Marketing Trends

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Sep 2026

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What happens when marketing’s sharpest minds pull back the curtain? Hosted by Stephanie Postles, Marketing Trends drops listeners into the world of trailblazing CMOs, CEOs, and visionaries who share their journeys and groundbreaking strategies. From navigating the balance between automation and human touch to leading teams through unprecedented transformation, you’re getting an unfiltered look at the lessons and ideas driving the industry forward. Whether you're leading a team or aspiring to innovate, Marketing Trends is your new secret weapon.

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November 11, 202648 min

How Asana's CMO Transformed a 17-Year-Old Brand in 90 Days

What does it take to transform 17 years of brand positioning in just 90 days? When Prachi Gore joined Asana as CMO, the company was preparing to move beyond its traditional project management roots into a new era of AI-powered work. With new products on the horizon and a rapidly changing market, she had just 90 days to help reposition the brand and bring its new story to life. In this episode of Marketing Trends , host Stephanie Postles sits down with Prachi to explore the decisions and trade-offs behind Asana's transformation, why AI's greatest value comes from rethinking entire workflows rather than individual tasks, and how human-AI collaboration is changing the way marketing teams operate. Connect Prachi Gore on LinkedIn Asana Mission.org Chapters • 0:00 Asana CMO Prachi Gore • 1:54 Inside the 90-day rebrand (and why the CEO's vision drove it) • 4:19 'How insane that even sounds': rebranding at Asana's scale • 5:18 Why Prachi did it in-house — and what she'd do differently • 9:19 The trade-offs that made the timeline possible • 12:16 RAD: the 3-letter decision framework that kills committee paralysis • 15:12 How you know a rebrand is actually working • 17:14 The adoption trap most AI tools fall into • 19:42 The 'visionary' positioning that wasn't — a lesson from outside the tech bubble • 21:39 Why your AI is single-player (and what to do about it) • 25:37 The honest truth: 90% of CMOs can't make AI work • 31:42 The one rule for keeping humans in agentic workflows • 33:47 Why positioning is now an agile exercise • 36:32 How to differentiate when every competitor sounds the same • 43:04 Lightning round + where Prachi goes for inspiration ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

September 9, 202648 min

Webflow’s CMO: Stop Chasing More Content! Win AI Search! End Silos!

Webflow just scanned 2,000 real websites and gave them a report card on how ready they are for AI search. The median score? A 2 out of 5. And the reason companies are failing isn't the reason LinkedIn keeps telling you. Dave Steer — CMO of Webflow, with prior stops at Twitter, Facebook, eBay, PayPal, Cloudflare, and GitLab — joins Stephanie Postles to unpack what the data actually says: the failure point isn't content volume, it's the technical basics of your website. Broken internal links. Missing schema. No bylines. Stale content. Fix those four things and you'll pull ahead of a category that's failing them all. Then Dave goes deeper — why AEO breaks the siloed marketing org, why hiring an 'integrated marketer' won't fix your silos, and why the teams that know how to fight well are the ones that are going to win. What you'll learn • Why the median website scores a 2 out of 5 on AI discovery readiness — and what that actually looks like under the hood • The 4 technical fixes (internal links, schema, bylines, content freshness) that will move you up the AEO maturity index this week • Why AEO can't be one person's job — and what a cross-functional weekly cadence actually looks like (the Reddit task force story) • Why hiring an 'integrated marketer' doesn't create an integrated team — and what an 'orchestrator' role does instead • The Tuckman model of high-performing teams, and why 'silos exist because of conflict aversion' — not because of org design • The 3 expertise sets every modern CMO needs — and why nobody is world-class at all three Connect Dave Steer on LinkedIn Webflow Marketing Trends Chapters • 0:00 Introduction • 2:22 The biggest shift Dave has seen in two decades of marketing • 3:24 CMO 1.0 vs CMO 2.0 — from campaigns to systems • 5:34 What's actually working (and not) across millions of websites • 8:28 'AI has fundamentally rewritten the buyer journey — under our feet' • 9:42 The 4 pillars of AEO maturity (and why it's a team sport) • 12:14 'What we learned shocked us' — the 2,000-site scan • 13:54 Why 'just make more content' is making the internet worse • 16:15 The 4 technical fixes: links, schema, bylines, freshness • 18:29 Can AI help do these basic checks? • 20:47 The Reddit task force — what cross-functional AEO actually looks like • 26:58 Building high-performing teams (Tuckman model + conflict) • 31:26 The integrated marketing hire that didn't integrate anything • 36:03 'The teams that know how to do this will beat the teams that don't' • 37:52 Trust is the highest-order bit — your name is your guarantee • 39:37 Is the CMO role dying? The 2.0 answer. • 41:01 The one skill every CMO needs to unlearn • 42:46 Lightning round ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

