The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)

#378 | Dave sits down with Ethan Clouser, Head of Marketing at Bland AI, to talk about running marketing at a 22-year-old-founded, enterprise voice AI company that just raised $100 million - at 22 years old himself. Ethan breaks down Bland's early viral bets like the "Still Hiring Humans?" billboard, why they bought Soulja Boy's voice rights for an AI phone campaign, and how a giant red telephone car became one of their best marketing investments. Not to mention, Bland AI's marketing team built its entire website with Claude Code - coded by a guy who'd never written a line of code before. They also get into Bland's daily stand-up and KPI system, why "Voice AI for regulated industries" works as a homepage headline, and how to stand out when 200 competitors are all saying the same thing.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro to Ethan Clouser, Head of Marketing at Bland AI

(02:26) - - The failed no-code startup that accidentally turned Ethan into a marketer

(06:14) - - Cold LinkedIn outreach and how Ethan landed the head of marketing job

(09:09) - - The "Still Hiring Humans?" billboard bet that built Bland's early brand

(13:46) - - Filling the marketing gaps Bland was missing: SEO, AEO, and reputation

(17:56) - - Why "Voice AI for regulated industries" works as a homepage headline

(20:34) - - Vibe-coding Bland's entire website with Claude Code

(23:42) - - Bland's daily marketing stand-up and how KPIs decide which bets get made

(31:29) - - Buying Soulja Boy's voice rights for an AI phone campaign

(40:05) - - Standing out in a market crowded with 200 voice AI competitors

(43:34) - - Why marketing, sales, and product alignment matters more than sales-marketing alignment

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:
Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.

Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.
Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#377 | 80% of B2B brands are completely forgettable - and it's not because their product is weak. Dave sits down with Louis Grenier, founder of Stand The F*ck Out and author of the book by the same name, to unpack a study he ran scoring 100 B2B companies on how distinctive their brands actually are. Louis breaks down the real difference between "distinctive" and "different," why almost no B2B SaaS company has a mascot (and why that's a missed opportunity), what Wiz and Mutiny are doing that most brands aren't, and why sound might be the most underused brand asset in marketing. They also get into how Louis built the entire 100-company study himself using Claude Code and parallel AI agents, and why picking a lane and committing to it beats chasing the "perfect" idea.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - What makes a brand distinctive vs. differentiated

(03:35) - - Why brand distinctiveness matters more in the age of AI

(05:54) - - Inside the study: scoring 100 B2B brands on 8 assets

(07:49) - - Wiz and Mutiny: two brands that stood out

(12:12) - - Why almost no B2B SaaS company has a mascot

(15:39) - - How to get buy-in for a risky brand idea internally

(17:29) - - The research behind how brand memories are actually built

(20:35) - - Linear: picking a lane and going all in

(24:01) - - Why sound is a brand asset most companies ignore

(30:58) - - How Louis built the study using Claude Code and AI agents

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:
Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.

Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.
Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#376 | Eight marketers. Two minutes each. One live bracket to crown the best-performing paid ad play. We brought back the Blitz Exit Five Live session format - this time for the Paid Ads Playoff: a head-to-head paid ads showdown, where marketers pitch their single best ad from 2026 in real time to our live voting audience. The plays cover a lot of ground: scroll-stopping creative for an unfamiliar category, testing TV as a full-funnel channel, measuring out-of-home, a 9-minute LinkedIn video that beat every short clip, incentivized demo offers, ChatGPT ads, fighting Google's AI Overviews in paid search, and the most creative ad creative you've ever seen. Presenters include Alexander Goodwin (Fingerprint), Stefanie Wlotzki (SurveyMonkey), Jake Newby (Lendio), Anthony Blatner (Speedwork), Dylan Wingrove (Pacvue), Kenna  Rooney (EasyLlama), and Shlomo Genchin (Unbored.com), co-hosted by Jess Cook of Vector.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - Welcome to the Paid Ads Playoff format

(05:32) - - Making an unfamiliar B2B category scroll-stopping on paid social

(08:04) - - Testing TV as an always-on demand channel

(10:23) - - Measuring out-of-home ads with control markets

(13:03) - - Why a 9-minute LinkedIn video beat every short clip

(15:48) - - Q&A: targeting, TV attribution, and matching creative to the platform

(25:49) - - Incentivized demos and gift-card offers that convert

(28:32) - - Testing ChatGPT ads and shifting budget out of Google

(32:40) - - Fighting back against Google's AI Overviews in paid search

(34:50) - - The soap opera ad and turning boring software into a story

(48:13) - - Tracking signals and structuring content for a long-form ad

(55:05) - - The analogy framework behind the year's best-performing ad

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:
Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.

Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.
Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#375 | If you can double your ad's click-through rate, you can usually cut your cost-per-click in half. Anthony Blatner, founder of Speedwork, sat down with Matt Carnevale to walk through how he's using AI to run LinkedIn ads at scale for clients right now. The conversation covers connecting Claude Code directly to the LinkedIn Ads API to automate bid management and reporting, building personalized ad campaigns, landing pages, and lead magnets for dozens of segments at once, and using account-based marketing principles to get LinkedIn's algorithm to reward you with lower costs. It also gets into avoiding content that reads as obviously AI-generated, running competitor conquest campaigns, and building target account lists for niches LinkedIn doesn't have a clean filter for.

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:
Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.

Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.
Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#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

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:
Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.

Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.
Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more