In this episode of the Advertising Heat Check, host Matt Behrend sits down with Ted Hartman, a marketing leader who helped make Little Giant Ladders famous, to break down what's heating up and what's cooling off in advertising.

Heating up: Elite messaging and in-house product demos. All the new channels matter, but when a prospect finally lands on your real estate, the message has to acknowledge the problems they have and teach them the solutions you provide. Getting that right is what motivates people once you get them there, and it's where Ted focuses most of his own work.

The second lever is anything but basic. Little Giant built three in-house studios and runs "Little Giant Live" product demonstrations and free ladder safety trainings, delivered the way the team used to demo on job sites. It reaches tradespeople at a scale that flying reps to a central location could never.

Cooling off: When your product is as big and heavy as Little Giant Ladders, spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on Google Ads and Meta to push shipped ecommerce orders doesn't pencil out. Ted's alternative is to know your product, use paid channels to tell a rich story with precise targeting, and send buyers to a nearby brick-and-mortar location where the product is already waiting. The customer gets an easier purchase, and the brand stops paying to ship across the country.

To close, Ted shares what's making him smarter lately: Helping his son build a following as a master Lego creator on YouTube and TikTok.

In this episode:

• Why the message on your own real estate matters more than any new channel
• Co-branded safety trainings with industrial distributors as a value add that scales
• Using OTT and CTV storytelling to drive pickup at nearby locations and protect margin
• The question Ted is studying now: can advertisers stand out to AI?

About the guest: Ted Hartman led marketing at Little Giant Ladders, served as CMO of Inergy, and holds an MBA from BYU. Today he works as a fractional marketing executive who specializes in building marketing from the ground up at young companies, and he serves as a board member and past president of the Honoring Heroes Foundation.

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In this episode of the Advertising Heat Check, host Matt Behrend sits down with Rachel Poulos, a marketing leader who has built and led teams across performance, brand, and go-to-market for brands like Patagonia, The Met, and The Weather Channel, to break down what's heating up and what's cooling off in advertising.

Heating up: Events as a full-system growth channel. After a first full year of running events, Rachel's team rebuilt the channel around a complete system: targeted outreach before the show, a clear booth experience, and a post-event conversion plan that gives sales a step-by-step path to their goals. The results were roughly 6x ROAS last year and a close rate up about 80%. Her take on why it works: events put you face-to-face with highly qualified people, and meeting in person builds trust fast.

Cooling off: Over-reliance on one or two performance channels. Rachel's background is performance marketing, and she is blunt about its limits: leaning on a couple of channels creates a fragile pipeline, and too many teams confuse efficiency with scalability. Just because something is growing doesn't mean it's infinite. If you're only capturing demand and never creating it, it runs out. Her alternative: treat channels as a portfolio. Maintain performance, but balance it with demand creation and growth channels like events, especially as performance costs continue to rise.

To close, Rachel shares what's making her smarter lately: getting back into crocheting, which forces her always-running strategist brain to slow down and focus on exactly where the needle goes next.

In this episode:

• Why events became Rachel's standout growth channel
• The three-part event system: targeted pre-show outreach, a clear booth experience, and a post-event conversion plan
• What a "clear booth" looks like

• Why confusing efficiency with scalability leaves you with a fragile pipeline
• How to balance demand capture with demand creation by managing channels as a portfolio

About the guest: Rachel Poulos is a marketing and advertising leader who has built and led marketing teams across performance, brand, and broader go-to-market strategy, with experience spanning major multi-national brands. She brings a real practitioner's view of the tension marketing leaders at mid-market and enterprise companies face between delivering immediate results and building durable, long-term growth.

🎧 Subscribe to the Advertising Heat Check for more conversations on what's heating up and cooling off in advertising.

In this episode of the Advertising Heat Check, host Matt Behrend sits down with Alex McArthur, a brilliant fractional CMO and former Purple CMO who has helped turn several startups into household names, to break down what's heating up and what's cooling off in advertising.

Heating up: Iconic ads and the storytelling comeback. Alex sees three things gaining ground. First, AI automation is everywhere, but the winners are pairing the right automations with the right human interactions instead of automating everything. Second, storytelling is more important than ever. With so much AI slop in the feed, people want something real, and brands that are still investing in stories that make people feel something are breaking through. Few brands are making that investment, which is exactly why it works. Third, Alex's personal conviction: If you're going to make an ad, make it iconic. Make the ad that defines the category. An iconic ad introduces differentiation through story while giving the brand an aspirational element. And when you have that asset, run it everywhere. Alex still points to YouTube as one of the largest marketplaces with far less competition for the inventory than on TikTok.

Cooling off: Checklist marketing. Teams that do things because the CEO or the board asked why they're not, but do none of it well. The companies that break through do a couple of things exceptionally well and give their teams room to make something different and memorable.

To close, Alex shares what's making him smarter lately: nightly couch sessions with his son, who has caught the entrepreneurial bug. Getting his son's perspective is reshaping how Alex thinks about his own work

In this episode:

• Why performance-led teams stall without multiplying storytelling
• The shift from viral to iconic: Make the ad everyone talks about

• The AI balance: The right automations mixed with the right human interactions
• Checklist marketing, and why doing everything for the board means doing nothing well
• Shrinking market windows: Find what works, lean in, and scale fast

About the guest: Alex McArthur is a fractional CMO for growth-stage brands. As CMO of Purple, he helped turn a mattress startup into the most searched-for mattress brand in the world, powered by some of the most famous viral video advertising ever made, including a Webby Award winner. He has been named a Utah Business CXO of the Year, served on the Google Retail Advisory Council, and led marketing at Kizik, the hands-free shoe company.

🎧 Subscribe to the Advertising Heat Check for more conversations on what's heating up and cooling off in advertising.