October 4, 2023 • 31 mins
Ever wondered how some brands have a knack for creating risky and rebellious content that speaks to the cultural moment? Us too. That’s why in this episode of the Content Rebels, Sarah Spence talks to Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp, Melissa Rosenthal about working in house, and getting those rebellious campaigns over the line.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- What it means to be a creative and work within a brand’s comfort zone
- How to insert creativity even within ROI demands
- Why leaders in creative spaces need to protect employees from too much unnecessary anxiety in the workplace
- The behind the scenes of some of the more rebellious campaigns from ClickUp
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah Spence (00:02):
Creative, clever, rebellious and fast. That's a
marketing brand combo we allwould want to be a part of.
Let's head in house to find outhow one of the world's leading
SaaS companies is turning B2Btech marketing on its head.
Hi, I'm Sarah Spence. I grew aContent Agency from just me to
(00:25):
20 people inside two years. Soyou'd think I had all my shit
together. And even though I tryto come at everything with a
rebellious curiosity, I've beenso focused on growing this thing
that I'm a bit behind in thetrends. Join me on this journey
to find out what's actuallyhappening in the world of
marketing. Welcome to theContent Rebels.
(00:49):
Do you work in-house? Maybe youwork for a big brand or even a
smaller company. Either way,working within a company's
marketing department can havesome seriously good advantages,
like the deep knowledge thatcomes from creating content for
a particular brand, or the flowthat happens when you work with
a great team time and timeagain. But working from the
(01:09):
inside also presents its ownchallenges. We've talked a lot
on this podcast about findingthe space to be truly creative,
whilst dealing with thoseapproval processes, deadlines,
financial strain, whatever comesyour way, really. So let's take
a look at in house creativityfrom someone who's living it
every day. Melissa Rosenthal isthe Chief Creative Officer at
(01:33):
ClickUp.
Melisa Rosenthal (01:33):
How are you? I'm glad we're finally
connecting.
Sarah Spence (01:36):
Me too. Because Melissa isn't just a powerhouse
for ClickUp, she was named inthe Forbes 30 under 30, Business
Insider 30 most creative peopleunder 30 and as one of Digiday's
changemakers. Oh, and beforethat, well, Melissa, also lead
BuzzFeed's global creative team.She's one of the marketers that
(01:58):
got BuzzFeed to where it istoday. I was beyond thrilled to
welcome Melissa to the ContentRebels, and couldn't wait to
hear about her amazing career.
Melisa Rosenthal (02:08):
It's definitely been more of an
unconventional career thansomeone that's taken more of a
linear path through the agencyroute or the in house route.
Sarah Spence (02:19):
I so enjoy the creative wisdom Melissa shared
with me, and I hope you do too.So I started by asking her why
she was even drawn to marketingin the first place.
Melissa Rosenthal (02:30):
Why I was drawn to marketing, very early
growing up, my dad was in eventmarketing. And I used to help
out with a lot of hisexperiential accounts. And just
for fun, on the weekends, Iwould go and help set up and I
would talk to people or handthings out. And I loved the idea
(02:51):
of connecting with people. And Ithink that's fundamentally what
got me really interested inmarketing, to begin with. The
ability to connect with peoplein really interesting and unique
ways and adding that lover ofcreativity to it. So I think it
was in me from a very early agewhen I started doing that. And
(03:12):
then I was able to really takethat and extrapolate on it in
later parts of my life. But Ithink it was definitely those
weekends that definitelyinstilled some sort of very
large interest in marketing inme.
Sarah Spence (03:27):
I love that and I love as well it does all come
back to connection, right? Andconnecting with people. And I
think there's so many buzzwords,and so much fanfare around, in
inverted commas "marketing"these days, but ultimately, it
does all come back to just theart of finding great ways to
connect with other humans. Andso on that point, obviously it
(03:51):
takes a lot of creativity to dothat. You are a creative
officer, what does creativitymean to you?
Melissa Rosenthal (03:57):
Yeah, I think creativity for me is always
looking at challenging thestatus quo. Looking at things
that haven't been done before,thinking about how to connect
with people in new and uniqueand creative ways, and how to
create noise. I think a lot ofthese things are just kind of
(04:20):
ingrained in the way that I viewwhat the blue sky opportunity
is, I sort of look at everythingas like, "Hey, let's not play in
spaces that are saturated, whatis something that we can do that
others aren't doing?" And takingnew bets and new ways of making
that noise? And that's whatcreativity is to me. It's
(04:41):
finding those blue skyopportunities in which you can
stand out, differentiate andstill make that connection in a
very meaningful way and havepeople talk about you. Whether
it's polarising or it's not, Ithink the more that you can get
people talking and the more thatyou can earn that connection is
really true creativity.
Sarah Spence (05:01):
And do you feel like that has changed over time,
though, that the demand or theneed for creativity has changed
in marketing? It used to all bepretty simple, perhaps. And now
to create that noise, as yousay, is it harder?
Melissa Rosenthal (05:18):
Yeah. I think it's different depending on what
type of industry you're in. Ithink you've seen like the ebbs
and flows of probably creativityat its highest peak of the ad
the Mad Men advertising agency,Wieden+Kennedy days of pitching
versus the I would say lesshighbrow ways of coming up with
(05:46):
creative ideas, which makessense because a lot of it has
become democratised. There'smore creative ways to do things,
and just a giant ad campaign,which is probably a little bit
outdated. And I think especiallyin SaaS, the answer is 100%.
It's the biggest blue skyopportunity to do creative
(06:06):
things. I think it's a littleharder, because in SaaS, there's
definitely an expectation to tiecreativity further back to ROI
than in consumer brand, consumergets to have a lot of fun with
the ideas that they come up withknowing that just general
awareness and noise are veryimportant to building brand. And
(06:29):
it's how brands grow versusSaaS, where there are hard
metrics, and all of those haveROI attributed to them. So I
think there is an understanding,I think it's a harder fight on
the SaaS side, for people tounderstand why creativity is so
incredibly important in buildingbrands and how it's not just
(06:51):
product-led growth, it needs togo hand in hand with brand-led
growth as well. But yeah, Idefinitely think that people are
now seeing that need forcreativity, especially with AI.
Because the one thing that AIcan't completely replicate is
human ideas and emotions andconnection and an out of the box
thinking.
Sarah Spence (07:10):
Do you feel like that.... I love that point
around... Or rather, I don'tlove that point around the need
for creativity or the need forany marketing activity, really,
I guess it to be linked back toROI, which, of course, I get
it's so important, but it can bea bit of a creativity killer to
always having to to justify yourideas. How do you navigate that
(07:37):
especially in SaaS land?
