Marketing Trends

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. ConnectPrachi Gore on LinkedInAsanaMission.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.

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 threeConnectDave Steer on LinkedInWebflowMarketing TrendsChapters• 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.

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 learnWhy Bart still uses Shopify’s free Dawn theme after $36M in revenueThe question that changed how DadGang thinks about communityHow customer feedback turns into real product launchesWhy emails that aren’t trying to sell can still drive revenueHow DadGang uses email, SMS and AI without adding unnecessary complexityWhy Bart resists arbitrary growth pressure - even at scaleThis 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.ConnectDadGang Co.Bart Szaniewski on LinkedInMarketing Trends Chapters0:00 From $750 and 100 Hats to DadGang3:23 The Marketing Years Before DadGang7:13 Why Fatherhood Content Felt Wrong10:08 $36M Without Forcing Growth12:40 Why DadGang Still Uses a Free Shopify Theme15:34 The Martech Stack Is Shrinking16:16 AI Replaced the Landing Page Process17:32 Don't Build Around the Algorithm19:38 "Where Is Your Community?"21:04 Why 15,000 Dads Still Use Facebook25:13 When Customers Design the Product29:07 How Gary Vee Became a Partner35:18 Email + SMS for a Million-Hat Brand37:36 Letting AI Choose the Send Time38:22 Why Non-Selling Emails Still Drive Revenue41:29 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.

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.

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 MatlinsListen 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. Chapters0:00 The CMO Job Description Is Broken2:30 Marketing Is a Commercial Strategy4:19 How “Marketing Prefixes” Broke the Function8:04 Why Your Team Is Punching Growth in the Face13:20 David Droga: Complexity Is a Tax on Success16:02 The Worst Work Seth Ever Did20:21 “You Neither Give Nor Take Direction”24:03 Stop Trying to Be Human. Be Humane.29:23 What Separates the World’s Most Influential CMOs31:49 Why CEOs Struggle to Understand Marketing34:03 Why Eric Schmidt Was Wrong About Marketing35:43 Seth’s 10 Rules of Marketing40:09 Introducing Create or Destroy45:52 Lightning Round: Harry Potter, Coca-Cola and More49:40 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.