The Cybersecurity CMO Making Headlines & Dominating B2B Attention

Summary

Podcast Summary: Marketing Trends

Episode: The Cybersecurity CMO Making Headlines & Dominating B2B Attention
Host: Stephanie Postles
Guest: Don Jeter, CMO of Torque
Date: September 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

This engaging episode features Don Jeter, the unconventional CMO of cybersecurity company Torque. Host Stephanie Postles and Don discuss how Torque has shattered expectations in the staid world of B2B cybersecurity marketing. Instead of focusing on technical features and AI buzzwords, Torque has leaned into bold branding, humor, and entertainment—resulting in viral campaigns, unforgettable conference activations, and a deeply loyal audience. Don shares his playbook for attention-grabbing marketing, world-building, and building emotional connections, and explains why creativity beats “data-driven” caution in today’s noisy B2B environment. The episode is rich with stories about marketing risks, team culture, and the critical importance of brand differentiation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of Cybersecurity Marketing & Why Brand Matters

• Don reflects on the “romanticizing” of data-driven, performance marketing and why it led most of the industry to look and sound the same.

• Quote:

  “The alternative is you look like everybody else. There’s no differentiation. People don’t love your brand. People aren’t connected to your brand emotion and you’re never going to break through.” – Don Jeter [00:27]

• He argues B2B buyers are bombarded and disinterested in technical features; what stands out now is emotional connection.

• Quote:

  “We really are entering this new era of entertainment. You have to not just inform because people don’t really care.” – Don Jeter [00:44]

2. Torque’s Unorthodox Approach: Brand, Humor, and Storytelling

• Don describes his pitch to Torque to go “brand-first”—drawing inspiration from consumer brands like Disney and Marvel’s integrated universes.
• He credits the Torque founders and board for giving him “incredible creative freedom” to implement this vision.
• Rather than a typical rebrand, Torque overhauled its color palettes, tone, and voice to be more arresting and entertaining.
• Quote:

  “We didn’t change the logo… but everything else, color palette, identity was completely overhauled just to be more attention getting.” – Don Jeter [02:56]

3. Standing Out at Conferences & Events

• Don paints a picture of cybersecurity conferences as “endless halls of booths” that look the same.
• Torque’s solution: partnerships with culturally relevant brands (like Monster Jam), and attention-getting stunts—e.g., parking a 12,000 lb monster truck in their booth.
• Quote:

  “Unless something really stands out, no one wakes up the morning of a show and says, I’m looking for new products to go buy right now and I’m going to wander this floor looking for them.” – Don Jeter [04:09]
  “There’s nothing bigger than, you know, I don’t know how big. It’s like 12,000 pound monster truck sitting in your booth. It’s just like, no, you have to stop and look at it.” – Don Jeter [05:17]

4. World-Building & Episodic Content for B2B

• Don advocates for building a “connected universe” of brand touchpoints: trade show activations, recurring social media characters, and interconnected story arcs reminiscent of Marvel or Taylor Swift’s media drops.

• The approach fosters repeat engagement and a sense of community.

• Quote:

  “There’s something now with today’s culture where it’s like brand is about belonging. You need to find ways to create belonging in your brand and inviting people in to follow along and to follow your clues and content.” – Don Jeter [08:48]

• Social media is run like series TV, with recurring characters such as Trevor, the viral “junior media intern.”

5. Trevor the Intern: Humor, Skits, and Emotional Connections

• Don details the origin of the Trevor character: a real intern featured in regular LinkedIn skits that have nothing to do with cybersecurity, but everything to do with brand affinity.
• The strategy: keep people engaged with humor and personality, so Torque holds “mental real estate” when the buyer finally needs a solution.
• Quote:

  “At the same time, it’s entertainment, it’s purely entertainment. And I think there’s something to that mental real estate where, oh, I’m following this guy. I just like it.” – Don Jeter [11:21]
  “…it’s really hard to… create any sort of emotional connection. For Torque, our big bet is like, our brand is going to create real emotional connections with prospects and customers and people will love us and then they’ll find our product right when they need it.” – Don Jeter [12:07]

6. Does Creative Marketing Actually Drive Revenue?

• Don confirms that results are “absolutely” there and that executive patience and alignment are essential.

• He underscores that creative stunts must be matched with a product that truly delivers in proof-of-concept and sales demos.

• Quote:

  “I wouldn’t be able to keep doing this if it wasn’t working. I would be cut off so fast… I would have a very short leash if we weren’t seeing the results from this.” – Don Jeter [13:40]

• Anecdote: At the Black Hat conference, a Fortune 500 CISO mimicked Torque’s “Sock Goblin” character during their talk, proving deep customer resonance.

• Quote:

  “This is a CISO of a Fortune 500 company putting on a sweater to look like one of the characters in our fictitious LinkedIn video.” – Don Jeter [15:23]

7. Experimentation & Measuring Impact

• Discussed the challenge of attribution and the need to align all stakeholders on experimental campaigns.

• Quote:

  "Attribution is brutal... big ideas, you never know what they’re going to do." – Don Jeter [18:42]

• Admits data is useful, but over-relying on “data-driven” mantras inhibits creativity and slows necessary risk-taking.

8. Internal Alignment & Organizational Buy-In

• Don repeatedly emphasizes the need for upfront buy-in from sales, product, and the entire C-suite before running high-risk, non-traditional campaigns.
• Quote:

  “You gotta be. You have to take risks to stand out. And before you do those risks, it’s in your best interest if you’re a marketing leader to go align because now it’s shared accountability.” – Don Jeter [19:38]

9. Why Product Quality is Foundational

• No amount of hype, humor, or creative marketing will help if the product isn’t excellent and trustworthy.
• Quote:

  “…if your product isn’t standing up when you get to POC, or when you’re in a demo, if it’s all theater and then you get behind the curtain and it sucks, it doesn’t work.” – Don Jeter [20:28]

10. Building Consistent Messaging & Memorable Taglines

• Don discusses the value of simple, emotional taglines (“Soar is dead”) based on real customer pain, not technical features.
• Quote:

  “Soar is dead. Oh, everyone will remember that. It’s three words. It’s like, just do it or I’m loving it.” – Don Jeter [23:50]

11. Handling Pushback & Polarization in Marketing

• Not everyone loves Torque’s style—some find it too weird or offbeat, but Don sees even negative reactions as a sign they’re doing something right.
• Quote:

  “If you don’t have failures, you’re probably not trying hard enough... All gas, no brakes is the mentality at Torque.” – Don Jeter [34:30]

• Quote:

  “We have people who hate Torque deeply... We love it because you at least care.” – Don Jeter [30:14]

12. Scaling & Culture: Lean Teams, High Output

• The creative engine at Torque is a small but mighty team(“We did four events my first year at Torque. We did 95 events the second year, and we've done 160 events this year.” [47:33])
• Don credits collaboration between technical product marketers and creative content marketers as the “secret sauce.”