August 12, 202645 min

Build for Community, Not the Playbook

Don’t sell to your community. Just talk to them. DadGang founder Bart Szaniewski started with $750, 100 hats and no real business plan. Four years later, the brand has sold more than a million hats and generated over $36 million in revenue. He’s done it while ignoring a lot of conventional DTC advice: DadGang still uses Shopify’s free Dawn theme, shoots much of its content on an iPhone and runs a private Facebook group for its community. Bart’s philosophy is simple: don’t copy what works for someone else. Build around your customer. On this episode of Marketing Trends with Stephanie Postles, Bart explains how DadGang keeps its marketing simple at scale, turns customer feedback into real products, and uses email, SMS and AI without overwhelming the people on the other end. What you'll learn Why Bart still uses Shopify’s free Dawn theme after $36M in revenue The question that changed how DadGang thinks about community How customer feedback turns into real product launches Why emails that aren’t trying to sell can still drive revenue How DadGang uses email, SMS and AI without adding unnecessary complexity Why Bart resists arbitrary growth pressure - even at scale This episode brought to you by Attentive. Attentive helps brands personalize messages across SMS, email, RCS, and push - so every interaction feels relevant, not random. Not more marketing. Better marketing. That’s marketing made personal. That’s Attentive. To learn more visit www.attentive.com . Connect DadGang Co. Bart Szaniewski on LinkedIn Marketing Trends Chapters 0:00 From $750 and 100 Hats to DadGang 3:23 The Marketing Years Before DadGang 7:13 Why Fatherhood Content Felt Wrong 10:08 $36M Without Forcing Growth 12:40 Why DadGang Still Uses a Free Shopify Theme 15:34 The Martech Stack Is Shrinking 16:16 AI Replaced the Landing Page Process 17:32 Don't Build Around the Algorithm 19:38 "Where Is Your Community?" 21:04 Why 15,000 Dads Still Use Facebook 25:13 When Customers Design the Product 29:07 How Gary Vee Became a Partner 35:18 Email + SMS for a Million-Hat Brand 37:36 Letting AI Choose the Send Time 38:22 Why Non-Selling Emails Still Drive Revenue 41:29 What Comes After a Million Hats? ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

July 29, 202616 min

Spotlight: The 5,000-Year-Old Method of Making People Remember You

How do you get your brand into the 90% of memory that's subconscious? In this segment from Marketing Trends, neuroscientist Pranav Yadav reveals that the human brain is a pattern-seeking storytelling device — and the formula for creating lasting brand memory hasn't changed in 5,000 years. From Vedic rituals to Alexander the Great's encounter with a naked wise man to MasterCard's Priceless campaign, Pranav traces the thread between ancient storytelling wisdom and modern brand architecture. This episode brought to you by Attentive. Attentive helps brands personalize messages across SMS, email, RCS, and push - so every interaction feels relevant, not random. Not more marketing. Better marketing. That’s marketing made personal. That’s Attentive. To learn more visit www.attentive.com . ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

