Remarkable Content with Ian Faison cover art

Remarkable Content with Ian Faison

Remarkable Content with Ian Faison

By: Caspian Studios Ian Faison
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Marketing lessons from Hollywood, B2C, B2B and beyond! “A smart, goofy show that blends marketing, Hollywood, advertising and pop-culture. A must-listen for any marketer looking for fresh ideas.” - Oprah and Tom Hanks, simultaneously Hosted by Ian Faison and Meredith Gooderham and produced by Jess Avellino. Sound design by Scott Goodrich. Created by the team at Caspian Studios.Caspian Studios Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • Drive to Survive: How to Create a Market That Didn't Exist | Michael Londgren (Responsive)

    Drive to Survive: How to Create a Market That Didn't Exist | Michael Londgren (Responsive)
    Jun 23 2026
    The story was always there. It just took the right storytellers to find it. That's the central lesson of Formula 1: Drive to Survive, and it's the same one B2B marketers keep missing. Michael Londgren, CMO at Responsive, joins us to unpack why Drive to Survive is one of the best modern case studies in brand building, and what it teaches us about storytelling, category creation, and why the best product doesn't always win. Together, we dig into why optimizing for serendipity beats optimizing for control, why nobody actually cares about your product features, and why treating marketing as a favor to your team might be the most expensive executive mistake of all. About our guest, Michael Londgren Michael Londgren is CMO at Responsive, the category leader in strategic response management - helping companies win more business with faster, trusted responses to RFPs, security questionnaires, and due diligence requests. He joined the company when it was still known as RFPIO and helped lead its rebrand and category creation strategy. Before that, he held senior marketing roles at Docusign, Google and Seismic. He's also a committed McLaren fan and a reluctant F1 convert who has since gone fully down the rabbit hole. What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Formula 1: Drive to Survive The story was always there — your job is to find it. F1 racing existed for decades before Drive to Survive. The rivalries, the drama, the characters - none of it was invented. What changed was that someone decided to actually tell the story. Ian's point is direct: "In B2B, we do the same exact thing where we just make excuses for ourselves about how boring we are. It's not boring to the people whose life's work it is." Michael connects it to the 15,000 SaaS solutions all competing for a slot in a company's stack of roughly 30: "If you're a standard B2B marketer doing the standard B2B things in a sea of 15,000 competitors, you're not gonna win." The brands that break through aren't the ones with the best features - they're the ones who found a human story worth telling. Don't brief your way to authenticity. Go find the story. Optimize for serendipity, not control. When Drive to Survive's producers started filming, they didn't know what the show would look like. They didn't know if teams would open up. They didn't know what rivalries would emerge. Season 1 was imperfect, messy, and completely riveting. Ian draws the line to B2B: "What people do is they don't do that, because they want to optimize for control. Whereas optimizing for serendipity is a far better strategy." B2B marketing teams script every word, engineer every answer, and then wonder why nobody engages. Michael connects it to something he learned from Keith Krach, CEO of Docusign: "Luck is when opportunity meets preparation." The grind is still required — you just can't design the outcome. Sometimes the thing that makes the show is the character you didn't plan on finding. Nobody cares about your product. They care about value. Michael puts it plainly: "Let's be honest, nobody cares about the product. They don't." Drive to Survive runs eight seasons and barely covers how the cars actually work. The engineering matters enormously. But it's not the story. The story is the drivers, the rivalries, the decisions, and what it costs to win. Michael connects it directly to Responsive's rebrand from RFPIO: "RFPIO is very product focused. Responsive is a higher value, more interesting concept. Everyone wants to be responsive. That's an aspiration." The lesson for any B2B brand: lead with what the value unlocks, back it with customer voices, and let the product prove itself rather than trying to prove it upfront. Marketing is a strategic imperative, not a favor. Ian heard something on a recent shoot that stuck with him: a senior executive said, "Anything to help marketing." It sounds generous. It's actually the wrong frame entirely. "You're not helping marketing," Ian says. "You're doing the thing that is strategically imperative for our business." He identifies three people any audience most wants to hear from: the CEO (who sets the vision), customers (who validate the value), and anyone inside the organization who happens to be genuinely interesting. Michael adds the Responsive example - a team member who started small-group Coffee Chats with customers, grew them to hundreds of regulars, and became a mini-celebrity in their community: "Identifying who really resonates and putting investment behind that person. That's it." "The future of marketing is customer success — how customers are getting value — and bringing that to life authentically. Back to Drive to Survive: authentic human storytelling within the context of high-stakes racing. That combination is a winning combination." — Michael Londgren Time Stamps [1:33] Meet Michael Londgren, CMO at Responsive [2:25] Why Formula 1: Drive to Survive? [4:15] What Is Drive to Survive, and How Did It Change F1? [6:45] Were You an F1 ...
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    51 mins
  • You Come Out of a Taylor Swift Concert Feeling Euphoric. That's the Bar for Your Brand. | Phyllis Rothschild (Pete & Gerry's Organics)

