traveling to a foreign country where you catch every third word and fill in the rest with context and guesswork. You can either pretend you get it… or you can get curious.

I chose curiosity.

I talked to vendors I wasn’t shopping. I stopped at booths because of tchotchkes I didn’t need. I ran into a couple of fellow Huddlers doing the exact same thing—wandering, absorbing, trying to make sense of it all. One random stop led to a company sitting on a goldmine of HR data that could be wildly useful to CMOs. I would never have found it if I stuck to my “agenda.”

And then there was the sea of sameness. AI-native, AI-driven, AI-powered, AI-everything. Different logos, same language, zero clarity.

Until Sentry’s booth broke through with a single line: “Someone’s gotta babysit the bots.” Finally, a problem I understand. A point of view I can remember. A reason to stop.

Sameness Is Your Opening

That’s when it hit me. If you’re a marketer walking a floor like this, the takeaway isn’t just about AI.

It’s about you.

Go where you don’t understand the language. Ask the question that makes you feel a little dumb, because chances are, you’re not the only one.

And when you see a hundred companies saying the same thing, that’s not a branding problem.

That’s your opportunity.

--

FYI, Inference (in AI terms) is the moment when a trained model actually does something useful, like answering a question, generating content, or making a prediction. Don't ask me to go any deeper - as it was, I needed help from ChatGPT to craft this explanation!

Written by Drew Neisser

Listen Here | From Renegade Marketers Unite, Episode 514: The Business of Expertise: Why Positioning Beats Talent Every Time

Most marketers believe great work leads to great business.

David C. Baker would disagree.

In this episode, Drew Neisser sits down with The Business of Expertise author to unpack what really separates thriving expert firms from struggling ones. From positioning and pricing power to the myths of growth and creativity, this is a candid, no-BS look at what it actually takes to build a successful expertise-based business.

If you're a B2B CMO trying to sharpen your company’s positioning (and prove marketing’s impact on the business), this one will hit home.

Key Mistakes:

• Staying a generalist instead of narrowing your positioning
• Assuming talent or creativity alone will drive success
• Chasing growth without understanding the tradeoffs

What You’ll Learn:

• WWhy saying no is the real starting point for positioning and pricing power
• How to tell if you’re acting like an expert or just an order taker
• Why most firms overestimate creativity and underestimate discipline
• What AI is actually changing—and what it’s not
• How to build demand so you’re not forced to take every client

One idea to stick with:

If clients can easily compare you to alternatives, you’re not positioned.

If you want to go deeper, David shares more at punctuation.com—but fair warning, he might tell you to stop reading business books altogether.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcast/

“I don’t care that much about your companies,” revealed the Penguin-in-Chief while wrapping up 3 Strategy Labs with 36 CMOs last week. “My concern is the transformation story you will be able to tell in one year,” I explained.

Of course, I want their companies to grow. But, ironically, growth alone won’t secure a CMO's seat or their next opportunity. Only transformation does.

If you can lead an organization from here to there, it almost doesn’t matter what happens next. New CEO, new PE firm, new direction. You’re on solid footing because you didn’t just run marketing. You changed the business.

This is that moment.

The Chance to Change the Business

Perhaps for the first time, B2B CMOs have the opportunity to do what B2C CMOs have been doing all along: drive the strategic direction of their companies, not just support it.

And yet, most of the pressure you’re feeling doesn’t sound like an opportunity. It sounds like this: cut 30% and deliver 30% more. Those numbers may be arbitrary. The moment is not. You can respond by making marketing smaller. Or you can use this moment to make marketing matter more.

That starts with positioning.

The CMOs who win now will be the ones who help their companies own a hill. One thing. Clearly defined. Deeply understood. Aligned across the organization. When that happens, you see it everywhere. Win rates improve. Deal cycles shorten. Average deal sizes grow.

Positioning isn’t a messaging exercise. It’s business transformation.

AI in Service of Transformation

Then there’s AI. Not AI for efficiency’s sake. AI in the service of something bigger.

In Seattle, a group of CMOs began discussing a new benchmark: $1M in revenue per employee. Not $250K. Four times the output.

That’s not optimization. That’s a different way of operating.

We also heard from a startup CMO who’s already working this way. No traditional stack. No rigid systems. Just flexible, AI-driven workflows stitched together in real time. Early, imperfect, but directionally clear.

This is where it’s going.

So the question isn’t whether you’ll use AI. It’s how you’ll prioritize it.

AI in service of what? Better customer understanding. More relevant communication. Faster, smarter decision-making. A more empowered team.