July 15, 202651 min

Marketing Has Forgotten What It’s For

Are you just busy working? Or are you adding value? Marketing has become overloaded with channels, platforms, metrics, and specialized roles. But Seth Matlins believes the job itself is much simpler: create value, drive sustainable growth, and help the business create and keep customers. In this episode, Seth joins Stephanie Postles to explain why CMO job descriptions are often fundamentally disconnected from business results—and why marketers must see themselves as commercial leaders, not merely brand leaders. They discuss the danger of optimizing for departmental metrics instead of business outcomes, why short-term pressure can destroy long-term growth, and what Seth learned from one of the biggest strategic mistakes of his career. They also explore why brands must become more humane in an AI-driven world, what separates the world’s most influential CMOs, and why every decision a company makes either creates or destroys value. Seth Matlins is the founder of The Wisdomist Company, former Managing Director of the Forbes CMO Network, and host of Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing. Follow Seth: LinkedIn — Seth Matlins Listen to his new show: Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing (Vox Media + The Wisdomist Company) This episode brought to you by Attentive. Attentive helps brands personalize messages across SMS, email, RCS, and push - so every interaction feels relevant, not random. Not more marketing. Better marketing. That’s marketing made personal. That’s Attentive. To learn more visit www.attentive.com . Chapters 0:00 The CMO Job Description Is Broken 2:30 Marketing Is a Commercial Strategy 4:19 How “Marketing Prefixes” Broke the Function 8:04 Why Your Team Is Punching Growth in the Face 13:20 David Droga: Complexity Is a Tax on Success 16:02 The Worst Work Seth Ever Did 20:21 “You Neither Give Nor Take Direction” 24:03 Stop Trying to Be Human. Be Humane. 29:23 What Separates the World’s Most Influential CMOs 31:49 Why CEOs Struggle to Understand Marketing 34:03 Why Eric Schmidt Was Wrong About Marketing 35:43 Seth’s 10 Rules of Marketing 40:09 Introducing Create or Destroy 45:52 Lightning Round: Harry Potter, Coca-Cola and More 49:40 Are Your Metrics Making You Play the Wrong Game? ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

July 1, 20261 hr 3 min

Why Agents Will Buy, But Marketing Must Stay Human

A bank just issued the world's first loan to an AI agent. The agent applied, signed, and set its own repayment schedule. That's where marketing now lives — and most teams are still optimizing for the wrong layer. In this episode, Katja Forbes (founder of The CX Evolutionist and author of the field guide on machine customers) explains why AEO is a trap, why "the more discoverable you are, the more interchangeable you are," and what the actual moat looks like in agentic commerce. Fresh off a trip to Alibaba, BYD, and Unitree Robotics in China, Katja walks through the five types of machine customers already in market, why Patagonia's Footprint Chronicles is the B2C playbook, why Walmart's AI procurement is the B2B playbook, and the one mindset shift every marketing leader needs to make this quarter. What you'll learn • Why "AI agent" is too small a frame — and the 5 types of machine customers already buying today • Why AEO and machine-readability are table stakes, not strategy • The values-as-data play: how Patagonia and Walmart are already winning the agentic moat • Why you can't greenwash an AI agent (and what to do if your supply chain receipts aren't flattering) • The abundance-vs-efficiency mindset shift — and why stripping headcount for AI gains is corporate anorexia This episode is brought to you by Attentive. Attentive helps brands personalize messages across SMS, email, RCS, and push - so every interaction feels relevant, not random. Not more marketing. Better marketing. That’s marketing made personal. That’s Attentive. To learn more visit www.attentive.com. Connect Katja Forbes on LinkedIn The CX Evolutionist on Substack Marketing Trends Chapters • 0:00 The customer isn't human anymore • 1:34 Inside Alibaba, BYD, and Unitree — what China is shipping today • 4:09 How robots get their brains (and start transacting) • 7:05 The 5 types of machine customers every marketer should know • 10:37 Alibaba's 120-million-order onboarding campaign • 13:33 Your car is reading your emotions — and about to buy on your behalf • 16:31 What the US can actually learn from China's stack • 23:12 "Marketing to robots is not a thing" — the AEO trap • 27:36 A bank just gave the world's first loan to an AI agent • 29:32 Why BJ Fogg's behavior model breaks for machine customers • 37:17 The decision-paralysis problem and the rise of values-as-data • 40:14 Patagonia's Footprint Chronicles: the brand moat playbook • 45:39 Walmart's Pactum: B2B values-as-data is already live • 54:51 Marketers need to start acting like scientists • 56:53 Abundance, not efficiency — the corporate anorexia trap ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

