Huddlers in the News

As offices around the world go remote, employees are familiarizing themselves with the basics, including setting up a home office and maintaining a routine. Organizations with little experience working remotely face a steep learning curve to continue business as usual.

At Stack Overflow—a question-and-answer site for programmers—40 percent of the work was already conducted remotely before the company went fully remote on March 9. Khalid El Khatib, VP of Marketing, discusses how he and his team are leveraging their knowledge and extending their Q&A-style tools to create a database with best practices about working remotely.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: Stack Overflow Lends Its Expertise to the #Wfh Movement

Listen to the Episode: Collaboration in a #WFH World

In his 20s, Simon Schaffer-Goldman had no plans to join the family business; he was too busy sheep-farming in New Zealand. Yet he would eventually become chief marketing officer at Case Paper, the company his grandfather founded, and would shepherd the 76-year-old organization through a successful rebrand featuring a modified logo, a fresh personality and a new purpose.

How did he do it? Schaffer-Goldman focused on the strongest pillars of the brand’s rich history: irreverent humor and a commitment to customers. Adopting the purpose-driven tagline, “On the Case,” Schaffer-Goldman made sure that humor was part of every form of company communication, from its website to email signatures, from trade show booths to print ads. Schaffer-Goldman also established the “On the Case” awards to inspire Case Paper’s more than 400 employees to continuously exceed customer expectations.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: Paper Company Stamped Rebrand with Humor, Commitment to Customers

Listen to the Episode: How Paper Company Rebrand Cuts Through the Noise

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 177: A CMO's Guide to Cultivating Customer Champions

How important are your customers to your business? This one should be a no-brainer—the relationships you build with your customers are vital to success. Leaders that actively focus on customer engagement and satisfaction are able to nurture a customer-base that will champion your product on your behalf and help push innovation. With a wealth of experience under his belt, Chip Rodgers, CMO of WorkSpan, knows the quantifiable value of cultivating customer champions and is here to tell us how he nurtured these relationships from WorkSpan’s early startup days to now.

Chip puts a special emphasis on building and retaining trust, and shared a perfect Bill McDermott quote on the subject: “Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.” For more gems like this, listen in to this week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite and learn about how cultivating customer champions can boost your business value, shape your product, and bring in new prospects. Plus, for additional material on the subject, take a look at the aptly named 8th chapter of our guide to effective B2B brand strategy, “Cultivate Customer Champions.”

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 176: Keep Calm and Acquisition On

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 opportunity to completely pivot their brand messaging for the better and decided to scrap their original plan. While this would be considered risky to most, the decision ultimately elevated Mediafly to a new level within the sales enablement category.

Join us on this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to hear all about Isabelle’s experience during these back-to-back acquisitions, how their campaign brought both expected and unexpected successes, and why ABM goes beyond marketing to give a company a surround-sound approach to targeting valuable prospects. If you’re looking for additional materials on polishing a brand—which can be helpful in scenarios like Isabelle’s—take a look at our comprehensive guide to effective B2B brand strategy!

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 174: Finding Your Brand's North Star

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 economy built by cybercriminals; that mission has caught fire and stands as a sterling example of why purpose is a must. Tune in to hear about how they formed their mission, how they show it to the world, why they shun the hard sell, and how an overarching purpose came from a simple t-shirt that just read “human.” 

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 160: When's the Right Time to Rebrand?

“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.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/