B2B Marketing Weekly

Brand Craft

Before creator marketing became the thing every B2B brand wanted to talk about, Chris Cunningham was already doing it. As one of the original four behind ClickUp, Chris helped build one of the fastest-growing project management companies in the world by looking outside of B2B for inspiration. Influencers, creators, viral social content, consumer marketing tactics. That approach has helped ClickUp generate more than 2 billion views across social. Will McTighe knows a thing or two about earning attention, too. He’s built a LinkedIn audience of more than 400,000 and helped 600+ B2B founders become influential voices in their industries. Now they’re getting together every week to talk about where B2B marketing goes next. B2B Marketing Weekly breaks down the trends, creators, platforms, campaigns, and ideas getting attention right now, with one question in mind: what should B2B marketers actually do with this? Because copying every viral trend is a terrible strategy. Ignoring what’s happening outside the B2B bubble might be even worse. Chris and Will separate the opportunities from the traps and show how B2B brands can borrow from consumer and creator playbooks without becoming the brand trying way too hard to be cool on the internet. New episodes every week.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago ·  Video

    This Guy Sold His Body for $100K of Ads (And It Worked) + Gamma's Genius AI War

    Marc Lou auctioned off his body as ad space for a HYROX race, and brands paid $100K+ for it. Higgsfield bought 10 placements, Stanley paid $20K for his glutes, and the live bidding war on X turned a stunt into a news cycle. Then Gamma launched Gamma 5 by declaring war on "AI smell," the generic look and feel of AI-made content. Founder Grant Lee's launch post pulled 1.5M impressions, while the company page got about 20K. Plus: Chris found his own face on a Smartlead billboard in NYC, and that leads into when tech billboards actually pay off (hint: only when they go viral on social). Chris Cunningham (one of the original team behind ClickUp, 2B+ social views) and Will McTighe (400K+ on LinkedIn) break down what B2B marketers should actually take from all three. ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 This week on B2B Marketing Weekly 01:05 Welcome to the show 01:23 Marc Lou sold his body for $100K of ads 07:17 Gamma 5 and the war on "AI smell" 13:10 Chris ended up on a Smartlead billboard 18:47 See you next week 🎧 Listen on the go Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b2b-marketing-weekly/id6800004950 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0344NLOgxBouVpu67vF4d9?si=9365b8681d464b97 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk-aDOh6GsU8mlWEWfQtZ5g All episodes: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2634343 🔗 Mentioned in this episode Marc Lou's body ad auction: https://x.com/marclou/status/2097326512169222407 Gamma 5 launch: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gamma-app_introducing-gamma-5-our-biggest-update-ever-activity-7513640172287090688-SRvi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACUblNwBD-BK210CVS7a9x9wr-EWxk6FI98 Grant Lee's launch post: https://lnkd.in/p/eXWjasjw Smartlead billboard campaign: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dd9OZXDSzl4/ 👋 Follow the hosts Chris Cunningham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisclickup Will McTighe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-mctighe New episodes every week. Follow so you don't miss the next one.

  2. Oct 7 ·  Video

    The $10B Lie, the $10 Domain, and A Rare Mistake from Ramp

    Instinct says it spent $0 on marketing. OpenAI’s Dots looks like a Tamagotchi. Ramp put on an actual musical. Different plays, same question: how do you get people to care? You can build a great product or rent a theater in New York, but you still need people talking about it. Instinct had investors posting all over X and people begging for one of three invites. Technically, the founder didn’t spend dollars on marketing. But he gave up equity, and those investors helped get the word out. Will’s take: VC is the new influencer marketing. Chris respects the play, even if that $10 billion valuation feels like a kick in the face after nine years building ClickUp. OpenAI has a different problem. The people who are already AI-pilled will use Dots if it’s useful. Everyone else needs a reason to feel comfortable with it. So after years of telling people AI is going to change everything, the industry is giving it a cute face and a name. We’ve gone from butthole logos to childhood pets. Chris named his agent “Pimp,” so clearly there are no rules here. That same thinking showed up at DevDay: get creators in the room, let them ask Sam Altman tough questions, and give people something to share. Of course, you can also get attention by grabbing your competitor’s domain and sending the traffic to your own product. Elon’s team did it with dot.com and Grok Bot. We hate to say it, but smart play. The harder part is keeping that attention. It’s why we’re not convinced a16z’s Cosign can copy Instinct’s launch strategy and take on LinkedIn. An invite gets someone through the door. The product still has to give them something worth coming back for, and ideally something worth posting about. Which brings us to Ramp. We loved the idea behind Bill Pay the Musical. But you got the actors, rented the theater, put in all that work, and we’re barely seeing clips of it? Where’s the aftermath? This week on B2B Marketing Weekly, we get into what these companies got right, where we think they missed, and why B2B brands need to put as much thought into getting a big idea seen as they put into making it. Subscribe. We’ll tell you when a company does a good job, and we’ll tell you when it doesn’t.

  3. Sep 30 ·  Video

    B2B Broadway Theatre, Butthole Logos and Viral Tweeting

    Ramp made a Broadway musical about paying bills. Meta’s Alexandr Wang is posting about AI logos that look like buttholes. And somewhere in the middle of all this, B2B marketers are supposed to figure out what actually gets attention and drives business. This week, Chris Cunningham and Will McTighe get into Ramp’s Bill Pay: The Musical. It has Billy Porter, Billy Zane, original songs, and an actual playwright. It’s a huge swing for a finance company, but Chris has a question: what happens after the curtain closes? If people remember the celebrities and forget Ramp, was it worth it? They talk about the clips, livestream, and follow-up that could turn one big event into something much bigger. Then, three Patreon leaders leave for OpenAI. Chris and Will try to work out what OpenAI might be building for creators, how creators could make money from it, and why marketers should pay attention when a new place to spend ad dollars opens up. These are possibilities, not announced product features, and they’re just as curious as everyone else. They also get into Alexandr Wang’s very online approach to promoting Meta’s AI product. His posts about suspiciously butthole-shaped AI logos are funny, but they’re doing something useful too: getting people to recognize him, talk about the product, and actually try it. What can B2B founders learn from that without handing their X account to someone who writes like a press release? Finally, they talk Suno, custom jingles, and the temptation to jump on a new ad format before everyone else finds it. The takeaway: test the interesting stuff while it’s still interesting, but ask for proof before believing someone’s screenshot of incredible results.

About

Before creator marketing became the thing every B2B brand wanted to talk about, Chris Cunningham was already doing it. As one of the original four behind ClickUp, Chris helped build one of the fastest-growing project management companies in the world by looking outside of B2B for inspiration. Influencers, creators, viral social content, consumer marketing tactics. That approach has helped ClickUp generate more than 2 billion views across social. Will McTighe knows a thing or two about earning attention, too. He’s built a LinkedIn audience of more than 400,000 and helped 600+ B2B founders become influential voices in their industries. Now they’re getting together every week to talk about where B2B marketing goes next. B2B Marketing Weekly breaks down the trends, creators, platforms, campaigns, and ideas getting attention right now, with one question in mind: what should B2B marketers actually do with this? Because copying every viral trend is a terrible strategy. Ignoring what’s happening outside the B2B bubble might be even worse. Chris and Will separate the opportunities from the traps and show how B2B brands can borrow from consumer and creator playbooks without becoming the brand trying way too hard to be cool on the internet. New episodes every week.