June 17, 20261 hr 20 min

Why 90% of Your Brain Ignores Ads

What if everything you're optimizing for in marketing — attention, clicks, engagement — is a proxy for the one thing that actually drives action? Pranav Yadav is the Founder & Global CEO of Neuro-Insight, the world's largest measure of memory. His company maps brains to determine what advertising actually does to people — second by second — with an 86% correlation to real-world sales. In this conversation, he makes the case that memory is the only metric that matters, explains why hyper-personalization is destroying culture, and breaks down exactly why Budweiser's most iconic Super Bowl ad failed at the brain level while Samsung's Wallhuggers became their most successful campaign ever. Pranav Yadav is a former Goldman Sachs trader turned neuroscientist, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Ad Age 40 Under 40. He created the Neuro Impact Factor — the brain-based metric that all Australian out-of-home media is now traded on. Key takeaways • 90% of all memory is subconscious — brands have been measuring the wrong 10% • $750 billion in annual marketing spend is wasted because recall ≠ memory • The brain is a pattern-seeking storytelling device — personal relevance opens the door to memory • Hyper-personalization destroys the shared cultural memory that makes marketing work • The #1 rated Super Bowl ad (Budweiser Lost Puppy) placed the brand at the exact moment the brain stopped encoding memory • Samsung's Wallhuggers hid the brand for 45 seconds and became their most successful campaign This episode brought to you by Attentive. Attentive helps brands personalize messages across SMS, email, RCS, and push - so every interaction feels relevant, not random. Not more marketing. Better marketing. That’s marketing made personal. That’s Attentive. To learn more visit attentive.com . Follow Pranav on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pranavyadavpy Learn more: neuro-insight.com Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:31 The Urdu Couplet That Opens the Conversation 2:28 Marketing Has Been Leaning on Pseudoscience for Decades 5:09 Why Memory Is the Only Metric That Matters 8:32 The Shirt Test: Recall vs Memory 12:23 How to Get Into the 90% — Story Is the Boat 15:17 What 5,000-Year-Old Vedic Rituals Teach About Memory 19:41 Alexander the Great vs the Naked Wise Man 24:28 MasterCard's Priceless: Finding the Core Truth 27:29 Why Brands Don't Do This (It's Hard) 32:23 Brain Mapping: How Neuro-Insight Actually Measures Memory 39:26 Brand Architecture: The Formula Every Brand Needs 43:48 Why Hyper-Personalization Will Destroy Society 50:54 Why 90% of Super Bowl Ads Fail at the Brain Level 54:17 Budweiser's Lost Puppy: The #1 Ad That Failed 58:04 Samsung Wallhuggers: Genius at the Memory Moment 1:00:25 Why LLMs Are Trained on the Shadow of Thinking 1:07:41 Vows, Not Values: How Neuro-Insight Stays Creative 1:15:51 The Neuro Impact Factor: Changing How Australia Trades Media 1:19:57 What Makes a Great Billboard 1:20:23 Where to Find Pranav ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

June 3, 202655 min

The SEO Blog Era Is Over. Here's What Replaces It.

Your blog will never earn an audience. Ever. That's not me — that's Melissa Rosenthal, who ran the SEO content engine at ClickUp, built media at BuzzFeed and Cheddar, and is now co-founder of Outlever building the playbook that replaces it. In this episode, Melissa makes the case that the SEO blog era is collapsing in real time, that one strategic LinkedIn poster will out-perform 150 employees doing employee advocacy, and that while every other B2B operator is betting on AI, she's betting on humans — and using AI to do it. She's also dogfooding the entire thesis with her new publication, The State of Brand, which hit a million unique views in three weeks. What you'll learn • Why the SEO blog was a 'slot machine' — and what survives the AI search collapse • The two-month consistency rule that separates real owned media from content theater • Why one strategic LinkedIn poster beats 150 employees doing employee advocacy • The one-to-one distribution playbook replacing mass organic traffic • How Melissa's State of Brand publication converts at ~40% to demo on banner ads (yes, banner ads) • Why product parity is now enough to beat 15-year incumbents — if your brand, service, and POV are sharper This episode brought to you by Attentive. Attentive helps brands personalize messages across SMS, email, RCS, and push - so every interaction feels relevant, not random. Not more marketing. Better marketing. That’s marketing made personal. That’s Attentive. To learn more visit attentive.com . Connect Melissa Rosenthal on LinkedIn The State of Brand Outlever Marketing Trends Chapters • 0:00 The SEO blog era is over • 1:30 What's lighting Melissa up: State of Brand hits 1M views in 3 weeks • 4:30 BuzzFeed → Cheddar → ClickUp: why B2B needs B2C instincts • 7:33 Why Outlever built its own publication (and dogfooded the thesis) • 13:00 How to make B2B content go viral without AI slop • 18:50 Quality vs quantity: the false binary killing content teams • 22:14 Why one strategic poster beats 150 employees • 25:37 The two-month consistency rule • 26:33 'Your blog will never earn an audience' • 30:17 Everyone says video-first. She's going text-first. • 32:24 Melissa is excited about banner ads (yes, really) • 37:00 'Figma should be a little worried' • 40:04 You don't need a better product to beat a 15-year incumbent • 43:14 Betting on humans while everyone else bets on AI • 53:44 $50B incumbents can be beaten in 18 months ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