13. Partnerships, Collabs, and Lessons from Consumer Brands

• Unique partnerships—like with Monster Jam—afford Torque “cultural relevance” and stand out amid the noise of F1 partnerships and traditional event tactics.
• Don predicts consumer trends like unexpected collaborations and immersive content will become mainstream in B2B.

14. AI in Content Creation: Brainstorming, Not Replacing Taste

• The Torque team uses AI for brainstorming and early drafts, but insists that true quality content comes from human taste and emotional investment.
• Quote:

  “Taste is a big part of this game... you’re not going to get great out of AI without somebody who has great taste working with it.” – Don Jeter [39:45]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The big ideas, you never know what they're going to do. Right. And the alternative is you look like every one of those other booths in that exhibit hall. You're never going to break through.”
  – Don Jeter [18:42]

• On event stunts:

  “Getting [the monster truck] into the booth, a nightmare.” – Don Jeter [05:46]

• On negative feedback:

  “We've had hate at events, we've had hate online. It means you're doing something right because you're creating a reaction.” – Don Jeter [30:58]

• On AI:

  “The AI slop is relentless… It actually makes good content stand out even more. So I’m inviting everybody to use AI for–don’t hire designers, just use AI.” – Don Jeter [39:23]

• On creative marketing culture:

  “If you don't have failures, you're probably not trying hard enough. Yeah, like, you should go harder.” – Don Jeter [34:25]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:27] – Differentiation and leading with brand in cybersecurity
• [04:09] – Conference tactics: from generic booths to monster trucks
• [07:46] – World-building and Torque’s narrative-driven content
• [10:26] – Origins and success of “Trevor the Intern”
• [13:36] – Do creative marketing and skits actually drive revenue?
• [15:23] – Fortune 500 CISO participates in Torque's brand narrative
• [18:42] – Attribution, data-driven marketing, and necessary risk
• [20:28] – Why product quality is non-negotiable for bold marketing
• [23:50] – Taglines and defining the core narrative ("Soar is dead")
• [30:14] – Handling hate, polarization, and making people care
• [34:30] – Fails and learnings from past marketing stunts
• [47:33] – Scaling marketing output with a lean, creative team
• [39:45] – AI: brainstorms are useful, but human taste is indispensable
• [50:15] – Sacred marketing beliefs we’ll laugh at (like “data-driven marketer”)

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Lightning Round Highlights

• $10 million marketing experiment?
  – “Super Bowl ad—just a personal dream.” [48:27]
• Overhyped concept to retire soon?
  – “Data-driven marketer…” [50:15]
• Memorable recent ad?
  – Don cites a utility truck ad featuring a quirky, offbeat storyline [52:11]

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Podcast Tone & Style

The episode is lively, irreverent, and candid—much like Torque’s marketing ethos. Don’s language is direct, self-deprecating, and filled with humor, underscoring the importance of authenticity, risk, and emotional connection. Stephanie provides the perfect platform, alternating between insightful questions and authentic reactions.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is essential for:

• Marketing leaders frustrated with B2B sameness
• Teams seeking inspiration for bold, brand-first tactics
• Leaders wrestling with measurement, attribution, and team buy-in

Don Jeter’s playbook proves that, even in technical industries, creative risk, humor, and storytelling can drive not just awareness, but real business results—so long as the product delivers and the C-suite is aligned.

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LinkedIn is where you’ll find Torque’s skits and content—including Trevor, Sock Goblin, and more.
As Don says: “Smash the subscribe button!” [56:09]

Transcript

[Don Jeter]

We romanticized data driven performance marketing. The big ideas, you never know what they're going to do.

[Stephanie Postols]

Most of the companies in your space are just talking about AI and features and their product. And you came in hot, telling me about monster trucks, skeletons, some random intern that you have.

[Don Jeter]

It'll be a night of magic and mystery. We told you we're not doing this. Go. We got to go. Come on.

[Stephanie Postols]

What did the marketing look like before? And what was your playbook just to.

[Don Jeter]

Be more attention getting? The alternative is you look like everybody else. There's no differentiation. People don't love your brand. People aren't connected to your brand emotion and you're never going to break through. And then you're really going to have a problem. We really are entering this new era of entertainment. You have to not just inform because people don't really care. Right now. I think it's more important than ever to, like, make an emotional connection with potential customers and customers. We do that with humor.

[Stephanie Postols]

I don't think I follow any other cybersecurity companies. And why I started following it was your intern content. I was like, what are you all doing? Trevor.

[Don Jeter]

Trevor.

[Stephanie Postols]

And I was like, this dude's either crazy or brilliant or both.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, I think Trevor's a real life junior media intern at Torque.

[Stephanie Postols]

Some people listening right now might be like, that's awesome, but does it actually drive, you know, revenue?

[Don Jeter]

Yes, it's working.

[Stephanie Postols]

Hello and welcome back to Marketing Trends. This is your host, Stephanie Postols, CEO and founder of Mission and Relevant. And today I am so excited because we have Don Jeter joining us in studio with me, the CMO of torc. Don.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm very excited, you know, from our first conversation. I mean, you are in a space where I think most of the companies in your space are just talking about AI and features and their product. And you came in hot, telling me about monster trucks, skeletons, some random intern that you have that you're doing content around. And I was like, this dude's either crazy or brilliant or both. And so that's why you're here.

[Don Jeter]

Hopefully somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Torque bet big on brand, and I think it's a different strategy, but we lead with brand and we, you know, coming to Torque from my previous gig, I was very upfront with. I think if we go brand first, it will work. We looked at other industries or I looked at other industries and saw a big emphasis on brand building and world building. And I thought this was like 2021, 20, 22. Like, why hasn't anyone done this yet in cyber? So I got very lucky with a CEO and founder, you know, founding team and board that, like, bought into it and have given me, like, incredible creative freedom to, to do this approach. And, yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

[Stephanie Postols]

So when you came into Torque, what did the marketing look like before and what was your playbook? Did you come in and say, hey, we need a new tagline, we need to have personification. Like, did you kind of build out the same playbook?

[Don Jeter]

It was a complete rebrand. I mean, it was like, completely. You know, we didn't change the logo, we didn't change the, like, typography of the look, like the word mark, because we already had it on a building, I think, at the time. And, like, I thought about, like, the very few times I think about, like, cost analysis and like, what's going on very few times, like, what's this really gonna do? I just knew that that would be a ton of work for me. Like, oh, man, if I'm rebranding everything, including the logo, that means the office has to be redone. Like, that was too big of a lift. But I mean, basically everything, color palette, the, like, identity was completely overhauled just to be more attention getting. Like, that was the goal. Like, I just didn't think we really stood out at all. We looked like I. Even in the first presentation, it's like I pulled up six, seven websites and put ours in there. And it was pretty, you know, it felt like a template. It felt like everybody's website. So we really focused on, you know, changing the, the, the tone, the look, the feel to stand out.

[Stephanie Postols]

I want to talk about conferences and how you're showing up there. So for anyone who does not attend cybersecurity conferences or they don't know what they are, maybe paint a picture of what it's like walking into some of these conferences. And then what if I was there and I saw you? What would you. What would Torque be showing up?

[Don Jeter]

Like, conferences are just this, like, endless exhibit halls of booths. It's like severance, but just booths, you know, and he's like, walking down that hall, like, just booths. And a lot of the booths, like the websites we just mentioned, just feel the same. You look at them and you something, something agentic AI. We really are entering this new era of entertainment. I truly believe, like, you have to not just inform because people don't really care, right? They're walking the floor. Unless something really stands out, no one wakes up the morning of a show and say, I'm looking for new products to go buy right now and I'm going to wander this floor looking for them. You really have to focus on getting attention. And a trade show floor is like, good luck. Right? There's 400, 500 booths, there's 44,000 attendees at RSA. It's hard to stand out. And so you really do have to think about it just on a human level, like, what's gonna, what's gonna separate you from all these other booths? And we think about that really intentionally, with how we approach it, for us, this past year is like, I wanna go get a partnership that's gonna stand out and have some cultural relevance, like make us feel bigger, put us on another scale than everybody else in a similar stage of growth. And so this past year we entered a great partnership. Shout out to Feld Entertainment and our friends at Monster Jam. And it's just been a great, great way to stand out. Like, there's nothing bigger than, you know, I don't know how big. It's like 12,000 pound monster truck sitting in your booth. It's just like, no, you have to stop and look at it. Getting it into the booth, a nightmare.

[Stephanie Postols]

That's good content too.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, it's great content. Like, everybody's like, oh, I saw, I saw Gravedigger. And it like aligns perfectly with, with the Sora's dead and some of the skeleton stuff we've been doing. So it just, it seemed like such a natural fit. And that is one way now not everybody can do a monster truck. But just thinking about ways, right, to stand out in a sea of sameness.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep.

[Don Jeter]

Right. That's like what we spend a lot of time thinking, thinking about, not so much. Hey, how do we make this new feature really land? Right? We have great features and functions and you can't do any of this without a product. But on that floor, no one's stopping to read, you know, all about your features. It just doesn't happen.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, I mean, I love that because I'm sure you already know these numbers, but most B2B buyers aren't in market. I think it's like 90% of them are not currently in market. And so you need to be in their eyes, hearts, minds for a long time before they ever think, oh, I might need something around cybersecurity. Oh, this company, Twerk was literally all around me for the past five years. And I don't know if they have what I need, but they're at least in my Head. And so, like, showing up long before they actually need what you have is so important. And I think most brands aren't doing that.

[Don Jeter]

You need to get that, like mental real estate and there's like cheat codes on how to do that. But some of the stuff, just thinking differently about how you show up in a social feed, how you show up on a booth floor and how you release content, what that content looks like, the kind of world building approach to how some of the consumer brands do it. Like, you need to think more consumer now than ever because you're not just competing with a bunch of B2B brands, you're competing with Netflix and TikTok and every other distraction in today's culture. Right?

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep. So you mentioned world building. How do you think about world building for torque? I mean, you have all these different things going on, but what does it look like, especially when you're starting from scratch, like most people who have probably never built a world, especially within a B2B company, how do you go about thinking about that?

[Don Jeter]

I think for us, it like just started kind of very organically. I didn't like say, like, I'm going.

[Stephanie Postols]

To build, I'm building a world today.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. It's like you just kind of start connecting dots. And I think when you look at, you know, great brands and this is, you know, I'm not a technical marketer, I don't have a big history of marketing or I just looked at like what has made an impact on me, you know, personally on a consumer level. And I try to emulate a lot of that. So if you think about some of the best consumer brands, they do create these incredible worlds and these connected narratives and story arcs. And that's something that I just try to emulate, I think, like Walt Disney, of course, of course, like the literal building a literal world, but all the properties are connected. It's incredibly integrated. Marvel's kind of like the modern version of that, right? The Marvel Universe. I don't watch those, but there's like 18 of these movies or whatever. And then you even think about like Taylor Swift hinting at lyrics or album drops. I think that there's something now with today's culture where it's like brand is about belonging. And I think you need to find ways to create belonging in your brand and inviting people in to follow along and to follow your clues and content. Not just being stopping, oh, here's a white paper, it's done. But connecting pieces referencing those pieces and video referencing those pieces on the trade show floor. There's Something about. It's like, very. It resonates with people if they feel like they're a part of it or, oh, I remember this from last year. Or this story continues. I saw Monster Jam in the booth, and now I'm at a Monster Jam event, and now I'm giving my child a Monster Jam plushie after going to the event. There's like this connectivity between, you know, your brand, the experiences you provide, the education. It's no longer, like, just enough to inform you. I think you have to entertain. And I think by creating these worlds of these connected pieces, whether it's content, social, event. And we try to do it. We try to do it in our unique way. I think social is the easiest way to do it because you can think about social almost like episodic.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

We do a lot with social, where I think a lot of B2B brands are. It's like a product news wire. We think about socials, like entertainment first and how do we kind of build a world within our social feeds and then bring that world elsewhere?

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. So when it comes to your social feeds, I don't think I follow any other cybersecurity companies and almost no other enterprise companies because they don't have good content. Yours is hilarious. And I think why I started following it was your intern content. I was like, what are you all doing? Trevor? Trevor, I'd love for you to talk about the idea around that. Like, where did you come up with this idea? What is it? So the audience can understand this content.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. I think Trevor's a real life junior media intern at Torque. I think we needed a vehicle for content that isn't necessarily, like, cybersecurity content. And I think going back, I don't know where a lot of the ideas come from. I think it's very iterative. I think that there's, like, I'm influenced and our team is influenced by kind of niche Internet content like Connor o' Malley and, like, some really deep, weird, you know, Adult Swim stuff and, like, Tim Robinson stuff. I think you should leave. Like, that stuff has always been very funny to me and a lot of the people on our team. And so a lot of the world building that we do is like, well, what would that look like if we took that to cyber? And what would we do? What would that look like if we had a junior media intern trying to create content about cyber? But he knows nothing about cyber and. And you kind of follow his growth and his career journey and that's part of the world. Right. Like, and People have really enjoyed following this character, and I think it's cool because it has nothing to do with necessarily what we do. We reference a lot of, you know, the autonomous security operations and our product and analysts and all the like, love our product gets and how much our customers love it. But at the same time, it's entertainment, it's purely entertainment. And I think there's something to that mental real estate where, oh, I'm following this guy. I just like it. And right now I think it's more important than ever to make an emotional connection with potential customers and customers. Right. So we do that with humor and I think you just want to create feelings, and I think it's really hard to do that when you're shipping white papers and analyst briefings. We love our analysts, but doing that all the time, you don't break through and create any sort of emotional connection. And for Torque, our big bet is like, our brand is going to create real emotional connections with prospects and customers and people will love us and then they will find our product right when they need it.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, you guys do a very good job with those skits. I mean, I think I saw one where he was trying to get petitions to go to one of the conferences because you guys weren't going to let him go. And, like, you do a good job of tying what he's up to with also twerk and. Yeah, it's.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, it's that story arc. And if you're listening to this and you've never followed our LinkedIn, it's like, what are you all talking about? But, like, we're going to pull it up. Yeah, you wear.

[Stephanie Postols]

We'll pull up some.

[Don Jeter]

I think that there's, I think that there's something to creating more like, episodic content where you're like, following characters and you're creating a storyline and those storylines can be long, the content can be short, but, like, the arc can be long. And I think that that's what we're, I think, really interested in is these long spanning stories where for people who do follow, it's entertaining and it's kind of rewarding because you've been following along. We naturally want stories as humans, and so that's what we're. That's what we're trying to do.

[Stephanie Postols]

So I'm sure some people listening right now might be like, that's awesome. But does it actually drive, you know, revenue for Torque? Like, is it performing? And I don't know if you have any high level, like, ranges, directions that it's like, like things that it's actually driving that you could share.

[Don Jeter]

But yes, it's working.

[Stephanie Postols]

It's working.

[Don Jeter]

You've had your chance. No, I mean, yeah, I wouldn't. Here's what I'll say. I wouldn't be able to keep doing this if it wasn't working. I would be cut off so fast. Right. I think, yeah, I would have a very short leash if we weren't seeing the results from this. And again, I can't do this stuff without an incredible product that delivers with an incredible sales team that goes out and knows this story and knows how to help our customers understand their pain points and understand how our solution addresses those pain points. None of this stuff works. You can have a, you can have Trevor, you can have a van, you can have a Sock Goblin and a big monster truck that doesn't work without this incredible team working with you on it. And it's very collaborative. And I think that's one last thing I'll say on World building is you want to invite prospects and customers in as a brand to collaborate, participate, and explore. And I think one proof point to that was like, at Black Hat, part of Trevor's story arc was he wanted to go to Vegas and do this big performance, this big show, right? And he called all these stages and tried to get a theater to do this Sock du Soleil, right? And we had the Sock Goblin and it was this big performance and it's like an eight foot furry creature that was tagging along and it was a huge costume. But we show up to Black hat where Fortune 500 company Carvana is presenting the CISO. Dina is presenting on stage talking about torque and talking about autonomous security operations and how AI has helped her team tremendously. And she's in this like, yellow sweater that is reminiscent of Sock Goblin. And she says, I'm doing my best Sock Goblin today because we've killed the Sock goblin in our sock. And I think that that is something that's like. That to me is like such a proof point that, like, the stuff we're making is resonating and like creating an emotional connection between the brand and the customer. This is a CISO of a Fortune 500 company putting on a sweater to look like one of the characters in our fictitious, you know, LinkedIn video. Right? So I think that that's, that's something that I think is just very hard to figure out how to do. And there's an alchemy to it, but something that we've bet big on and it's working it's working.

[Stephanie Postols]

How long do you think people should give it to see if it's working? I know. I feel like sometimes CMOs are like, if it doesn't work within a month, if I don't see performance, we're not doing it. Like, they need quick wins. So what do you advise, man? Yeah, marketers on that?

[Don Jeter]

I don't know.

[Stephanie Postols]

You know, like, how long did it take you?

[Don Jeter]

A lot of what I do. A lot of what I do in our team does. Is so experimental and there's no data and there's no modeling or understanding. Has this worked? What's the ROI on this? Or what could it be? Because it's like performative, episodic, LinkedIn TV shows are. No one's really doing that in our space yet. So I think you have to have real alignment with your C staff and your partners. Right. And your sales leader. Like, I'm lucky because my sales leader, you know, shout out CRO, Josh Morris is like, he's down. Like, he's like, I'm all in on this. He's, you know, he's going to monster jam. It's like, it's a. It's a team. And same with our C staff. Like, our CEO and co founders are all like, this is what we signed up for. Because I kind of got that alignment really early.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

Like, in the negotiation of coming to the, you know, accepting the role, you know, I had long conversations, like, a year of conversations with Ofra and the team on this is my playbook. Like, I don't want you all to be surprised when we roll this stuff out. So, like, how long do you give it? I think it's more about aligning with the team on the strategy and not. Because this can look chaotic and unhinged and wild if you don't align that this is all part of it. Like, this. There's a strategy to this. And I think pointing to, like, the Carvana Ciso dressed up as a sock album is proof that, like, hey, we've been doing this and it does resonate now with numbers. It's going to be very hard. I think you, you know, you have to have the pipeline. If the pipeline is not there for any of this stuff, I mean, you better pivot fast because I think the CMO is like 10 years, like, the. The shortest tenure of, like, everybody. Because everybody can point be like, the marketing sucks. Marketing is not working. We don't have pipeline. So, yeah, you got to be, I think, a little bit bold and. But also just get that alignment. So it's like shared accountability. So it's not just the marketing teams doing weird, weird videos and bought a monster truck, you know?

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep. Yeah, no, I actually, I mean, I love that. And I heard someone else talking about this, maybe someone from Superhuman, Harmony Anderson. She came on and she was like, yeah, I'm doing different influencer things, podcast sponsorships, but don't ask me for attribution numbers. Like, just let's see if revenue's growing and don't try and make me like tie everything from everything I'm doing. Like, these need to be experiments and working quickly and not be getting caught in like data analysis paralysis, not able to move anywhere.

[Don Jeter]

It's so hard. Like, attribution is like brutal. And I think we romanticized data driven performance marketing. And not that there isn't relevance to like saying, hey, I'm going to look at data and make some informed decisions. But some of this stuff, like I said, like, you don't. The big ideas, you never know what they're going to do. Right. And the alternative is to be like every one of those other booths in that exhibit hall. Yeah, right. And you're never going to break through and then you're really going to have a problem because you look like everybody else. There's no differentiation. People don't love your brand. People aren't connected to your brand emotion and they're not going to think about your brand if they do have a challenge that they want to solve. So I think it's like big bets, big bold moves, high risk, but a great reward of like, awareness and attention and being discoverable and also like lovable.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep. I also love what you said about getting other C level team members on board from the beginning.

[Don Jeter]

That's everything. Yeah. That can't be stressed enough. Like, it looks fun doing, you know, fun merch and trucks and going out and doing the fun events and it's a ton of work to like one pull that off. And again, like, I'll just credit the team for being down to clown. Like, it's. You gotta be. You got, you have to take risks to stand out. And before you do those risks, it's in your best interest if you're a marketing leader to go align because now it's shared accountability. It's not like, oh, they just spent a bunch of money. We had no idea what they were doing.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

So if it doesn't work, you can be like, hey, we all, we were all in on this big bet. Right.

[Stephanie Postols]

What does it look like? I mean, you've mentioned a Couple times. You have to have a good product to be able to do these kind of things and make it work. What does your partnership look like with product and sales and all the other teams to be working so cohesively together?

[Don Jeter]

Well, I think the first thing is, is you can't be this bold, this confident. And I think out there if your product isn't standing up when you get to poc, right. Or when you're in a demo, if it's all theater and then you get behind the curtain and it sucks, it, it doesn't work right. It's almost like you will never have a shot with that customer or prospect again because you've lost all trust. It's all, it's all marketing. And actually in this industry people hate marketing. I knew the product was really good. I, you know, coming in like you could tell right away, you know, how confident the founders were. What I was reading from analysts, customer testimonials like you look on G2 or Gartner peer insights and you see the, the, the love of the product and how it has solved real challenges and how it's a new approach to a very old problem which is automation which historically legacy soar products have over promised and under delivered. We're doing a great job and our products, you know, standing up and doing, doing a great job. You have to be confident in the product behind you. When you, when you do marketing, like when you go to market with something like our go to market and you need to be, you need to be informed. I think as the marketing leader on how it works, obviously the features function, all that.

[Stephanie Postols]

So I just had on the CMO of Synopsys and she basically said the number one problem with teams within a company is that they don't know how the company is like how they talk about what they do, their branding, their messaging. So similar to what you just said, like coming in and making sure everyone's speaking the same language and talks about torque all in a similar way. Yeah, she was like, that's the biggest issue she's seen with almost every big company. And as they get bigger it gets even harder to make.

[Don Jeter]

Well, as you add products, as you add different like product lines, I think you need again to like create belief that you're doing something bigger. And I think for us it was, we believe that the old way of automating just isn't working. And we've, when we heard that a lot of this has to be anchored to like real customer stories. And I think the thing that we heard over and over is in 2018, we bought this security orchestration automation response platform that promised to automate all this stuff for us. Years later, we are. We're still stuck with, you know, only a few things automated to automate more. We need to hire professional services because this thing is so complex and requires such expertise that we don't have the people we. We've not been able to hire people to, To. To work on it. And so that we just built a story around. It's like, oh, well, the easy way to say. To say that story Soar is dead. This thing sucks. This thing promised all this automation. It never delivered. Here's how we do it differently, right? And I think, I think a lot of times you can skip that phase of like, what's the like, core story? Like, what's the narrative of like the emotional story that a customer would respond to? Not the, like, I don't know. You've read the taglines out there that are like, really long and very feature function or like very technical. Like, Sora's dead. Oh, everyone will remember that. It's three words. It's like, just do it or I'm loving it. Or you look at the big brands like I mentioned and like, they always have these, like, really short, memorable taglines for us is like, sore is dead. Then we built our whole kind of identity around that because it landed. People had this like, visceral reaction to Soar is that it's like, yes, it is dead. I hate that. I hate my sore.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, yeah. So it's talking like a human too, which is, yeah, very different.

[Don Jeter]

And I'm not super, you know, plot twist. I'm not super technical.

[Stephanie Postols]

What?

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, Surprise. So I like, I also had to come up with a story for me and my team that's like, we get a reaction from and we like. And we have some emotional investment in that story and that, that's just really worked for us.

[Stephanie Postols]

So have you gotten any pushback with your marketing for not being technical? Because I've had a. I had another cybersecurity CMO on here and they were trying to tell me that you, if you don't show up in these spaces, very technical and show you know what you're talking about, like Reddit, of course, and other places, you're just gonna be kicked out. Like, have you ever gotten any people like, giving you a hard time?

[Don Jeter]

Because it's not, It's a great question. Like, I think that you're never going to get attention if you start technical. So like my whole thing, my Whole approach is our product is extremely technical. Right. These are like some of the smartest people. These security operation teams are very, very technical. But I need to get the opportunity or the right to tell them about my product. And if I don't get their attention, I'll never get to the product. And so I think it's easy to be like, oh, they just do crazy, absurd, outrageous marketing, and they have a truck and skeletons and that. Cool. We get your attention and then we get you into the demo, and that's very technical. Or we get you into the analyst briefing or analyst report, and it's very technical. We may package that content up or those demos up in a fun way, but the product stands up. And that's kind of what I was saying. It's like if the product is not, you know, really, really effective and we have the technical documentation to also support it, yeah, this stuff would fall down. We'd be laughed out of rooms. But the truth is, is that teams love it. It does solve a problem. And we have all the documentation. And when you go to the website, it's not all skeletons and chainsaws. You can look at it. It's an enterprise level. Like, I know Fortune 500 companies are coming to it, right. Procter and Gamble uses Torque, Uber uses Torque, Chipotle, Carvana. These are big companies that do take it very serious. They take us and take our product very seriously because it does work. And it's very, very. There is a lot of technical documentation to it. I just don't start there, where I think a lot of these cyber companies start with, hey, why we're great. Look at all these technical features and functions. We start with, hey, what's your problem? Let me get your attention in a fun way to highlight that, yeah, you do have a challenge. The challenge is your soar platform. Your. Your challenges in your sock. Right. Um, so we just tell the story. We just start at a different point. I don't start so mid or deep funnel, in my view.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep, yep. Yeah. Way better way to start. Do you think we're in kind of like a. A great time right now for these kind of strategies? Because I. I feel like not a lot of at least B2B companies are doing it, but I could see it getting to a place where soon maybe many of them are, and it's a lot more competitive.

[Don Jeter]

I think they'll have to. Yeah, Like, I think. I think if you don't figure out how to entertain and not just, like, inform, you're going to. You're gonna you're gonna be kind of obsolete. Like, I do think that this is where everything's going. I think you look at our attention span, right? And we, we all feel it. Like everybody's on screens, everybody's, you know, multitasking. So you do have to find a way to cut through short form. Content is like rotting our brains. We know that. And so how do you combat that? When you do have somewhat boring, you do have to figure out a way to get people's attention. And I think that entertainment is the way to do that. Having humor is a way to create a connection. Like I said, that emotional connection, you know, offering opportunities to come see Monster Jam and learn about security, automation, entertainment. Also, like involving like, you know, CISOs don't want another happy hour. Like we've had enough happy hours. And so we're trying to also think about like, how do we create connections where we're creating, you know, moments, right. And experiences and bring your kids, right? So like that's entertainment. It's not about our product. And that's worked for us. And I think you're going to see a lot of, you know, companies realize we got to do something more like this. We've seen, you know, for sure, like people, we've seen shifts in like trends based on, I think some of our work. We look at Wiz, right? Shout out to our friends at Wiz, no arguing, right? Their valuation and what they've built. Incredible, great product, but also very entertaining. Lovable brand that is emotionally connected to their audience. Like they've done a phenomenal job. They're brand first, I would say, and they've done an incredible job. So yeah, I think people are looking at this and saying we gotta do more of this.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. So when you think of brand first, do you think actually putting the brand first or do you try and lead people first like people on your team or the CEO or the cmo? Because I've heard debate over if you're trying to get a brand out there, you really need to be, let's just say.

[Don Jeter]

Oh, like founder, brander.

[Stephanie Postols]

Brand.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. I mean I have a founder over who does not like to be out there too much. Right. And so that wasn't really like a emotion for, for me and rightfully so. Like he's orchestrating the board, he's doing all sorts of stuff. Right. And so some marketers won't have that founder brand available. I think putting people first. Like we, if you follow our feed, like we have Bob and Brit who are like faces of torque. We have you know, our CTO is front and center on a lot of media interviews. I'm, you know, out there.

[Stephanie Postols]

You're famous now after this.

[Don Jeter]

Whether they like it or not, I think that they're like, God dang, don't up there.

[Stephanie Postols]

You don't get us in trouble.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, don't. Elastic scalability. But I think, like, people are a shortcut to, like, human. Right? Like, oh, it sounds obvious. But like, I think having personalities and like, almost like character IP is something that's interesting. Like, Trevor is character ip. Sock Goblin's character ip. For us, we have a character who wears a big hat. I'm not going to name her because I don't want her to feel like she's character ip. The hat is character ip. But, like, those things are just these, like, fun brand extensions that, like, make people like you, I think, or hate you, but either way, I'm good. Because, like, you have a POV on Torque and some people hate us. Like, you actually get hate?

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

Oh, yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

What does it say?

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, no, like, people hate the marketing.

[Stephanie Postols]

Why?

[Don Jeter]

And, well, it's.

[Stephanie Postols]

Which kind of people is it actually? Your possible customers.

[Don Jeter]

We have people who hate Torque deeply. We've had multiple scenarios. I won't even give it light, you know, I won't shine any light on this hate. But we love it because you at least care. Like, and there's hundreds of vendors out there who don't. Nobody cares about. Nobody knows them. And so I think building that is, like, special. And like, what I really like to do is, like, with our team, iterate, make characters, create funny, weird storylines, all tying back to this incredible product and our incredible team.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. I actually think having people not like you is a good sign nowadays because I think about how many companies get one email where you're like, oh, you slightly offended me in this ad that you put out. And they're like, oh, well, sorry. I'm issuing an entire apology to everyone.

[Don Jeter]

In the U.S. yeah, we get. We get. We've had hate at events, we've had hate online. It means you're doing something right because you're creating a reaction. And I think in 2025, like, reactions are good. Right? And creating feelings, good, bad, it's what you need to do to get attention. And again, a lot of what we do is designed to get attention. We don't like hate. We're not like, yes, people hate us, but we're also not afraid of. We know that good marketing is often polarizing and people either love it or hate it.

[Stephanie Postols]

So throughout your Career. Have there been any moments where you've had these big marketing stunts or projects and it didn't work or failure stories around some of these campaigns or ideas you've had?

[Don Jeter]

Man, I don't know about, like, just.

[Stephanie Postols]

Flat out straight fail.

[Don Jeter]

I want fail, man. I gotta think. I wouldn't say fail at all. But, like, at PAX8, and my old PAX8 colleagues will know this, like, we used to dress up as in these flight suits.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay.

[Don Jeter]

And we really. It was like, these were like, like aviator suits, right? And like, we had patches. We were a marketplace, so we had all these different, like, vendor patches, like Microsoft, Symantec, all these different, like, software patches. Cursed. But it did stand out. I would say a fail is one we just like, cringe, probably now for sure. But also, like, I remember one time we got, like, calling out for, like, stolen valor and we're like, we didn't even think of that, you know? And we were certainly not trying to be. You know, it was very obvious. Like, we're a bunch of software dorks in this booth selling this stuff. But I remember getting challenged. Like, oh, good point. We had never thought about that. So that was like something where I was like, oh, man. Like, that's not. And there were so many learnings early on with, like, booth design. Whereas, like, you know, I remember we put a video game on this projector that we made that was like this, like, cloud Wingman Super Mario game. And I remember us being so small, we were like 25 employees at PAX8 and we were like, going to these shows with this, like, really, really janky ass, like, projector screen and display. And we would project like, this, like, video game up on this screen. And people thought we were either a projector company or a video game company. Both valid. Like, both. Like, it does look like that's what we are. And just like, not knowing, like, yeah, yeah, this video games seems cool. Like, collect all the cloud points by buying Symantec or Microsoft or Migrate and get, you know, win. It was just really, really bad. So there were like, several moments, I think early there, I. We haven't had a massive, I would say massive failure, hopefully at Torque yet.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yes.

[Don Jeter]

But there's no way, like, you're doing stuff that you've never done. Like, a lot of times we're doing stuff for the first time, we've never done it.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

Like. Like, I was very nervous trying to get a Monster Jam truck into a venue. Like, I was like, there were the fire marshals coming in. I was like, oh man, are we gonna get shut down? Like, they're doing fire marshal stuff around, like, did we not get a permit? You know, all sorts of things that you're doing for the first time that you don't know if it's gonna work. And I think that's also kind of the, the thrill of it too. And like, you know, the reward, it's like, oh, wow, we pulled it off, you know, Phew, that was close.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep.

[Don Jeter]

You know.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. I mean, if you don't have failures, you're probably not trying hard enough. Yeah, like, you should go harder. I think.

[Don Jeter]

I think. Yeah. That is the all gas, no brakes is like the mentality at Torque. And it's. I think we have a culture of that. Like, they like that we swing big and try new stuff. And again our teams back us up and go out and they sell it and they build incredibly innovative products to help us keep telling new stories. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.

[Stephanie Postols]

And I do think your mini failure at PAX8 around having that booth is actually a great example of like, how do you make sure you're doing cool shit while also tying it in with your brand in a way that makes sense. Totally. Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. Like, oh, I thought this looked cool. And again, like all these things, like, you don't realize how they serve you, you know, at the time. But like being like, oh man, no one knows what we do at all. And you know, it felt like, man, we really gotta think about this stuff. And a lot of the folks from PAX8 are with me at Torque. Like, we created an incredible marketing culture, I think that want to push things. And like we have a designer who was the lead designer. PAX8 came to Torque, Matt Tao. And he does now he's doing this stuff on big screens. Right. That like when we started we were doing, I mean we, we were putting together our own booth at PAX A. Like, literally, you know, I'm not handy. So it's been cool to see just the growth of like. Yeah, learning from like, Oh, a small 5 by 10 booth or 10 by 10 booth to these bigger booths, that's like super rewarding, I think, for creative people.

[Stephanie Postols]

So do you think these strategies could work at bigger companies?

[Don Jeter]

Oh, I mean, I think that there's. I think bigger companies do get brand like really well. Like you look at, I mean, Wiz is from a startup to a big brand crazy valuation acquisition by Google. But like CrowdStrike obviously gets brand really well. Like they've done, you know, a great job of like personifying these threats. And I also think, like, the associations with, like, F1. Right. Like, that's something.

[Stephanie Postols]

Is that cool anymore? I feel like everyone does it.

[Don Jeter]

No, everybody did it. But, like. And that was one of our, like, zigzag things with Monster Jam. Like, Everybody's got an F1 car. We'll do a monster truck.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

But, like, all this stuff could work. You know, I think, like, having a budget the size of a crowdstrike budget, like, they did a Super bowl ad. So I think, yeah, you can take all this stuff and just scale it way up, and I think people are going to start to do it. Like, you see a lot of people play it safe at bigger companies. Again, there's challenges that I don't know about there. Right. Like, there's board members, you know, they're shareholders and all that stuff. So I don't know if it's like, oh, just, you know, get alignment with your CEO and your CFO and the CRO and chief product guy. Go get a monster truck. Like, I think that there's other things that I would have no idea, you know, But I think in theory, building worlds, creating content that's, like, more immersive and, you know, inviting people to participate with it and follow it. And I think that there's always going to be appetite for that. And I think unique partnerships is also like, partnerships as theater is kind of also a space that I think you're going to see a lot more companies make interesting partnerships. And collabs are big in consumer. Right. Where it's like, oh, unexpected collab here and there. Like, I think it's just slow to get to B2B. These trends are, like, just slow to get to us. And I think if you do them in B2B, it's like, oh, whoa. Weird collaboration, but attention getting collaboration. So I think, like, we're just kind of lagging behind consumer, you know, consumer brands.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, I mean, it seems like y' all have obviously been crushing it. Didn't you just also get a shout out from Forbes and tell me more about this and how that happened?

