Great British Baking Show: B2B Marketing Lessons from the White Tent with VP of Corporate Marketing at Trellix, Sara Aiello

A three-tier showstopper cake may have beautiful pipework and neatly done icing, but if it’s overbaked and dry on the inside, it’s not a good cake.

The same is true for marketing. If it has no message but it’s beautiful, it’s not good marketing. 

Focusing on substance over style is one of the many lessons we’re taking from The Great British Baking Show in this episode.

Together with the help of our special guest, VP of Corporate Marketing at Trellix, Sara Aiello, we talk about being brand classy, going for substance over style, and trusting your gut.

About our guest, Sara Aiello

Sara drives impactful brand and communication initiatives that inspire, inform, and elevate global businesses. At Trellix, she led the brand launch of Trellix from FireEye and McAfee Enterprise. Previously, as Head of Growth & Engagement for Amazon’s large item business, she accelerated business growth and customer engagement. At BlackBerry, as Vice President of Field Marketing, Sara led global marketing and sales enablement teams, enhancing the company’s technology recognition. During her tenure at Cisco, she spearheaded the security customer experience practice, significantly advancing customer adoption. She also led the successful marketing strategy for a billion-dollar service rebrand. As Director of the Executive Briefing Center for Cybersecurity at The Boeing Company, Sara’s expertise in customer experience played a pivotal role in securing critical contracts.

Sara holds a Master of International Business from Seattle University and a Bachelor of Science from Clarkson University.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Great British Baking Show:

• Be brand classy. Create content that has integrity and stands proudly for your brand. Think about making something that’s evergreen instead of trendy or reactive. Sara says, “You can never go wrong with being brand classy. Something that lives on, endures. Sometimes you'll want to take a quick hit at a competitor or something like that, but that's not going to age well. And so always be kind of brand classy in what you do.”
• Go for substance over style. Every so often in The Great British Baking Show, a contestant will create a beautiful confection that doesn’t taste as good as it looks. That’s when Paul Hollywood says, “Style over substance.” In content, you want to make something that has meaning while also being visually attractive. So always think about your message first before focusing on the beauty of it. Sara says, “You have to actually know what you want to say first before you start thinking about how beautiful or whimsical you want it to look.”
• Trust your gut. Tune in to what feels right and rings true to your brand. In The Great British Baking Show, contestants have to navigate the technical challenge often based on their gut alone, having to make a cake based on directions like, “Make a genoise sponge.” You may not always have all the information in marketing either, but Sara says, “Be comfortable with not having all your information.” Trust that your gut will lead you in the right direction.

Quotes

*”One thing we haven't hit on is the storytelling aspect. You really identify and make memories with the bakers and the way that the show tells their backstory. And so you feel really connected. And I think that marketers should remember the power of storytelling. A lot of times, we want to go into stats and figures, but that's really not going to engage our emotional side of our brain, which is what we need to be persuaded.”

*”ROI, marketers love to talk about this. I think it really comes down to setting clear goals. A lot of times, especially when it comes on the brand side as opposed to the demand side of marketing, it isn't super easy to se