Get Off the Treadmill: Make Space for Creativity

This episode features an interview with Alison Lange Engel, CEO of Ceros, a company that provides tools and services that empower companies to create interactive content with unparalleled ease and efficiency, driving customer engagement.

In this episode, Alison discusses the power of interactive content and how to differentiate your brand amidst increasing noise. She and Ian dive into the importance of being unique and how creativity is a competitive advantage. 

Key Takeaways:

• Creativity is a competitive advantage, even more so as copying assets gets easier with AI. CMOs need to get their teams off the treadmill and make space for creativity, inspiration and ideation. 
• The sea of sameness is real, especially in B2B, and the world continues to get noisier. You have to disrupt and have conviction behind your big bets; check box marketing won’t cut it anymore. 
• Originality is as important as ever, but teams have to find ways to do more with less and won’t succeed if they are only trying to differentiate themselves through words, tone, or processes.

Quote: 

•  You're going to miss the opportunity to differentiate and tell a unique story, right, if you have your team on a treadmill constantly. And that's how most people feel. But, as a leader, you've got to create space for it and find inspiration. Encourage your team to bring ideas. We would bring magazine clips in. People would bring in their pets. People brought in old, you know, pictures, family mementos, what matters to them. You've gotta get to the heart and soul of what you're trying to do to kind of unlock your team and have your company, you know, feel fresh, feel modern, and have people take risks, right? Great companies take risks and you have to kind of create that environment to do that. The brands that don't, are in trouble and the brands that do are the ones that win.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(05:50) The Trust Tree: Experiences over static content

*(25:36) The ROI of creativity

*(36:29) Advice for CMOs on creativity and boldness

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Alison on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Ceros
• Learn more about Caspian Studios