    You Come Out of a Taylor Swift Concert Feeling Euphoric. That's the Bar for Your Brand. | Phyllis Rothschild (Pete & Gerry's Organics)
    Jun 9 2026
    What if your most loyal customers were doing your marketing for you? Taylor Swift doesn’t just drop albums — she hides cryptic clues in her nail polish, her jewelry, her lyrics, her social posts, her tour staging. And the fans who find them? They tell everyone. Phyllis Rothschild, CMO of Pete & Gerry’s Organics, joins us to unpack what B2B marketers can learn from Taylor Swift’s Easter egg playbook — and what it has to do with selling eggs. Together, we dig into why superfans are worth more than mass reach, how to simplify a hopelessly confusing category, and why the best marketing in the world still can’t beat getting someone to actually taste the product. About our guest, Phyllis Rothschild Phyllis Rothschild is CMO at Pete & Gerry’s Organics, the maker of Pete & Gerry’s and Nellie’s Free Range eggs. With a career spanning brand and consumer marketing, she brings a rare mix of storytelling instinct and category expertise to one of the most crowded shelves in the grocery store — and has strong opinions about yolk color. What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Taylor Swift’s Easter Eggs Make your superfans do the work for you. Maybe 1% of Taylor Swift’s listeners hunt for Easter eggs. But those fans amplify everything — they find the clues, post the theories, and bring the rest of the world along. Ian’s takeaway: “The smallest number that you can make ecstatic is probably a better way to do it — because those people tell their friends.” Phyllis connects it directly to Pete & Gerry’s: “The circle back is the fact that they’re doing the work for her — because they all get so engaged and so invested in the story that they then wanna retell it.” Design for the diehard first. The rest will follow. The experience is the marketing. Going to a Taylor Swift concert isn’t just about the music — it’s euphoric. The friendship bracelets, the staging, the crowd. Phyllis draws the direct line: “That’s the kind of feeling you want when someone experiences your brand or your product. You don’t want it to just be transactional. You want them to say, ‘The overall experience is what keeps me coming back for more.’” For Pete & Gerry’s, that means showing the amber yolk oozing onto the plate — not listing certifications. Make people feel something before you make them think something. One clear claim beats a PhD’s worth of education. The egg aisle is a case study in how to confuse a customer into paralysis. Cage-free. Free-range. Pasture-raised. Organic. Farm-fresh. Phyllis is blunt: “You don’t wanna have to have a PhD in egg science to make your weekly purchase.” Her approach: pick the one insight that matters and hammer it. “We just need one claim to get people to say ‘free-range means they go outside.’ And then that’s it.” The lesson for any crowded B2B category: the brand that educates the market doesn’t always win. The brand that owns one simple truth does. “Taylor Swift’s eras are like campaigns — they’re all different, but they all ladder up into the same brand story. You can reinvent yourself, evolve, tap into new tools and mechanisms, but you still need to stay true to who you are as a brand and what got you to where you are.” — Phyllis Rothschild Time Stamps [1:22] Meet Phyllis Rothschild, CMO of Pete & Gerry's Organics [1:45] Why Taylor Swift? Storytelling, Easter Eggs, and a Lifelong Fan [5:09] The Egg Break: Favorite Egg Dishes and the Best Hard-Boiled Hack [10:44] What Are Taylor Swift's Easter Eggs, and Why Do They Work? [17:32] Marketing Lesson #1: Make Your Super Fans Do the Work for You [22:25] Marketing Lesson #2: Show the Yolk - Product Experience Over Product Claims [26:22] The Egg Aisle Problem: Simplifying a Confusing Category [30:52] Marketing Lesson #3: Trial Is Everything - Getting Them to Taste It [34:50] Selling Without a Direct Customer Relationship [39:33] The Private Label Threat and How to Own Your Differentiation [44:09] Marketing Lesson #4: Eras, Campaigns, and the Common Thread [49:36] Final Thoughts: Try the Pasture-Raised Organic (The Blue Box) Links Connect with Phyllis on LinkedIn Learn more about Pete & Gerry's Organics About Remarkable! Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, edited by Jon Goldberg, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    50 mins
  • Advocacy, Pointy Characters, and the Brand Bank: B2B Marketing Lessons from Schitt's Creek | Jason Grunberg (Forter)

