This might suck. And that's okay.

👋 Welcome to Marketing Under The Influence.

The title of this piece is from somebody who wanted to improve his on-camera presence and began a journey of recording himself over and over and over. I don’t recall the guy’s name. But I remember the comparison between his first video and most recent. The transformation was astounding. He was a completely different person. (12/8/23 edit: found the guy!)

I’ve been reflecting on this forgotten man’s example a lot lately because I think it’s time I overcome the self-imposed perfectionism that’s held me back from sharing my ideas, telling deeply authentic stories, and connecting with other extremely talented people.

As of this week, I finally put together a rough cut of Marketing Under The Influence, an idea that’s been stored away in my head for two years, and started to shop it around for potential sponsors. Two brands are interested so far. More are likely to come.

That’s because Marketing Under The Influence is truly the first of its kind in B2B marketing. It’s a narrative interview show inspired by This American Life, Radiolab, Unthinkable, and so many more. More specifically, it’s an exploration of the many ways media has influenced the marketers responsible for the messages that we consume today.

Once the series has a sponsor and you get a chance to listen (or watch, as my ultimate dream is to make it an animated series), I hope you’ll share the enthusiastic reactions of the highly respected marketers said about the pilot after a sneak peek:

• “Wow this is some NPR-level stuff.”

• “It plays like a crime podcast!”

• “Love the narrative you weave into it!”

I guarantee there’s nothing like it today. In fact, that’s why I’m embracing the idea that "this might suck and that’s okay.”

As we approach 2024, all but a rare few of B2B podcasts and other multimedia series can be described as “asking the same questions everybody else asked our guests about their work” — or, as I like to joke, talking heads, talking shop.

It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with the interview format. Many do it exceptionally well. Tommy Walker’s Cutting Room, Ramli John’s Marketing Powerups, or Fio Dossetto’s content folks for example.

What makes those shows and others “exceptionally well” will be the focus on future pieces that will augment the pieces dedicated to Marketing Under The Influence narrative interview series. I’ll also use those interstitial pieces to share details about making Marketing Under The Influence (and other stuff I’m working on), talk about the media that influenced me, and extract the lessons to be learned from outside of marketing for marketers.

Together the narrative interview series and the pieces that make up the Marketing Under The Influence intellectual property are an effort to do something that scares the shit out of me (seriously, I started to hit publish and hesitated a bunch of times) but also feels so important right now.

B2B buyers aren’t in the market 24/7/365. Nor do they want to spend their daily 10-hour media diet reading yet another ultimate guide or listening to anymore podcasts where talking heads talk shop. It’s hard enough to sift through 375 billion gigabytes of data dumped online every day — a number that’s only going to grow exponentially thanks to AI.

I hope that by pulling marketers outside their echo chamber and showing them something new, they might take our profession to unimaginable places.

But my attempt might fail. This might suck. And that’s okay.

Because what matters most to me right now is knowing I tried.

So thank you.

♥️ Ronnie

Texts, teachers, and other stuff that doesn’t necessarily begin with the letter T

• My contrarian LinkedIn post that started a great discussion about the fate of B2B content marketing.

• Jules Terpak’s interview with Taylor Lorenz about her book Extremely Online, which I’m currently reading and almost finished. The interview (and the book) are soooo good.

• A couple of weeks ago we ate Cheesecake Factory and the massive menu led me down a rabbit hole, trying to understand how the restaurant can possibly offer so many dishes. My friend Amanda Natividad shared this article that blew my mind about their operation.

• Speaking of innovative content, make sure to check out Off The Clock. The show is a breath of fresh air. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll do all the things.