Melissa Rosenthal (07:38):
I think there's a definitely bifurcation
of how you should think aboutit. One being, there are certain
creative assets and elementsthat you'll create that can
certainly be tied back to ROI.And I think that's completely
fair. And you build those assetsto be tied, if it's a
performance ad, you can buildthat with the strategy and the
(08:02):
structure and formatting inwhich your performance ad would
perform. Now, I certainly alsobelieve you can insert
creativity into that and make itdifferentiated. But obviously,
there are ways that those adsperform and reasons so you kind
of go along with that.
With other brand campaigns andlarger, I would say noise-making
(08:25):
content generation creation andideas and strategies, some of
those won't be directly tiedback to ROI, at least not at
first. And some of them, thatROI will be anecdotal. So I
think building kind of a layeredstructure of the types of
activities that you want toengage in, where the ROI and
(08:47):
what the ROI will be, whetherit's dollar for dollar, or if
it's tied back to moreanecdotal, conversational ROI, I
think is a good way to justifythat to leadership, it's a good
way to lay out your plan, it's agood way to show people that you
understand the different assets,the different elements that
you're creating, and how thosedo generate ROI, even if it's
(09:09):
not fiscal.
Sarah Spence (09:11):
For sure. Yeah. Because if you've got that solid
base of stuff that isperforming, and you can prove
it's working, then you've got...
Melissa Rosenthal (09:18):
And one extra point there is, I still believe
that even the assets andcreative that you are beholding
to that ROI, you can insertcreativity into those and make
them unique and special, and Idon't want to discount that.
Sarah Spence (09:34):
Creativity has such a mystical thing about it,
doesn't it? Melissa does make agood point though. It makes for
an easier conversation withexecutives and leadership if you
have some solid work that isperforming and then you can
start to tweak it. There's nodoubt that Melissa and her team
at ClickUp have refined theircreative process. Because this
(09:56):
well-oiled machine has beencoming up with what I think are
very rebellious videos. ClickUpis a B2B tech SaaS product,
right? Well, lately though, it'sbeen blowing up in my feed,
because they are using thesevery clever videos to bring the
benefits of their products andservices to life. We'll talk in
(10:18):
depth about one of those videosin a moment. But what I wanted
to know was how on earth Melissagot this type of rebellious
creative work approved? So Iasked her.
Melissa Rosenthal (10:28):
Yeah, I think it's exactly what you said, it's
we had been working and buildingup our both internal studio, our
repository of the content thatwe had created that had
performed, our style, our uniquevoice and brand tone and
personality, something that wehad become known for. And I
think years of doing that, andbuilding up the confidence and
(10:51):
the trust allows you to takemore risks. And the hypothesis
is, we have this manpowerinternally, we have these
amazing creative minds, what wecan do is so differentiated than
any other company out there, weshould start creating these
shorts. And these videos canspeak to things that are outside
(11:14):
of the realm of direct projectmanagement, they can speak to
culture and things that arehappening within work culture,
and within technology like AI.
And peripherally, when you areable to insert yourself in
enough of these conversations,you're going to draw attention
back to the company. So it's amulti layered kind of approach
(11:34):
more like a media company whenyou think about it. It's like,
"Let's create things that havethe potential to go viral within
the workforce, which willeffectively attribute that back
to us, and hopefully garnerinterest in the product." And
also taking smart takes on it.And I think that was the
hypothesis behind it. It's like,"Can we make a video that goes
(11:55):
viral that talks about AI?" I'msure we can. We have the talent
here. Let's try to do that.
Sarah Spence (12:00):
And speaking about that particular one, because it
is my favourite, that's how youcame up with the idea was
basically, pitched to the team,to your team to say, "This is
obviously a big conversationthat's going on this year around
AI, let's start throwing someblue sky ideas around about how
we could create a viral video."
Melissa Rosenthal (12:18):
Yeah, it was everyone is talking about this,
let's insert ourselves in theconversation. Our product was
announcing...ClickUp wasannouncing integration of AI
within the platform in the nextcoming weeks. And we thought we
had a really unique perspectiveon the way that we could tackle
it and make it funny and kind ofjust speak to everything that
everyone was already thinking.And I think when you're able to
(12:40):
do that you form this connectionwith people where it's like,
they get it. And when peoplefeel that way, they also feel
like they can either trust theproduct, or they recommend the
product. So there's a lot thatgoes into that. And there's
several ways of attacking theconversation of AI. And we tried
all of them, and some did betterthan others. But we were able to
(13:03):
really take this full kind ofthrottle approach. And it also
taught us a lot about whatpeople were resonating with and
what they were concerned abouttoo. So there were a lot of
learnings from that series aswell.
Sarah Spence (13:13):
Let's stop for a second. Have you guys seen any
of these videos from ClickUp?They really are doing something
that hasn't been done before. Myfavourite at the moment is this
one where there's a rap battlebetween marketing creatives and
AI, if you haven't heard it yet,here's a little snippet.
Snippet (13:31):
Here comes the marketing king with strategies
so tight, stick my teeth intocampaigns like Edward from
Twilight, SEO, content, socialmedia too, I'll get your message
popping off like pew, pew, pew,pew!
Melissa Rosenthal (13:42):
So we utilise chatGPT in so many different
ways. So yes, in that video,specifically, chatGPT wrote its
own raps and then we augmentedthe voice through another AI
tool so that it was actuallychatGPT effectively rapping back
at us.
Snippet (13:51):
Yo I'm chatGPT-4 the AI sensation, master of words,
sparking conversations, Ianalyze data, trends and stats,
optimizing content, no time torelax.
Melissa Rosenthal (14:12):
We didn't want to think for it and it was
able to do that itself. In someof the other videos, chatGPT
actually wrote the entire scriptand it was a very meta ad. So
there's a lot of great ways thatwe can utilise it.
Snippet (14:24):
The salesteam is here to thicken the plot. It's a
pretty cool gimmick spittingwords without delay but I hustle
and grind.
Sarah Spence (14:30):
And who are the dudes? Are they actually
marketers in your team? Are theyactual rappers because they're
pretty good at it?
Melissa Rosenthal (14:37):
They're just employees. You never know what
you can pull out of people untilthey're asked to star in a video
and all of a sudden they becomehip hop artists.
Snippet (14:48):
Your words are persuasive. I can't help but
agree. The human touch issomething that can't be
replicated by me. And you'reright, there's value in the
human connection but AI enhancesit's not a rejection.
Maybe we can come together toachieve great things, the power
of tech meets the power of humanbeings. Look at us all get so
close and snugly. This will allwork as long as you don't unplug
(15:09):
me. Since you have trouble withthe emotions, let me explain my
smirk, I've had enough with thisbattle, let's all get to work.
Sarah Spence (15:15):
Cool, right? But here's the thing. It's not just
about the creative genius behindthis kind of stuff, although, of
course, you do need that. Butit's also that here's a brand
that has the drive to movequickly to make something that
works and is really meaningfulwithin our current cultural
(15:35):
moment. Even just the approvalprocess that's needed and the
timelines to make it thatquickly, it's something that's
such a struggle for so manymarketing teams. So how do they
do it?