    Advocacy, Pointy Characters, and the Brand Bank: B2B Marketing Lessons from Schitt's Creek | Jason Grunberg (Forter)
    May 19 2026
    Have you ever seen Schitt’s Creek? No? You really need to watch it. That’s advocacy. And it’s older than marketing itself - somebody took a bite of something and said, “You gotta try this.” Jason Grunberg, CMO of Forter, didn’t watch the show until he got sick and had nothing else to do. By the time he was better, he was binge-watching instead of resting. In this episode, he breaks down what Schitt’s Creek teaches B2B marketers about pointy characters, ownable positioning, brand as a bank, and why the transformation story is the only story worth telling. Together, we dig into why “safe is not where we make really strong emotional bonds,” what the Rosebud Motel’s rebrand can teach any B2B company trying to differentiate, and why AI inflation has already made “AI” a meaningless differentiator. About our guest, Jason Grunberg Jason Grunberg is CMO at Forter, the identity intelligence platform for digital commerce. With a background spanning agency and in-house roles across B2C and B2B, he brings a rare perspective on what it means to treat every buyer as a consumer - because at the end of the day, a wrong decision costs someone their job, and nothing is more personal than that. What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Schitt’s Creek Advocacy is the root of every decision. Jason didn’t watch Schitt’s Creek because of the awards or the marketing. He watched it because people he trusted kept telling him to. His takeaway for B2B: “Advocacy has been a core part of marketing and brand forever for anything. This is coded almost into the human experience - advocacy is the root of like how we end up making decisions and choices.” Before you chase the next channel, ask whether you’re creating the conditions for your customers to tell their colleagues, “You really need to try this.” Pointy characters resonate more than representative ones. The safest instinct in B2B marketing is to round off your personas until they feel inclusive. Schitt’s Creek did the opposite - and it’s why strangers kept telling Jason the show was basically his family. Ian’s takeaway: “The more pointy you make it, the more weird, the more absurd, it actually will resonate that much better.” Stop asking whether every CIO will see themselves in your story. Make the character want something specific, and trust the audience to find themselves in it. Brand is a bank - and technology is never the real differentiator. The Rose Apothecary didn’t succeed because of its product formulas. It succeeded because of the experience, the distinctiveness, the emotional value. Jason connects it directly to his work at Forter: “Quality is replicable, at least now more so than ever. The brand has to mean something.” On technology positioning, he’s blunt: “If there’s always the push from your product team to be like, ‘This is the core differentiator,’ I’m like, ‘Cool. That is 2,000 lines of code deep. That sounds really replicable. And it doesn’t say I’m getting a raise if I buy this.’” “Safe is not where we make really strong emotional bonds. On the edges is where we do that - because on the inside, there’s a lot of edge. We’ve just been conditioned to not show it all the time.” - Jason Grunberg Time Stamps [1:25] Meet Jason Grunberg, CMO of Forter [2:17] Why Schitt’s Creek? The Show That Felt Like His Family [4:53] Jason’s Role at Forter: Decisions AI and Customer-Centric Marketing [5:56] What Is Schitt’s Creek? Character Development as a Foundation [12:11] Marketing Lesson #1: Advocacy Is Coded Into the Human Experience [15:56] Marketing Lesson #2: Pointy Characters Win — Stop Regressing to the Mean [23:14] B2B Is Still Consumer: Everyone Is a Person Making a Personal Decision [26:35] Marketing Lesson #3: Brand Experience — Rose Apothecary and the Bank Analogy [29:11] Marketing Lesson #4: The Rosebud Motel and the Power of Positioning [32:18] The Name, the Pun, and the Juxtaposition of Lowbrow and Highbrow [36:21] The Audacity of the Arc: Why Schitt’s Creek Ended on Purpose [39:07] Final Thoughts and Takeaways Links Connect with Jason on LinkedIn Learn more about Forter About Remarkable! Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, edited by Jon Goldberg, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    41 mins
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