And yes, you’ll need to address how your brands show up in LLMs . You’ll need to experiment. You’ll need to push legal and IT to allow access to the tools your teams need. You’ll need to connect dots across the entire go-to-market.

Lead Beyond Your Lane

This is bigger than marketing. It’s GTM transformation.

Which is why this moment belongs to CMOs who are willing to lead beyond their lane. Who can align their organizations. Who CEOs rely on for strategic guidance. Who can turn pressure into progress.

It’s easy to get buried in the day-to-day. The requests. The expectations. The noise.

But great leaders pick a hill. And then they align the organization to take it.

So I’ll leave you with the same thought I shared at the end of those Labs:

What transformation story are you going to be able to tell a year from now?

Written by Drew Neisser

Listen Here | From Renegade Marketers Unite, Episode 513: Humor as a Leadership Tool

Do humor and serious leadership belong in the same room?

Most leaders default to staying “professional” and miss one of the simplest ways to build connection and improve communication.

In this episode of Renegade Marketers Unite, Drew Neisser talks with Jan McInnis about how leaders can use humor effectively—without telling jokes or trying to be someone they’re not.

The conversation reframes humor from something perceived as risky to something practical: A tool leaders can use to make teams more comfortable, conversations more effective, and workplaces a little more human.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why humor can make leaders more human and approachable
• Why humor makes leaders more approachable
• How humor can acknowledge tension without derailing the moment
• When humor helps, and when it can backfire
• How small moments of levity can improve communication across teams

The takeaway: Humor isn’t about being funny. It’s about being human.

If your meetings feel a little too stiff—or your communication isn’t landing the way it should—this episode offers a simple place to start.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcast/

Listen Here | From Renegade Marketers Unite, Episode 512: Finding and Winning Your Next CMO Role

A tough CMO job search can mess with your confidence fast.

The search runs longer than expected. A role looks right on paper, then gets murkier as the conversations unfold. The company says it wants growth, but the real issue may be churn, product, or a CEO still figuring out what kind of marketing leader the business needs.

That’s what makes this market hard.

You are not only trying to tell a strong story about yourself. You are also trying to judge whether the opportunity in front of you is one you can win in.

Executive recruiter Erica Seidel, founder of The Connective Good, has a front-row seat to how CMO hiring is working right now. In her conversation with Drew, she gets into what CEOs say they want versus what they are really hiring for, how to frame your story when growth is hard to prove, and how to spot the signals that a role may be shakier than it first appears.

What You’ll Take Away:

• Why every hire is a set of tradeoffs and how to position yourself
• What CEOs mean when they ask for a “growth partner”
• Why business context matters as much as headline results
• How AI fluency is showing up in CMO hiring
• How to shape your story before others define your narrative

Signals to Read:

• If the role is built for growth or cleanup
• What a CEO’s reaction to pushback reveals
• If the job spec reflects reality or an “11 out of 10” wish list
• If the company can make tradeoffs
• How culture and pace show up before day one

If your CMO job search has you questioning your story, your fit, or your instincts, this episode will help you get more confident on all three.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcast/

"Our PE firm just mandated a 30% efficiency improvement," shared a CMO from a $135 million SaaS company. When I asked if this was based on any real-world success story, the answer was a quick, “Nope. It’s just PE being PE.”

I shouldn’t have been shocked, but aghast feels about right. And then it got worse. Three other CMOs at the table said they’d been handed the exact same mandate.

The Efficiency Epidemic

Let’s call this what it is: the efficiency epidemic.

Like most epidemics, it spreads quickly and sounds rational at first. After all, who’s against efficiency? And with AI unlocking new levels of productivity, it feels like the obvious place to focus.

But here’s the problem: efficiency is not a growth strategy.

At best, it’s an enabler of one. At worst, it’s a convenient distraction that gives the illusion of progress while starving the very things that drive revenue. In that moment, I said something I wish more CMOs would say out loud: “If 30% is the answer, what exactly was the question?” No one had one, because the number itself was arbitrary.

Which makes the strategy arbitrary, too.

Efficiency Is Not the Strategy

Now, before anyone accuses me of being anti-efficiency, let’s acknowledge an oldie but goodie: Southwest Airlines. Southwest built one of the most profitable airline models in history through an obsession with operational efficiency, even moving the fueling port to shave minutes off turnaround time.

But that efficiency was never the end goal. It was always in service of the customer—lower fares, more reliable schedules, and a consistently friendly experience that built loyalty over time.

Efficiency wasn’t the strategy. It was the engine. The strategy was customer value.

Which brings us back to today and the real opportunity before us. Imagine if those same PE firms said: take all that AI energy and aim it at the customer, from start to finish.