Melissa Rosenthal (15:49):
At that point, we had discussed the
strategy around creatingconversational short form video
content that had been agreedupon and approved. And it was
really, let's experiment. Weknow what we're doing. We have
the trust, let's just create allthe commentary we can on AI. So
no one was individuallyapproving scripts anymore, it
(16:09):
was, "Let's go out the door withsomething that we think we can
make noise with." And we createdabout, I think it was seven
videos across the spectrum oflike the AI content, or maybe
eight or nine. And they gotseveral millions of views, like
incredible anecdotal comments,incredible feedback on them. A
few of them went viral on theirown. So the reception was very
(16:32):
positive.
Sarah Spence (16:33):
I love that. So it was really way back at the
beginning, before even havingthe specific video ideas, you're
getting the overall concept oflet's have the flexibility to be
creative here in short-formvideo. And then you and your
team just got to go and do whatyou wanted.
Melissa Rosenthal (16:49):
Exactly. I think after we pulled off the
Super Bowl ad and the latestconference the trust was there
enough that we could dosomething great.
Sarah Spence (16:59):
Trust is so important, I think especially in
the current economic environmentas well, it's the trust between
the people working inorganisations that really is
going to carry everybodythrough, feel like there's a lot
of panic out there. But ifeveryone bands together and
keeps working strategically,then I think we'll get through
(17:21):
it.
Melissa Rosenthal (17:21):
Yeah, I think there's also the element of
being a buffer and being like acreative leader and a buffer
because, yeah, I mean, thereality is, the market isn't
great right now. We sawvaluations that were peaking
during COVID, come down backdown to reality, and everyone's
dealing with that. But I thinkas a creative leader versus
(17:44):
people that are executing onstrategies, that you kind of
have to keep that separate alittle bit and keep them in a
mindset in which they're focusedon producing their best work.
And you as a leader can havethose conversations and deal
with the stress and the anxietywhere it doesn't trickle down
Because I think the minute youstart to get people in a
(18:06):
headspace where they'reconcerned about the
macroeconomic environment, youstart to lose that creativity.
I've always found that you tryto be transparent as possible,
but at the same time really makesure that they have that space
from what's happening.
Sarah Spence (18:25):
Such a good point. Thank you. That's a good
reminder for me too.
Melissa Rosenthal (18:29):
Yeah, because just one more addition to that
especially at you as a leader,when you're stressed, when
you're panicked, when you'recoming across short or like
deferring to things, they canread through that. And when
you're relying on creativity asthe tool, any sort of anxiety
(18:49):
can creep in and really affectthat. So yeah, I remind myself
that every day.
Sarah Spence (18:54):
I wondered about the videos themselves and how
they fit into the overallmarketing strategy. You talked
before about that they dohave...you kind of see anecdotal
ROI eventually. But do you haveattributions or set up? Do you
know exactly how they'recontributing to the broader
marketing strategy?
Melissa Rosenthal (19:15):
The videos are challenging in certain
capacities. When you're puttingthem on LinkedIn, there's
anecdotal leads that come in viamessages, via comments, via X,
Y, and Z. We do have a, how didyou hear about us on the site?
So there's a way to track that.There is also attribution that
(19:39):
we do in putting it in salessequences, so you can tell
what's opening up, what'sactually generating demos,
what's generating interest,what's getting responses back.
But to tie those back to closeone deal, it's very challenging
to do that.
We've seen peripherally evenbefore some of the performance
ads that we've run on platformslike Hulu, for instance, the
(19:59):
attribution isn't actuallycoming through Hulu, but it's
coming from someone else thatreaches out saying, "Oh, we're
evaluating ClickUp right now,someone I know just saw that ad
on Hulu, can you send it to mefrom YouTube?" And then none
(20:21):
ends up becoming a huge deal.And who actually gets the
attribution from that, right? SoI think the funnel, and the
journey is not as linear as weoften think it is, or try to map
it back to be. And there arethese kind of just, I would
probably say, more so than oftena lot of other things that go
(20:41):
into that journey. It's they sawa billboard, they heard someone
talk about it, they saw that ad,they watch that ad again, they
sent it to their boss, who'sgetting the attribution from
that? So think it's anunderstanding of what the funnel
actually looks like, versus whatpeople think the funnel should
look like.
Sarah Spence (20:58):
Yeah, especially in B2B space. It's so complex as
so many we've talked on thispodcast before about how it's
more of a buying committee, ofcourse, and buyer personas or
individuals. I definitely knowsome marketers who can get
really tunnel vision on thoseattributions and seeing exactly
how the lead has come in, whichchannels have interacted with
(21:21):
that.
Melisa Rosenthal (21:21):
Yeah, and I think the more you can track
that, the better. You have tohave some sort of attribution in
place. But if you only stick tothe things that are 100%
attribution based, you're nevergoing to be able to take the
opportunities that allow you tofind your buyers that are
outside of that.
Sarah Spence (21:39):
Absolutely. And again, it comes back to trying
to make everything link back toa really definitive RO, it can
kill the creativity.
Melissa Rosenthal (21:47):
Yeah, completely.
Sarah Spence (21:48):
Yeah. What about other brands besides ClickUp
that are absolutely smashingthose creative ceilings right
now? Are you drawing inspirationfrom any others out there?
Melissa Rosenthal (21:59):
Our approach I would say, is much more akin
to like a liquid death approachon the B2C side, then
traditional B2B SaaS, althoughthere are a lot of other
companies now that I'm seeingnew work like series A companies
that are definitely challengingthe status quo, they're coming
up with their own contentseries. They're creating their
(22:21):
own streaming hubs full ofdifferent episodic content. So
there are a bunch of companieskind of doing things that I'm
very impressed with. I'm likeoh, I'm rooting for that type
of content creation to continueand be able to challenge it. So
some of the newer folks inseries A, I'm seeing a lot of
understanding that campaigns arecertainly not the only way that
(22:46):
you're going to generatemarketing buzz, and that
campaign should not just be likeyou do one campaign, and then
you expect a windfall of leads,that's just so unrealistic. So
the people that are consistentlyproducing great content, I think
are the ones that are gonna win,I 100% will bet on that.
Sarah Spence (23:02):
For sure. And those kinds of content series
episodic content like that is sobeautifully, hyper personalised
to their audience. I thinkthere's so much noise out there
not always good noise, the morepersonalised you can be, the
more you know who your audienceis, of course, the better.
Melisa Rosenthal (23:20):
Absolutely.
Sarah Spence (23:21):
What advice do you have for our listeners who may
want to try to at least startthe process of convincing their
bosses and leadership team to bemore creative?
Melissa Rosenthal (23:32):
I think I would say have a couple of quick
wins, do small things that canprove in a microcosm that what
you're doing will work. Andthose things can again be
anecdotal, they can be greatresponses, they can be great
comments, they can be your ICPsand a comment saying, "This is
the content I always wanted.Thank you for producing it." I
(23:55):
think it's taking a few bets andseeing what works. I'm all about
like, why don't you spreadyourself not too thin, but run
10 experiments and see whichones work, and then double down
on what's working there and beable to present that data and
that social proof that, "Hey,these are the directions we want
to go in, we're going to take 10bets, here's what I'm gonna do,
this is the budget for these 10bets."
(24:16):
So my recommendation would be tocome to your boss, or your
leader with a strategy of yourhypothesis, say, "These are the
five or 10 experiments thatpotentially will either make
this a winner or a loser and wewill feed and starve this and
then I will come to you with aproposed budget based on what
we're seeing wins or does notwin."
Sarah Spence (24:38):
So get creative about how to ask to be more
creative.
Melissa Rosenthal (24:42):
People will definitely or leaders will
definitely, I would say relateto the fact that things are very
saturated, and there's a lot ofcompetition. And I say this a
lot but the democratisation oftechnologies is so vast that
you can create a product in sixmonths that would have taken
(25:05):
years to create previously. Thethings that are going to be able
to separate you are yourmarketing and your product, but
your product isn't going toleapfrog you the way that it
once did. So to only considerproduct growth versus marketing
in smart ways is short sighted.So that's another approach that
(25:26):
I would take too. It's kind ofjust like the landscape and the
argument of why brands matter.And I think we always go through
these cycles, like 100% gothrough the cycles of brands
matter, brands don't matter.Brand matters, brand doesn't
matter. But brand alwaysmatters, especially if you're
building a company, a long termcompany, a 10, 15-year company,
(25:48):
or even a company that wants tobe acquired. The more brand
recognition you have, the betterthe odds are to reach customers
and also to potentially have anexit.
Sarah Spence (25:58):
How about in the next year? What are your plans?
Where do you feel like yourcreative space is going to be
taking you?
Melissa Rosenthal (26:04):
That's a good question. I think doubling down
on specific strategies that haveserved us well in the past,
everyone is focused onefficiency. So while no
Superbowl ads, I believe therewill be a lot of really great
things that we will be doingaround the release of the 3.0
version of the product. Also ourconference level up, there's a
(26:29):
lot of exciting ways that youcan bring marketing campaigns
and concepts to life like that.So there's a lot on the horizon.
I think even in years ofefficiency, you can force that
efficiency to help you be evenmore creative. So there's a lot
that we can do, and the videosthat we create cost us next to
nothing. We invested enoughearly on, where it's 2 to $500 a
(26:52):
video. So I think most marketerswould be drooling at the fact
that we're creating things thatlook like they cost $20,000 to
create, and they're a couple$100.
Sarah Spence (27:01):
Amazing, and is that because you've got all the
skill sets in house, andeveryone just knows what they're
doing?
Melissa Rosenthal (27:06):
All the skill sets, all the ideas, all the
equipment, we leverage our owntalent, people that work at the
company. We're scrappy when itcomes to what we actually do to
get these videos done, and alsohow quickly we can produce them.
I don't know if there's anyother company that can produce
the quality and the quantity ofvideos we do in a single week,
and come up with the amount ofideas. Obviously don't want to
(27:29):
burn the team out but I thinkit's pretty remarkable. And to
keep them inspired and talkingand commenting on what's
happening is the key.
Sarah Spence (27:37):
Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, then shielding them
from stress to allow thatcreativity. But in saying that,
from your position as well asthe leader, of course, diamonds
are created under extremepressure as well. And I try and
remind myself that creativity,it doesn't always necessarily
(27:58):
feel nice when there is pressureand different pain points going
on, but it's always happening.You've just got to make space
for it.
Melissa Rosenthal (28:07):
Yeah. That's also a good point. I think
pressure also is good becausepressure tests whether something
should be done. And we've beenin situations where the pressure
actually has shown us like, thisis not a good idea. We can't do
this. And we have to put ourfoot down and say no, because we
know that the outcome will riskour necks for it, because we
(28:29):
know that this is a bad idea. SoI do think some pressures is
definitely a good thing. Not toomuch, but just the right amount.
Sarah Spence (28:37):
And then final question that we're asking
everybody, but I think I alreadyknow the answer, chatGPT;
friend, foe or flash in the pan,from your perspective?
Melissa Rosenthal (28:45):
Friend and co-collaborator on a lot of
things. I think there's just somuch that you can do and
utilise. And we're only in thevery beginning. I hope other
people think this way. Because Ithink that people that will
thrive in their own careers andwithin their companies will
adopt it and understand how towork with it. There's just so
much that you can do to beefficient, to save time, to come
(29:09):
up with new ideas. There's a lotof really great chatGPT rappers
out there that are doing hyperspecific things, finding
knowledge that you wouldn't beable to have tapped into
previously. So I would say, findgreat ways to utilise it and
make you the best that you canbe and to elevate you and to
also take away the work that youdon't want to be doing. That is
(29:29):
a waste of time. It does a lotof that as well. So I would
absolutely say friend. I knowthat there's certainly concern
about it, but I think it forcesus to be more creative and when
we can leverage it, I think wecan create great things.
Sarah Spence (29:44):
There you have it. Just a little insight into the
marketing world at ClickUp. It'sso refreshing to hear Melissa
Rosenthal talk about thecreative process and working
alongside brands with such alevel of trust. And just look at
what's possible when you dothat. I love seeing brands doing
rebellious things if you didn'tknow that about me already. Yes,
(30:06):
it might seem risky, but reallyisn't that where the gold
thrives.
I love it so much that I'm goingto shift our focus for season
two of the Content Rebels to allof those rebellious marketing
campaigns. If you love to hearabout the inner workings of
campaigns that are taking risks,and packing punches, then you'll
(30:27):
want to tune in for this. Whichreminds me to stay up to date on
all things Content Rebels, makesure you subscribe so that you
can be the first to know when anew episode drops.
And you can also head to ourbrand new website. If you
haven't heard, our littlebusiness Content Copywriting has
rebranded to be called DrumrollContent Rebels. You can sign up
(30:51):
to be part of the Content Rebelsworld. We'll send you emails
from time to time, but we'vepromised they'll never be
boring.
A heartfelt thanks for going onthis journey with me and my team
through the first series. I hopeyou've enjoyed listening to it
as much as I've enjoyed makingit. And a big thank you to all
the guests who have sogenerously given up their time
to talk to me. We're taking alittle break for now, but we'll
(31:14):
be back for season two beforelong, so can't wait to see then.
Thanks for joining me on thisjourney. If you want to stay
rebellious in how you practicemarketing, how you show up in
your workplace and how you liveyour life, please subscribe to
the Content Rebels wherever youlisten to your podcasts. This
podcast was recorded on Awabakaland Darkinjung country. Produced
(31:38):
by Pod and Pen Productions.
Creative, clever, rebellious and fast. That's a
marketing brand combo we allwould want to be a part of.
Let's head in house to find outhow one of the world's leading
SaaS companies is turning B2Btech marketing on its head.
Hi, I'm Sarah Spence. I grew aContent Agency from just me to
(00:25):
20 people inside two years. Soyou'd think I had all my shit
together. And even though I tryto come at everything with a
rebellious curiosity, I've beenso focused on growing this thing
that I'm a bit behind in thetrends. Join me on this journey
to find out what's actuallyhappening in the world of
marketing. Welcome to theContent Rebels.
(00:49):
Do you work in-house? Maybe youwork for a big brand or even a
smaller company. Either way,working within a company's
marketing department can havesome seriously good advantages,
like the deep knowledge thatcomes from creating content for
a particular brand, or the flowthat happens when you work with
a great team time and timeagain. But working from the
(01:09):
inside also presents its ownchallenges. We've talked a lot
on this podcast about findingthe space to be truly creative,
whilst dealing with thoseapproval processes, deadlines,
financial strain, whatever comesyour way, really. So let's take
a look at in house creativityfrom someone who's living it
every day. Melissa Rosenthal isthe Chief Creative Officer at
(01:33):
ClickUp.
Melisa Rosenthal (01:33):
How are you? I'm glad we're finally
connecting.
Sarah Spence (01:36):
Me too. Because Melissa isn't just a powerhouse
for ClickUp, she was named inthe Forbes 30 under 30, Business
Insider 30 most creative peopleunder 30 and as one of Digiday's
changemakers. Oh, and beforethat, well, Melissa, also lead
BuzzFeed's global creative team.She's one of the marketers that
(01:58):
got BuzzFeed to where it istoday. I was beyond thrilled to
welcome Melissa to the ContentRebels, and couldn't wait to
hear about her amazing career.
Melisa Rosenthal (02:08):
It's definitely been more of an
unconventional career thansomeone that's taken more of a
linear path through the agencyroute or the in house route.
Sarah Spence (02:19):
I so enjoy the creative wisdom Melissa shared
with me, and I hope you do too.So I started by asking her why
she was even drawn to marketingin the first place.
Melissa Rosenthal (02:30):
Why I was drawn to marketing, very early
growing up, my dad was in eventmarketing. And I used to help
out with a lot of hisexperiential accounts. And just
for fun, on the weekends, Iwould go and help set up and I
would talk to people or handthings out. And I loved the idea
(02:51):
of connecting with people. And Ithink that's fundamentally what
got me really interested inmarketing, to begin with. The
ability to connect with peoplein really interesting and unique
ways and adding that lover ofcreativity to it. So I think it
was in me from a very early agewhen I started doing that. And
(03:12):
then I was able to really takethat and extrapolate on it in
later parts of my life. But Ithink it was definitely those
weekends that definitelyinstilled some sort of very
large interest in marketing inme.
Sarah Spence (03:27):
I love that and I love as well it does all come
back to connection, right? Andconnecting with people. And I
think there's so many buzzwords,and so much fanfare around, in
inverted commas "marketing"these days, but ultimately, it
does all come back to just theart of finding great ways to
connect with other humans. Andso on that point, obviously it
(03:51):
takes a lot of creativity to dothat. You are a creative
officer, what does creativitymean to you?
Melissa Rosenthal (03:57):
Yeah, I think creativity for me is always
looking at challenging thestatus quo. Looking at things
that haven't been done before,thinking about how to connect
with people in new and uniqueand creative ways, and how to
create noise. I think a lot ofthese things are just kind of
(04:20):
ingrained in the way that I viewwhat the blue sky opportunity
is, I sort of look at everythingas like, "Hey, let's not play in
spaces that are saturated, whatis something that we can do that
others aren't doing?" And takingnew bets and new ways of making
that noise? And that's whatcreativity is to me. It's
(04:41):
finding those blue skyopportunities in which you can
stand out, differentiate andstill make that connection in a
very meaningful way and havepeople talk about you. Whether
it's polarising or it's not, Ithink the more that you can get
people talking and the more thatyou can earn that connection is
really true creativity.
Sarah Spence (05:01):
And do you feel like that has changed over time,
though, that the demand or theneed for creativity has changed
in marketing? It used to all bepretty simple, perhaps. And now
to create that noise, as yousay, is it harder?
Melissa Rosenthal (05:18):
Yeah. I think it's different depending on what
type of industry you're in. Ithink you've seen like the ebbs
and flows of probably creativityat its highest peak of the ad
the Mad Men advertising agency,Wieden+Kennedy days of pitching
versus the I would say lesshighbrow ways of coming up with
(05:46):
creative ideas, which makessense because a lot of it has
become democratised. There'smore creative ways to do things,
and just a giant ad campaign,which is probably a little bit
outdated. And I think especiallyin SaaS, the answer is 100%.
It's the biggest blue skyopportunity to do creative
(06:06):
things. I think it's a littleharder, because in SaaS, there's
definitely an expectation to tiecreativity further back to ROI
than in consumer brand, consumergets to have a lot of fun with
the ideas that they come up withknowing that just general
awareness and noise are veryimportant to building brand. And
(06:29):
it's how brands grow versusSaaS, where there are hard
metrics, and all of those haveROI attributed to them. So I
think there is an understanding,I think it's a harder fight on
the SaaS side, for people tounderstand why creativity is so
incredibly important in buildingbrands and how it's not just
(06:51):
product-led growth, it needs togo hand in hand with brand-led
growth as well. But yeah, Idefinitely think that people are
now seeing that need forcreativity, especially with AI.
Because the one thing that AIcan't completely replicate is
human ideas and emotions andconnection and an out of the box
thinking.
Sarah Spence (07:10):
Do you feel like that.... I love that point
around... Or rather, I don'tlove that point around the need
for creativity or the need forany marketing activity, really,
I guess it to be linked back toROI, which, of course, I get
it's so important, but it can bea bit of a creativity killer to
always having to to justify yourideas. How do you navigate that
(07:37):
especially in SaaS land?
Melissa Rosenthal (07:38):
I think there's a definitely bifurcation
of how you should think aboutit. One being, there are certain
creative assets and elementsthat you'll create that can
certainly be tied back to ROI.And I think that's completely
fair. And you build those assetsto be tied, if it's a
performance ad, you can buildthat with the strategy and the
(08:02):
structure and formatting inwhich your performance ad would
perform. Now, I certainly alsobelieve you can insert
creativity into that and make itdifferentiated. But obviously,
there are ways that those adsperform and reasons so you kind
of go along with that.
With other brand campaigns andlarger, I would say noise-making
(08:25):
content generation creation andideas and strategies, some of
those won't be directly tiedback to ROI, at least not at
first. And some of them, thatROI will be anecdotal. So I
think building kind of a layeredstructure of the types of
activities that you want toengage in, where the ROI and
(08:47):
what the ROI will be, whetherit's dollar for dollar, or if
it's tied back to moreanecdotal, conversational ROI, I
think is a good way to justifythat to leadership, it's a good
way to lay out your plan, it's agood way to show people that you
understand the different assets,the different elements that
you're creating, and how thosedo generate ROI, even if it's
(09:09):
not fiscal.
Sarah Spence (09:11):
For sure. Yeah. Because if you've got that solid
base of stuff that isperforming, and you can prove
it's working, then you've got...
Melissa Rosenthal (09:18):
And one extra point there is, I still believe
that even the assets andcreative that you are beholding
to that ROI, you can insertcreativity into those and make
them unique and special, and Idon't want to discount that.
Sarah Spence (09:34):
Creativity has such a mystical thing about it,
doesn't it? Melissa does make agood point though. It makes for
an easier conversation withexecutives and leadership if you
have some solid work that isperforming and then you can
start to tweak it. There's nodoubt that Melissa and her team
at ClickUp have refined theircreative process. Because this
(09:56):
well-oiled machine has beencoming up with what I think are
very rebellious videos. ClickUpis a B2B tech SaaS product,
right? Well, lately though, it'sbeen blowing up in my feed,
because they are using thesevery clever videos to bring the
benefits of their products andservices to life. We'll talk in
(10:18):
depth about one of those videosin a moment. But what I wanted
to know was how on earth Melissagot this type of rebellious
creative work approved? So Iasked her.
Melissa Rosenthal (10:28):
Yeah, I think it's exactly what you said, it's
we had been working and buildingup our both internal studio, our
repository of the content thatwe had created that had
performed, our style, our uniquevoice and brand tone and
personality, something that wehad become known for. And I
think years of doing that, andbuilding up the confidence and
(10:51):
the trust allows you to takemore risks. And the hypothesis
is, we have this manpowerinternally, we have these
amazing creative minds, what wecan do is so differentiated than
any other company out there, weshould start creating these
shorts. And these videos canspeak to things that are outside
(11:14):
of the realm of direct projectmanagement, they can speak to
culture and things that arehappening within work culture,
and within technology like AI.
And peripherally, when you areable to insert yourself in
enough of these conversations,you're going to draw attention
back to the company. So it's amulti layered kind of approach
(11:34):
more like a media company whenyou think about it. It's like,
"Let's create things that havethe potential to go viral within
the workforce, which willeffectively attribute that back
to us, and hopefully garnerinterest in the product." And
also taking smart takes on it.And I think that was the
hypothesis behind it. It's like,"Can we make a video that goes
(11:55):
viral that talks about AI?" I'msure we can. We have the talent
here. Let's try to do that.
Sarah Spence (12:00):
And speaking about that particular one, because it
is my favourite, that's how youcame up with the idea was
basically, pitched to the team,to your team to say, "This is
obviously a big conversationthat's going on this year around
AI, let's start throwing someblue sky ideas around about how
we could create a viral video."
Melissa Rosenthal (12:18):
Yeah, it was everyone is talking about this,
let's insert ourselves in theconversation. Our product was
announcing...ClickUp wasannouncing integration of AI
within the platform in the nextcoming weeks. And we thought we
had a really unique perspectiveon the way that we could tackle
it and make it funny and kind ofjust speak to everything that
everyone was already thinking.And I think when you're able to
(12:40):
do that you form this connectionwith people where it's like,
they get it. And when peoplefeel that way, they also feel
like they can either trust theproduct, or they recommend the
product. So there's a lot thatgoes into that. And there's
several ways of attacking theconversation of AI. And we tried
all of them, and some did betterthan others. But we were able to
(13:03):
really take this full kind ofthrottle approach. And it also
taught us a lot about whatpeople were resonating with and
what they were concerned abouttoo. So there were a lot of
learnings from that series aswell.
Sarah Spence (13:13):
Let's stop for a second. Have you guys seen any
of these videos from ClickUp?They really are doing something
that hasn't been done before. Myfavourite at the moment is this
one where there's a rap battlebetween marketing creatives and
AI, if you haven't heard it yet,here's a little snippet.
Snippet (13:31):
Here comes the marketing king with strategies
so tight, stick my teeth intocampaigns like Edward from
Twilight, SEO, content, socialmedia too, I'll get your message
popping off like pew, pew, pew,pew!
Melissa Rosenthal (13:42):
So we utilise chatGPT in so many different
ways. So yes, in that video,specifically, chatGPT wrote its
own raps and then we augmentedthe voice through another AI
tool so that it was actuallychatGPT effectively rapping back
at us.
Snippet (13:51):
Yo I'm chatGPT-4 the AI sensation, master of words,
sparking conversations, Ianalyze data, trends and stats,
optimizing content, no time torelax.
Melissa Rosenthal (14:12):
We didn't want to think for it and it was
able to do that itself. In someof the other videos, chatGPT
actually wrote the entire scriptand it was a very meta ad. So
there's a lot of great ways thatwe can utilise it.
Snippet (14:24):
The salesteam is here to thicken the plot. It's a
pretty cool gimmick spittingwords without delay but I hustle
and grind.
Sarah Spence (14:30):
And who are the dudes? Are they actually
marketers in your team? Are theyactual rappers because they're
pretty good at it?
Melissa Rosenthal (14:37):
They're just employees. You never know what
you can pull out of people untilthey're asked to star in a video
and all of a sudden they becomehip hop artists.
Snippet (14:48):
Your words are persuasive. I can't help but
agree. The human touch issomething that can't be
replicated by me. And you'reright, there's value in the
human connection but AI enhancesit's not a rejection.
Maybe we can come together toachieve great things, the power
of tech meets the power of humanbeings. Look at us all get so
close and snugly. This will allwork as long as you don't unplug
(15:09):
me. Since you have trouble withthe emotions, let me explain my
smirk, I've had enough with thisbattle, let's all get to work.
Sarah Spence (15:15):
Cool, right? But here's the thing. It's not just
about the creative genius behindthis kind of stuff, although, of
course, you do need that. Butit's also that here's a brand
that has the drive to movequickly to make something that
works and is really meaningfulwithin our current cultural
(15:35):
moment. Even just the approvalprocess that's needed and the
timelines to make it thatquickly, it's something that's
such a struggle for so manymarketing teams. So how do they
do it?
Melissa Rosenthal (15:49):
At that point, we had discussed the
strategy around creatingconversational short form video
content that had been agreedupon and approved. And it was
really, let's experiment. Weknow what we're doing. We have
the trust, let's just create allthe commentary we can on AI. So
no one was individuallyapproving scripts anymore, it
(16:09):
was, "Let's go out the door withsomething that we think we can
make noise with." And we createdabout, I think it was seven
videos across the spectrum oflike the AI content, or maybe
eight or nine. And they gotseveral millions of views, like
incredible anecdotal comments,incredible feedback on them. A
few of them went viral on theirown. So the reception was very
(16:32):
positive.
Sarah Spence (16:33):
I love that. So it was really way back at the
beginning, before even havingthe specific video ideas, you're
getting the overall concept oflet's have the flexibility to be
creative here in short-formvideo. And then you and your
team just got to go and do whatyou wanted.
Melissa Rosenthal (16:49):
Exactly. I think after we pulled off the
Super Bowl ad and the latestconference the trust was there
enough that we could dosomething great.
Sarah Spence (16:59):
Trust is so important, I think especially in
the current economic environmentas well, it's the trust between
the people working inorganisations that really is
going to carry everybodythrough, feel like there's a lot
of panic out there. But ifeveryone bands together and
keeps working strategically,then I think we'll get through
(17:21):
it.
Melissa Rosenthal (17:21):
Yeah, I think there's also the element of
being a buffer and being like acreative leader and a buffer
because, yeah, I mean, thereality is, the market isn't
great right now. We sawvaluations that were peaking
during COVID, come down backdown to reality, and everyone's
dealing with that. But I thinkas a creative leader versus
(17:44):
people that are executing onstrategies, that you kind of
have to keep that separate alittle bit and keep them in a
mindset in which they're focusedon producing their best work.
And you as a leader can havethose conversations and deal
with the stress and the anxietywhere it doesn't trickle down
Because I think the minute youstart to get people in a
(18:06):
headspace where they'reconcerned about the
macroeconomic environment, youstart to lose that creativity.
I've always found that you tryto be transparent as possible,
but at the same time really makesure that they have that space
from what's happening.
Sarah Spence (18:25):
Such a good point. Thank you. That's a good
reminder for me too.
Melissa Rosenthal (18:29):
Yeah, because just one more addition to that
especially at you as a leader,when you're stressed, when
you're panicked, when you'recoming across short or like
deferring to things, they canread through that. And when
you're relying on creativity asthe tool, any sort of anxiety
(18:49):
can creep in and really affectthat. So yeah, I remind myself
that every day.
Sarah Spence (18:54):
I wondered about the videos themselves and how
they fit into the overallmarketing strategy. You talked
before about that they dohave...you kind of see anecdotal
ROI eventually. But do you haveattributions or set up? Do you
know exactly how they'recontributing to the broader
marketing strategy?
Melissa Rosenthal (19:15):
The videos are challenging in certain
capacities. When you're puttingthem on LinkedIn, there's
anecdotal leads that come in viamessages, via comments, via X,
Y, and Z. We do have a, how didyou hear about us on the site?
So there's a way to track that.There is also attribution that
(19:39):
we do in putting it in salessequences, so you can tell
what's opening up, what'sactually generating demos,
what's generating interest,what's getting responses back.
But to tie those back to closeone deal, it's very challenging
to do that.
We've seen peripherally evenbefore some of the performance
ads that we've run on platformslike Hulu, for instance, the
(19:59):
attribution isn't actuallycoming through Hulu, but it's
coming from someone else thatreaches out saying, "Oh, we're
evaluating ClickUp right now,someone I know just saw that ad
on Hulu, can you send it to mefrom YouTube?" And then none
(20:21):
ends up becoming a huge deal.And who actually gets the
attribution from that, right? SoI think the funnel, and the
journey is not as linear as weoften think it is, or try to map
it back to be. And there arethese kind of just, I would
probably say, more so than oftena lot of other things that go
(20:41):
into that journey. It's they sawa billboard, they heard someone
talk about it, they saw that ad,they watch that ad again, they
sent it to their boss, who'sgetting the attribution from
that? So think it's anunderstanding of what the funnel
actually looks like, versus whatpeople think the funnel should
look like.
Sarah Spence (20:58):
Yeah, especially in B2B space. It's so complex as
so many we've talked on thispodcast before about how it's
more of a buying committee, ofcourse, and buyer personas or
individuals. I definitely knowsome marketers who can get
really tunnel vision on thoseattributions and seeing exactly
how the lead has come in, whichchannels have interacted with
(21:21):
that.
Melisa Rosenthal (21:21):
Yeah, and I think the more you can track
that, the better. You have tohave some sort of attribution in
place. But if you only stick tothe things that are 100%
attribution based, you're nevergoing to be able to take the
opportunities that allow you tofind your buyers that are
outside of that.
Sarah Spence (21:39):
Absolutely. And again, it comes back to trying
to make everything link back toa really definitive RO, it can
kill the creativity.
Melissa Rosenthal (21:47):
Yeah, completely.
Sarah Spence (21:48):
Yeah. What about other brands besides ClickUp
that are absolutely smashingthose creative ceilings right
now? Are you drawing inspirationfrom any others out there?
Melissa Rosenthal (21:59):
Our approach I would say, is much more akin
to like a liquid death approachon the B2C side, then
traditional B2B SaaS, althoughthere are a lot of other
companies now that I'm seeingnew work like series A companies
that are definitely challengingthe status quo, they're coming
up with their own contentseries. They're creating their
(22:21):
own streaming hubs full ofdifferent episodic content. So
there are a bunch of companieskind of doing things that I'm
very impressed with. I'm likeoh, I'm rooting for that type
of content creation to continueand be able to challenge it. So
some of the newer folks inseries A, I'm seeing a lot of
understanding that campaigns arecertainly not the only way that
(22:46):
you're going to generatemarketing buzz, and that
campaign should not just be likeyou do one campaign, and then
you expect a windfall of leads,that's just so unrealistic. So
the people that are consistentlyproducing great content, I think
are the ones that are gonna win,I 100% will bet on that.
Sarah Spence (23:02):
For sure. And those kinds of content series
episodic content like that is sobeautifully, hyper personalised
to their audience. I thinkthere's so much noise out there
not always good noise, the morepersonalised you can be, the
more you know who your audienceis, of course, the better.
Melisa Rosenthal (23:20):
Absolutely.
Sarah Spence (23:21):
What advice do you have for our listeners who may
want to try to at least startthe process of convincing their
bosses and leadership team to bemore creative?
Melissa Rosenthal (23:32):
I think I would say have a couple of quick
wins, do small things that canprove in a microcosm that what
you're doing will work. Andthose things can again be
anecdotal, they can be greatresponses, they can be great
comments, they can be your ICPsand a comment saying, "This is
the content I always wanted.Thank you for producing it." I
(23:55):
think it's taking a few bets andseeing what works. I'm all about
like, why don't you spreadyourself not too thin, but run
10 experiments and see whichones work, and then double down
on what's working there and beable to present that data and
that social proof that, "Hey,these are the directions we want
to go in, we're going to take 10bets, here's what I'm gonna do,
this is the budget for these 10bets."
(24:16):
So my recommendation would be tocome to your boss, or your
leader with a strategy of yourhypothesis, say, "These are the
five or 10 experiments thatpotentially will either make
this a winner or a loser and wewill feed and starve this and
then I will come to you with aproposed budget based on what
we're seeing wins or does notwin."
Sarah Spence (24:38):
So get creative about how to ask to be more
creative.
Melissa Rosenthal (24:42):
People will definitely or leaders will
definitely, I would say relateto the fact that things are very
saturated, and there's a lot ofcompetition. And I say this a
lot but the democratisation oftechnologies is so vast that
you can create a product in sixmonths that would have taken
(25:05):
years to create previously. Thethings that are going to be able
to separate you are yourmarketing and your product, but
your product isn't going toleapfrog you the way that it
once did. So to only considerproduct growth versus marketing
in smart ways is short sighted.So that's another approach that
(25:26):
I would take too. It's kind ofjust like the landscape and the
argument of why brands matter.And I think we always go through
these cycles, like 100% gothrough the cycles of brands
matter, brands don't matter.Brand matters, brand doesn't
matter. But brand alwaysmatters, especially if you're
building a company, a long termcompany, a 10, 15-year company,
(25:48):
or even a company that wants tobe acquired. The more brand
recognition you have, the betterthe odds are to reach customers
and also to potentially have anexit.
Sarah Spence (25:58):
How about in the next year? What are your plans?
Where do you feel like yourcreative space is going to be
taking you?
Melissa Rosenthal (26:04):
That's a good question. I think doubling down
on specific strategies that haveserved us well in the past,
everyone is focused onefficiency. So while no
Superbowl ads, I believe therewill be a lot of really great
things that we will be doingaround the release of the 3.0
version of the product. Also ourconference level up, there's a
(26:29):
lot of exciting ways that youcan bring marketing campaigns
and concepts to life like that.So there's a lot on the horizon.
I think even in years ofefficiency, you can force that
efficiency to help you be evenmore creative. So there's a lot
that we can do, and the videosthat we create cost us next to
nothing. We invested enoughearly on, where it's 2 to $500 a
(26:52):
video. So I think most marketerswould be drooling at the fact
that we're creating things thatlook like they cost $20,000 to
create, and they're a couple$100.
Sarah Spence (27:01):
Amazing, and is that because you've got all the
skill sets in house, andeveryone just knows what they're
doing?
Melissa Rosenthal (27:06):
All the skill sets, all the ideas, all the
equipment, we leverage our owntalent, people that work at the
company. We're scrappy when itcomes to what we actually do to
get these videos done, and alsohow quickly we can produce them.
I don't know if there's anyother company that can produce
the quality and the quantity ofvideos we do in a single week,
and come up with the amount ofideas. Obviously don't want to
(27:29):
burn the team out but I thinkit's pretty remarkable. And to
keep them inspired and talkingand commenting on what's
happening is the key.
Sarah Spence (27:37):
Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, then shielding them
from stress to allow thatcreativity. But in saying that,
from your position as well asthe leader, of course, diamonds
are created under extremepressure as well. And I try and
remind myself that creativity,it doesn't always necessarily
(27:58):
feel nice when there is pressureand different pain points going
on, but it's always happening.You've just got to make space
for it.
Melissa Rosenthal (28:07):
Yeah. That's also a good point. I think
pressure also is good becausepressure tests whether something
should be done. And we've beenin situations where the pressure
actually has shown us like, thisis not a good idea. We can't do
this. And we have to put ourfoot down and say no, because we
know that the outcome will riskour necks for it, because we
(28:29):
know that this is a bad idea. SoI do think some pressures is
definitely a good thing. Not toomuch, but just the right amount.
Sarah Spence (28:37):
And then final question that we're asking
everybody, but I think I alreadyknow the answer, chatGPT;
friend, foe or flash in the pan,from your perspective?
Melissa Rosenthal (28:45):
Friend and co-collaborator on a lot of
things. I think there's just somuch that you can do and
utilise. And we're only in thevery beginning. I hope other
people think this way. Because Ithink that people that will
thrive in their own careers andwithin their companies will
adopt it and understand how towork with it. There's just so
much that you can do to beefficient, to save time, to come
(29:09):
up with new ideas. There's a lotof really great chatGPT rappers
out there that are doing hyperspecific things, finding
knowledge that you wouldn't beable to have tapped into
previously. So I would say, findgreat ways to utilise it and
make you the best that you canbe and to elevate you and to
also take away the work that youdon't want to be doing. That is
(29:29):
a waste of time. It does a lotof that as well. So I would
absolutely say friend. I knowthat there's certainly concern
about it, but I think it forcesus to be more creative and when
we can leverage it, I think wecan create great things.
Sarah Spence (29:44):
There you have it. Just a little insight into the
marketing world at ClickUp. It'sso refreshing to hear Melissa
Rosenthal talk about thecreative process and working
alongside brands with such alevel of trust. And just look at
what's possible when you dothat. I love seeing brands doing
rebellious things if you didn'tknow that about me already. Yes,
(30:06):
it might seem risky, but reallyisn't that where the gold
thrives.
I love it so much that I'm goingto shift our focus for season
two of the Content Rebels to allof those rebellious marketing
campaigns. If you love to hearabout the inner workings of
campaigns that are taking risks,and packing punches, then you'll
(30:27):
want to tune in for this. Whichreminds me to stay up to date on
all things Content Rebels, makesure you subscribe so that you
can be the first to know when anew episode drops.
And you can also head to ourbrand new website. If you
haven't heard, our littlebusiness Content Copywriting has
rebranded to be called DrumrollContent Rebels. You can sign up
(30:51):
to be part of the Content Rebelsworld. We'll send you emails
from time to time, but we'vepromised they'll never be
boring.
A heartfelt thanks for going onthis journey with me and my team
through the first series. I hopeyou've enjoyed listening to it
as much as I've enjoyed makingit. And a big thank you to all
the guests who have sogenerously given up their time
to talk to me. We're taking alittle break for now, but we'll
(31:14):
be back for season two beforelong, so can't wait to see then.
Thanks for joining me on thisjourney. If you want to stay
rebellious in how you practicemarketing, how you show up in
your workplace and how you liveyour life, please subscribe to
the Content Rebels wherever youlisten to your podcasts. This
podcast was recorded on Awabakaland Darkinjung country. Produced
(31:38):
by Pod and Pen Productions.
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