The Changemakers

Ari Yablok is the Head of Brand at Island, the Enterprise Browser. If that sounds like a pretty simple description of what Island does, then there’s a very deliberate reason for that. And it’s a reason that has seen Dave fall completely in love with the brand strategy, identity, narrative and messaging that Ari has created for this Israeli startup that is going global pretty rapidly.Everything about Island exudes simplicity. The idea behind the product. The product itself. The experience of using it. The problem it solves. It’s easy, clear and stress-free. And this is all reflected perfectly in the simple, clean, zen-like brand experience that it’s all wrapped up in, and which entices you with its beautifully uncomplicated and supremely confident attitude.But don’t think for a second that the process of developing it was simple. It took a serious investment of strategic work, along with a heavy dose of boldness from Island’s founders to choose a path so unlike any other company in their space.Dave has been a long-time fan and admirer, both of Island and of Ari’s approach to crafting strategic narratives, end-to-end messaging and brand identities for tech companies in general - which he did for 50+ firms during his previous role at the B2B agency Atreo.So join us for another episode of fanboying as he chats with Ari on:the story of Island’s brand development, from first conversation to nowthe thinking behind its distinctive ethos and visual identityhow he and the Island team bring it to life in a differentiated way at live eventsthe challenge of evolving the brand as the company evolvesthe role of Island’s founders in the whole processThis is more than a story about an interesting brand. It’s an inspirational journey into the magic that happens when visionary founders and brand experts team up before a company has even launched, and build the brand alongside the product.Find out more about Island here, and follow Ari’s work on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/ariyablok.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

Following staggering revenue growth of 46,000% between 2018 and 2021, cybersecurity asset management Axonius was unsurprisingly named as the fastest-growing cybersecurity company in America by Deloitte in 2022.That’s pretty damn awesome. But it also presented a very familiar problem that high-growth companies tend to face. They scale so quickly, with such a focus on perfecting the product and the platform, that the task of also building a cohesive brand message and narrative takes a bit of a back seat.It’s understandable. But there comes a point where it’s a major issue. And when Kaite Rosa joined the business as Senior Director of Brand in 2020, she immediately identified that it was becoming one.So alongside CMO Nathan Burke, she set about fixing the problem. And the way they went about it makes for quite a story.Join Dave and Kaite as they discuss:how Kaite and her team crafted a simple, human, relatable brand messagehow they landed gymnastics icon Simone Biles as a brand partner to help spread that messagewhy Simone and Axonius’ other athlete partners embody the spirit of Axonius’ brandhow those collaborations, plus the close collaborative spirit of Kaite and Nathan’s team, drive long-term success for Axoniuswhy it’s so important to build such distinct brand narratives in crowded markets like cybersecurityThis is a conversation that will inspire any brand or marketing leaders out there who are struggling to make their brand stand out in cluttered markets.So dive in and enjoy. And go follow Kaite on LinkedIn to keep up with the latest from Axonius’ remarkable brand journey - which is certainly not slowing down any time soon.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

It’s time for another chat with one of our fellow agency buddies - and in the hotseat this week is the wonderful Kirsty Jarvis, founder and CEO of tech-specialist communications firm Luminous PR.We’ve recently been getting to know the Luminous team through our shared love of working with game-changing technology businesses. Their approach to building B2B brands and driving growth through tailored communications strategies is pretty impressive. So we were delighted when Kirsty agreed to take time out of her busy schedule to take us behind the scenes of how they do it.Join Dave and Kirsty as they sit down to discuss:why PR is so important to early-stage startupshow Luminous’ approach differs for more established firms versus startupsthe key trends and developments in the world of PR right nowwhy it pays to be creative when devising a comms strategy that cuts through the clutterhow PR strategies are changing for tech firms in the current climate of profitability and sustainability, versus the last couple of years of free capital and growth at all costs…and plenty more! If you like the sound of Luminous and what they do (and why wouldn’t you, they’re seriously good PR experts) follow Kirsty on LinkedIn here, and find out more about the agency on their website.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

