Remarkable Content with Ian Faison Bravo: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Reality TV Network with Head of Communications at Vanta, Erin Cheng
Your audience should be stumbling upon your brand. They shouldn’t have to go looking.
That means putting out content they’ll encounter on their TV, on their drive to work, in their email, on Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn. It also means they’ll think about your brand multiple times a week, maybe multiple times a day. That’s what you want.
And that’s what we’ve got in this episode of Remarkable. We’re talking about marketing lessons from Bravo TV with the help of special guest, Head of Communications at Vanta, Erin Cheng. Together, we chat about taking a multi-platform, multi-channel approach, connecting your messaging with trending topics, and giving your brand a spokesperson.
About our guest, Erin Cheng
Erin Cheng is Head of Communications at Vanta. She joined the company in November of 2022, and previously served as Head of Public Relations & Analyst Relations at Asana. She is a comms leader with 15 years of experience in creating and executing multi-dimensional internal and external communications programs, including executive thought leadership, business momentum, product and category innovation, third-party and influencer validation, and next-gen technology. Deep experience in B2B and B2C with a reputation for cross-functional collaboration aligned with business objectives.
About Vanta
Vanta is the leading trust management platform that helps simplify and centralize security for organizations of all sizes. Thousands of companies rely on Vanta to build, maintain and demonstrate trust in a way that's real-time and transparent. Founded in 2018, Vanta has customers in 58 countries with offices in Dublin, New York, San Francisco and Sydney.
About Bravo
Bravo is a TV network like HBO or PBS. It’s owned by NBCUniversal, and is known for reality TV shows like Top Chef, The Real Housewives franchise (Beverly Hills, Atlanta, Dallas, Dubai, etc.), Below Deck, and more. It’s been around since 1980 and was originally dedicated to independent film and the performing arts. Now its target audience is 25-54 year old women and the LGBTQIA community. The network’s first big show was Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which launched in 2003. And that was a turning point that led the network to focusing on reality TV. According to Entertainment Weekly, “Bravo's quirky reality programming mixes high culture and low scruples to create deliciously addictive television."
What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bravo:
- Take a multi-platform, multi-channel approach. Post content daily across social channels, on your website, blog, everywhere. This increases brand awareness and keeps you top of mind for your audience while also giving them multiple chances to interact with your brand. Of Bravo, Erin says, “They've got BravoCon, which is in essence their user conference. They've got Watch What Happens Live. They have social. You don't just experience these characters and these stories once a week in a one hour format and then forget it. You're engaging with them all the time.”
- Connect your message to relevant and timely topics in the real world. By referencing trending topics, you strengthen the impact of your message, boost your search engine visibility and capture the interest and engagement of your audience. Erin says, “A lot of people falsely just assume that because something is interesting to them as a company or from a product that they're launching that it's going to be interesting to everyone. And the real magic happens when you marry it to the things that are going on in the world around them, and they can really feel that you're connecting that for them. That's really powerful.”
- Give your brand a spokesperson. This person is responsible for synthesizing your messaging as well as humanizing your brand. Ian says, “The synthesis of the information is oftentimes just as important in the presentation. Andy Cohen also acts as the calming, reassuring presence that brings consistency from show to show. Andy is the figure in the background waiting to come on to synthesize what you just saw. He’s a huge part of building a portfolio of content, building out a network, building out consistency and brand voice and all that. A human being can do that way faster than you can do that by waving your magic brand wand.”
Quotes
*”Nobody's sitting around and thinking about us or waiting for our news. Especially as you're growing a company, and you're not sort of a tech behemoth or consumer behemoth that people sort of wait for these regular news cycles around. And so you do have to make sure that you're not only cognizant of the world around you and the things that are happening, the things that are top of mind for your customers or those that you're hoping to turn into customers. But how are you knitting that story together with the value that you're delivering with what you bring to the table?” - Erin Cheng
“A big lesson for a lot of marketers and everyone in general is when to take honest stock of things and ask yourself, ‘Does this still work? Do we need to mix it up? Is this messaging still feeling compelling and relevant? Or is it not speaking to our audience anymore?’ Being really nimble and responsive to what your audience cares about is important.” - Erin Cheng
Time Stamps
[0:55] Meet Erin Cheng, Head of Communications at Vanta
[1:50] What does Erin’s role at Vanta entail?
[3:28] Why are we talking about Bravo?
[5:07] What is Bravo?
[20:24] Why is Bravo remarkable? And what are marketing lessons we can take away from it?
[43:35] What’s Erin’s content strategy?
[46:37] How does Erin prove the ROI of content?
[48:17] What new and upcoming projects is Erin working on?
Links
Connect with Erin Cheng on LinkedIn
About Remarkable!
Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com.
In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK.
Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.