The Rose & Rockstar: MQL Gumball Machines and Brand

In our second visit to the officially renamed virtual bar - The Rose and Rockstar - this week, Robert Rose, the Chief Troublemaker at the newly launched Seventh Bear, shares a simple but classy cocktail, and Ian Truscott picks his brains on pivoting on the B2B gumball machine of MQLs and the hope and aspiration that maybe we’ll recognize the value of brand in B2B in 2025 - and rebuts the view that if we can’t attribute something directly to revenue it’s not worth doing.  

They discuss:

• Can we shift towards brand awareness and building trust? 
• Brand marketing creates trust and demand, while performance marketing identifies it and is focused on efficiency in converting that demand
• How your brand is a multiplier of other marketing activities
• Creating content for nerdy industry colleagues, not customers
• Not being afraid of repetition in marketing content and talking about the problem in the customer's language 
• The importance of differentiating your brand in a crowded market

As ever, we welcome your feedback; please let us know if you like the new format and if you would like Ian to ask Robert a question in the safe environment of the bar - get in touch on the links below. 

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

• Ian Truscott on LinkedIn and Bluesky
• Robert Rose on LinkedIn and Bluesky

Mentioned this week

• The Future of B2B Marketing: 11 Predictions for 2025, From New Playbooks to Strategic Brands and AI Agents - Join MIller on Marketing Profs
• The Long and the Short of it: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies by Les Binet | Goodreads
• Seventh Bear

Rockstar CMO:

• The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday
• Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

• Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license
• We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices