#374 | Most B2B marketers think brand means bigger budgets. This episode shows otherwise. Dave sits down with Ryan Narod, VP of Marketing at Rippling, to talk about what it actually takes to build a brand people recognize in B2B. Ryan walks through the real campaigns behind that shift - from scrappy iPhone videos and webinar promos to high-production customer films and their Super Bowl commercial. Ryan breaks down how he built a content flywheel, why injecting real humans into every piece of content matters, and how they measure brand impact without losing accountability to pipeline. It's a practical look at going from growth-only marketing to a brand with real personality, with examples you can steal no matter your budget.
Timestamps
- (00:00) - - Today's guest: Ryan Narod, VP of Marketing at Rippling
- (02:44) - - What Rippling actually does and why HR, finance, and IT live under one roof
- (07:00) - - Why brand building starts with content and story, not billboards and TV ads
- (09:00) - - Building a content flywheel out of interviews, written pieces, and video
- (13:10) - - Getting the brand story straight across personas and the C-suite
- (18:30) - - Marketing plays in action: from scrappy iPhone videos to big-budget customer films
- (27:09) - - How to build a brand on a startup budget without Rippling's resources
- (29:33) - - Comparing production value head to head: a big-budget campaign vs a lo-fi one
- (32:29) - - How Rippling measures brand marketing with mixed media modeling and incrementally testing
- (39:49) - - Inside the Super Bowl ad and the reverse timeline it took to pull off
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