Aaron Poe is a man who knows a thing or two about brand design. During his time in the agency world, he gave the Beats by Dre brand the distinctive identity that helped it get acquired by Apple. He led the 2018 rebrand of fintech giant Checkout.com, and the more recent evolution of the Square brand identity.Now, as head of Zapier’s brand studio, his esteemed talents are being put to great use in leading the roll-out of the rapidly-growing automation firm’s new visual identity.It’s a fun job for a creative leader who loves pushing boundaries and expanding concepts into new realms. But it’s also a big job. Alongside the guidelines and principles Aaron and his team are building out around type, colour, motion and brand architecture, the company is in the process of launching a steady stream of new products - all of which must fit creatively into these newly crafted systems.So how’s that process going? What inspired Aaron to step away from his previous role and take this on as a challenge? And crucially, as Zapier is becoming an increasingly AI-driven company, how is Aaron harnessing the latest AI tools to make that big job a little less big?Join Dave and Aaron to find out all that and much more, including Aaron’s opinion on the future of AI-driven creative development, and where someone as experienced as he is goes to find their creative inspiration.It’s a cracking conversation. If you agree, let us know over on our LinkedIn page. And go follow Aaron on LinkedIn for the latest out of the super-talented Zapier brand studio.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

Some people are quite happy to simply coast along, and see where the wind takes them. And others constantly push themselves, always looking to grow and develop through experiences that test their existing skills and help them to create new ones.Matt Price falls into the latter camp. Each step in his career as a creative, whether to a boutique agency or the pristine corridors of Apple HQ, has been chosen deliberately to give him a new perspective on the craft of commercial creativity.Now, deep into his first stint in B2B-land with fintech giants Checkout.com, Matt joins Dave to discuss how the sum of those experiences is an innate understanding of exactly what it takes to be a successful in-house creative leader.The two of them also chat about:how to be a collaborator rather than a blockerhow to uncover opportunities to elevate the power of creativity internallythe importance of educating audiences about your category as well as your brand and productwhy creatives should look to the world of fashion, art and design for genuine inspirationBe sure to give Matt a follow on LinkedIn. And if you enjoy the episode, why not take an extra minute out of your day and give us a lovely review?Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

This is the first of two episodes in which we’ll be stepping away from our typical guest profile of in-house marketers, creatives and brand leaders, and getting to know some of Shaped By’s fellow agency buddies.And what a buddy to get to know. Kerry Guard is CEO and founder of MKG Marketing, a digital marketing agency that works with cybersecurity, data management and other fast-scaling tech firms to drive impactful growth.So what are the most pressing digital marketing challenges that tech firms are grappling with now? And what should marketers be doing to solve them?Join Kerry and Dave to find out, and also discover:why truly effective digital marketing is ultimately a long gamehow to optimize your strategy to deliver consistent results over timewhat “intentional” digital marketing means, and why it’s so importantwhy moving away from lead gen and towards demand gen makes sense in today’s worldhow effective digital marketing relies on a splash of creativity to succeedYou can find MKG Marketing on the interweb here, and go follow Kerry on LinkedIn too. Also be sure to check out her podcast, Tea Time With Tech Marketing Leaders, which Dave will be featuring on very soon!Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

Until generative AI came along and took over every single conversation, one way to instantly ignite a ferocious debate in B2B marketing was to ask this question: “Should B2B companies be thinking like media companies when it comes to content marketing?”ZoomInfo certainly believes so. And when the go-to-market software, data, and intelligence company’s CEO Henry Schuck decided to turn his content marketing operation into an editorial media machine, he hired Meghan Barr to lead it.As an award-winning journalist with two decades of experience, Meghan’s editorial and storytelling skills were a perfect fit to bring Henry’s vision of building an internal newsroom at ZoomInfo to life.So we were thrilled when Meghan agreed to sit down with Dave to discuss her experiences of moving into the B2B tech world, and how that move has signalled a shift in the way ZoomInfo builds its audience through content marketing.Dave and Meghan also discuss:how to tell brand and product stories across multiple channelswhy it’s so important to create an ownable narrative that draws audiences inhow thinking like a media company helps to build consistency and communityhow her editorial skillset adds value to teams and projects right across the marketing functionThe debate will rage on, no doubt. But whatever side you’re on, if you want an objective, honest and fascinating insight into what goes on inside a company that’s very much in this transition, then this one is most definitely for you.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

It’s not every day that you get chatting with someone who, in the first five minutes, casually drops into the conversation that they “ran a couple of SWAT teams”.But this is an episode with a difference. And if you’re involved in anything to do with cybersecurity marketing or thought leadership, then it’s one for you.There ain’t no cybersecurity expert with more expertise than Steve Stone. From managing nuclear security and running counter-espionage operations for the US Air Force to then moving into counter-terrorism as a federal agent (including over 1200 interrogations of high-level terrorists), the early part of Steve’s career was action-packed, to say the least.And it hasn’t slowed down since. After moving into cybersecurity as a case agent for several nation-state cyber intrusions into the US government, Steve left the military and joined the US intelligence community where he spent five years as a cyber intelligence expert, before moving into the private sector to help firms like IBM and Mandiant to convince C-suites and executive boards of the mission-critical threats that cybersecurity poses.Today, Steve heads up Rubrik Zero Labs, the data threat research unit he helped to create inside the data security firm Rubrik (and Shaped By client). We’ve had the pleasure of working with Steve on the creative aspects of RZL, so Dave was stoked to get the chance to interrogate him about:what led him from dusty interrogation rooms to the clean, bright corridors of a Silicon Valley tech firmwhy Zero Labs is such an important resource for Rubrik’s clients and security leaders everywherehow to engage busy CISOs and CIOs with thought leadership contenthow committed thought leadership like RZL builds genuine trust and credibilitythe role that storytelling plays in the RZL experienceThought leadership in B2B is so often a badging exercise, consisting of a few hastily-trotted-out reports with a foreword from the company’s CEO. So if you want a bagful of tips on how to build a true thought leadership platform, get your ears around this episode.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

Whenever the conversation at Shaped By HQ turns to our favourite B2B brands, the same one always crops up: Drift.This unapologetically bold SaaS startup broke all the moulds when it created the category of Revenue Acceleration, and launched a vibrant and expressive new visual identity last year. So we were stoked when Andrea Carrillo, the firm’s Associate Creative Director, agreed to jump into the Changemakers hot seat and give us the inside story on Drift’s creative ethos.Originally from Colombia, Andrea and her family moved to New York as a child. Her parents - both engineers - landed jobs in the Big Apple, which sparked a keen interest in tech from an early age. This was matched by an equally enthusiastic passion for design when she joined a high school class that was effectively a mini creative agency for community projects.Dave chats with Andrea about how those influences shaped Andrea’s career and led to her becoming a creative leader at one of the SaaS world’s most recognised and loved brands.They also discuss:why internal creatives should think more like marketers to understand business goals and objectivesthe value of having a creative team that has a voice in conversations across the businesshow to retain the essence of a strong brand, and still be able to evolve and progress as the company growsthe influence of Drift’s founders David Cancel and Elias Torres on the brand’s creative expressionhow their background as Latinx founders is so inspirational to Andrea as a member of the Latinx community.Find out more about Drift on their site, and follow Andrea on LinkedIn here.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️

How can the application of creativity enhance product marketing?If there’s one thread that’s been running consistently through the 29 previous episodes of The Changemakers, it’s that product marketing is the unsung hero of B2B tech business growth.All of our guests who have spent time in PMM roles have said that time was invaluable to their success. Many product marketers go on to have successful leadership careers. So when the time finally came for a discussion on creativity in product marketing, we knew exactly who to call on.Shobhana Viswanathan is a Silicon Valley-based chief marketing officer who has held numerous product marketing and B2B marketing executive roles at companies including IBM, Oracle/Sun, VMware and Automation Anywhere and startups.Shobhana started her career as a developer but found her true calling post-MBA at advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather. That stint in advertising and persuasive copywriting paid future dividends by allowing her to translate complex technical concepts into business benefits to help companies scale.Listen as Dave and Shobhana dive into:Why creativity is vital to product marketing, from campaign design to human-centric copywriting and messagingWhy nailing product marketing is especially crucial for category creatorsWhy product marketers’ skillsets make them perfect candidates for CMO positionsHow to use data to enhance your stakeholder management…and much more besides.Shobhana is the host of a great podcast on the future of work called The Change Alchemist, which is wonderful listening. Check it out here, and go connect with/follow her on LinkedIn and Twitter.Send us a message if you enjoyed this episodeIf you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspirationAnd finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it!✌️