May 19, 202653 min

Stop Counting Your AI Agents. Customers Don’t Care.

Every CMO is being told to replace people with AI agents as fast as possible. Keri McGhee, CMO at Attentive, is doing some of that — and deliberately refusing to do other parts of it. The line she's drawn between the two is the most useful rubric we've heard in months. Attentive runs SMS, email, push, and RCS for thousands of consumer brands — a category where the temptation to automate everything is maximum. But Keri's strongest customer-loyalty moment last year wasn't an AI agent. It was a single text from a real human after a graduation dress arrived without its matching belt. 'I will buy a million more things from them.' This episode is the rubric: where AI is unlocking near-100% revenue lifts, where iOS 26 just quietly killed 80% of your text marketing, and the customer moment no agent count can replace. What you'll learn • Why brands using AI hands-off-the-wheel are seeing near 100% revenue lift — and the two customers proving it • How iOS 26 broke text marketing for 80%+ of devices, and the 2Tap opt-in fix most brands don't know about • The personalization rubric that gets 91% of consumers to say yes • The metric CFOs are asking marketing leaders about right now instead of CAC • The one customer moment that no AI agent can replicate — and why it's the only outcome that matters To learn more visit attentive.com Connect Keri McGhee on LinkedIn Attentive Chapters 0:00 Stop Selling AI, Start Proving Outcomes 1:16 What Changed in AI Marketing This Year 2:03 Why 90% of CMOs Experiment, But Few Scale 5:29 Why Attentive Doesn’t Lead With “AI” Anymore 6:32 Channel Affinity: Fewer Messages, Better Revenue 8:06 100% Revenue Lift 10:55 Identity AI and the Send-Time Unlock 12:34 The Best Practice Killing Your Deliverability 14:16 iOS 26 and the New Rules for Text Marketing 15:26 Why 2Tap Matters for SMS Consent 17:41 LLM Discovery, GEO, and the New Search Funnel 21:23 Why Consumers Distrust AI But Use It to Shop 24:22 The Tuckernuck Story: When AI Still Feels Personal 28:27 Why CMOs Have to Get Their Hands Dirty 32:14 The KPI Replacing CAC 34:21 Why Martech Is Consolidating Again 36:31 How to Spot Real AI vs. Rebranded AI 38:00 Stop Counting Agents. Measure the Experience. 43:10 The Skill AI Can Quietly Take From You 44:24 How Brands Should Prep for BFCM 46:38 Lightning Round: Trends, Skills, and Frameworks ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

May 6, 20266 min

Marketing Spotlight: How Simple Personalization Dramatically Increased Engagement

Most CMOs think personalization requires complex AI and endless customer segments. Elizabeth Maxson proves otherwise. She breaks down actionable personalization strategies — from geo-tagging that drove a 51% lift in event attendance to playful homepage tricks that captured marketers' attention and boosted engagement. The takeaway: Stop overcomplicating personalization. Start with big buckets and simple, contextual changes. Chapters 00:00 - Why Personalization Should Be Simple 00:32 - First-Time vs Returning vs Current Customers 01:07 - Marketer vs Developer Homepages 03:01 - Geo-Tagging: +51% Attendance 04:28 - The Big Buckets Approach 05:28 - The Lorem Ipsum Attention Hack 06:22 - Ruggable Cat vs Dog Personalization ---- Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.