Make buying easier, demos sharper, onboarding faster, and products easier to adopt. Build better feedback loops, listen more closely to every interaction, and tell more customer stories that make your customers the heroes.

That’s not just a better use of AI. It’s a better business strategy.

Because when you start with the customer, efficiency tends to follow. But when you start with efficiency, you often lose sight of the customer—and eventually, growth.

Start With the Customer

So here’s the challenge for CMOs. Push back, not emotionally, but strategically, and reframe the conversation around what actually drives results.

That 30% number? It’s made up. Your customer isn’t.

But this isn’t a battle you can win alone. It requires alignment across the C-suite, from the CEO to the CFO to the CRO, because the mandate didn’t come from marketing—and the response can’t either.

The companies that win in the AI era won’t be the most efficient. They’ll be the most customer-aligned.

And importantly, CMOs are in the best position to lead this shift, not because of their title, but because they’re closest to the truth [or at least they should be].

Written by Drew Neisser

Listen Here | From Renegade Marketers Unite, Episode 511: Failing Well Beats Playing It Safe

Too many companies treat every failure the same. That makes people more cautious, more guarded, and less willing to take the smart risks innovation requires.

Amy Edmondson argues that not all failures deserve the same label. Some are preventable. Some come with complexity. Then there is intelligent failure, the kind that comes with thoughtful experimentation in new territory and produces the learning that moves innovation forward.

In this episode, Drew Neisser brings in Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, author of Right Kind of Wrong, to look at what leaders need to do if they want teams experimenting and learning in unfamiliar territory. For Amy, that starts with a clear goal, a bet no bigger than necessary, and the kind of questions that create enough psychological safety for people to share what they’re seeing early. So even when the result falls short, the learning is still useful.

What You’ll Take Away:

• The difference between preventable, complex, and intelligent failure
• Why intelligent failure belongs in new territory
• What makes an experiment smart, small, and worth running
• Why high achievers often need a better frame for failure
• How playing not to lose distorts innovation

What This Asks of Leaders:

• Stop treating every miss as proof someone messed up
• Make the goal clear before the experiment starts
• Keep the bet no bigger than necessary
• Ask questions that invite candor instead of caution

If your team needs a smarter way to think about failure, risk, and learning, this one is worth a listen.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcast/

"If you piss off one of our salespeople, I will take you out."

That was the suddenly deadly serious warning from Snowflake CMO Denise Persson during a conversation I had with her and former Snowflake CRO Chris Degnan in front of 32 entranced CMOs. It was a mic-drop moment that prompted an immediate question in my mind:

What are your leadership redlines?

We had been discussing how marketing teams should work with sales and what behaviors cross the line. Denise didn’t hesitate. As she explained it, upsetting a salesperson isn’t just a minor offense. It threatens one of the most important relationships inside the company.

A clear redline.

A New Leadership Redline

Great leaders tend to have a clear redline. They know the behaviors they simply won’t tolerate because those behaviors undermine the company. Lately, however, I’ve been wrestling with a different kind of redline.

AI adoption.

After giving employees access to the tools and providing training, how long should leaders tolerate non-usage?

One leadership perspective I heard recently reframed the issue this way: imagine a job candidate saying, “I’m excited about this role, but I should mention that I don’t use electricity or the internet.”

That would sound absurd.

In many ways, AI is quickly becoming the same kind of foundational capability.

During a recent Huddle, one CMO shared that every employee was now being rated on a scale of 1 to 5 for AI proficiency. A one meant non-usage. A five meant someone operating almost like an AI engineer. The goal was to get most of the organization to at least a three. After training, however, staying at a one was a ticket out the door.

When the Redline Gets Complicated

At our Strategy Labs, several CMOs raised a more complicated challenge: employees who object to AI for moral reasons, whether due to energy and water consumption or copyright concerns. Some leaders had tried to present comparative data showing that LLM queries use similar energy to Google searches. But most agreed that if someone holds a deeply principled objection, data alone probably won’t change their mind.

This is where leadership gets uncomfortable. Time for some radical candor?

I love having employees who challenge themselves to use AI in increasingly creative and productive ways. The best marketers I know are experimenting constantly. They are curious. They are learning in public. They are pushing the tools further every week.

My Redline?

Would I hire someone who refuses to use AI at all?

Not a chance.

Leadership requires empathy. But it also requires clarity about the standards that move the company forward. For Denise Persson, one redline is protecting the relationship between marketing and sales.

For many CMOs right now, another redline may be emerging.

Refusing to engage with AI.

So I’m curious. What are your leadership redlines?

Written by Drew Neisser