[Don Jeter]

Shout out Tony Bradley for recognizing greatness. Yeah, recognizing great. Tony Bradley has been kind of on the forefront of, like, covering, I think, torque and saw a lot of potential in us early, and we just have a great relationship. And I mentioned to him that we had, you know, got a partnership with Monster Jam and he was super interested and he wrote this incredible piece talking about the brand and just cultural relevance and a new approach to. To B2B marketing that we're driving and also mentioned Wiz and compared us to Wiz, which is like the ultimate for me. And I think our team, like an amazing comparison. Of course, like, we have to execute like we're not at Wiz's, you know, level at all, but we have a lot of work to do. But I think the comparison, or drawing a comparison is very cool. So, yeah, it was a great piece. We'll link it in the comments.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yes, we will. We will link it up. Don's gonna become a producer and help get everything linked up where needed. So with all this content you're creating, we've talked about, you know, your intern, the skits and all the things you guys are doing, socials. How are you using or leveraging AI within this creation or brainstorming process?

[Don Jeter]

We do use it for brainstorming and like getting rough outlines for potential blog ideas or. And I mean, you can dump so much in. It can cut down on the, the, the front end a lot. Now I think we have a very unique visual identity and like, I know a lot of, I mean, the AI slop is relentless.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

And I think a lot of the AI content just sucks. Right. And it actually makes good content stand out even more. And so I'm inviting everybody to use AI for. Don't hire designers. Just. Just use AI. You know, like, that is kind of the, the theme right now. Couldn't you just use AI to do that? And it's like, yeah, you could.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

But I think that the one thing we haven't really touched on is also taste. Like, taste is a big part of this game. And I think, you know, you're not going to get great out of AI without somebody who has great taste working with it. And so I think great for ideation, great for brainstorming, but you still need a human with great taste and great skills to put something out into market that you believe in. Like, I think this, it's like lowered the barrier of entry for content creation. And it's just, it's so bad, right? Like, there's so much bad content out there and it's actually making things noisier now. Because now every. Everybody's like, I'm a designer and I know how to prompt and I'm just going to make this and I don't even need to hit up marketing team. And so for us, it's like ideation efficiencies. Yes, yes, yes. But we're still going to, you know, hand draw that skeleton or do things in a way that we really believe in and we, you know, feel connected to emotionally. Like, I don't put out work that I'm not, that I don't believe in. And so for us, it's like going the extra mile, making sure everything still reaches a standard that we have and AI can't get there yet.

[Stephanie Postols]

I talk to people sometimes where they're like, you still have, let's just say, video editors. There's tools that can just take your podcast and cut a hundred clips. And I'm like, yeah, and they're all shitty. So.

[Don Jeter]

And they are. That's where we're at. Like, we just need to be comfortable saying, like, it's not there yet.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

I'm not saying maybe not ever in a year, two years, three years. We can't, like, load these up with all of our skeletons and be able to, you know, character consistency. I know we'll get there, but right now, like, look at LinkedIn. Look at all the bad AI content. That's where we're at. And so, yeah, we're still going to have great designers and great writers because that's also what's. What differentiates you as a brand.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep. Man, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is so such boring content. I feel like it's a good space.

[Don Jeter]

So it's like, it's so right for just, like, you can win entertaining content. Yeah. And I think that this is a very small window because everyone's gonna catch up and say, hey, we need to make more fun content. And you're gonna get a bunch of TEMU torques out there, like, not, you know, doing their funny version of whatever they think they wanna do. Which would be great because we do need more Entertainment on LinkedIn. Don't do TikTok. Go do LinkedIn. Well, like, I think that that's. It's so right to just do fun content.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. We have a. One of our brand accounts on LinkedIn for IT visionaries. It commented to the CTO of Anthropology the other day and said, let's around and find out. And I was like, who else is talking like that? This is great. We need more of this coming from our brand.

[Don Jeter]

It's all like. I mean, it's like we're all devolving into. Right. Like, I think that there's just LinkedIn in the last, like, two years has changed so dramatically. And I think the. The appetite for fun and entertainment is just there now. Whereas, like, I remember like two, three years ago, it was like, yeah, you can't put that on LinkedIn. I remember getting at PAX A and I remember like, people challenging. We did, like, this Sopranos meme, and someone's like, that's violence. Like, you can't do that. This was, like, six, seven years ago. And I remember being like, oh, my Lord. Like, this is like, this period of time is so wild that, like, you can't do fun stuff.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

But, yeah, it's such an easy way to stand out by just making fun content. And that's also. It's hard. Like, humor and entertainment is hard. But I think we found a great team and have an internal culture that, like, enjoys it, and we're having a good time, so it's working. Yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

That's actually a good brainstorming prompt. Like, what am I not allowed to do on these platforms? Like, what should I not be doing? And then just do that.

[Don Jeter]

I mean. Yeah, well, yeah, because. Yeah. OpenAI. Microsoft. LinkedIn's owned by Microsoft. They probably would.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

You know, like, it'd be interesting to, like, yeah. Do that. Yeah, no doubt.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. I don't do raunchy, like, content. Don't and be.

[Don Jeter]

Like, there are, like. There are, like, lanes that we're like, stay away from. Like, there's like. And I'm always challenging our team to, like, make me say no because, like, if. If I say no, it's too far.

[Stephanie Postols]

Way too far.

[Don Jeter]

Too far. Like, and they have, like, our team has come up with some ideas where you're like, we're not touching that. Like, we're not going to do that.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

And that's where you kind of know, like, okay, there's the line. Like, we're not going to go over. Over that.

[Stephanie Postols]

But if you never hear that, that means your team's not trying hard enough.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, they're doing a great. I mean, I just have the best creative team. It's easy, though, to, like, get caught up into me. Like, it's speed now, right? Like, when something happens culturally, great marketing is responding to that cultural moment fast. And sometimes you can, like, be like, we got to. We got. Like, let's put that out there. But, like, for instance, the Coldplay thing, like, I'm not really. I'm not gonna touch that because it's just sad. Like, it's just like, that's kind of terrible. And, like, lives are destroyed. Like, if it's like, if there's any negativity to something, I try to just, like, say, we're not gonna do that. It's like, that's negative. There's not a fun element. I think part of our brand is fun. So, like, I try to make sure there's, like a fun lens on, not, like, over, like making fun all the time, but just fun. So that's good.

[Stephanie Postols]

So when thinking about these content teams that you have and how you're creating content because you're in a technical space, are you more looking for people who really understand the industry and the lingo and can, you know, talk the talk, or are you looking for people who are just amazing creatives that you can train up when it comes to the cybersecurity space?

[Don Jeter]

Yeah, no, it's a good question. People say, like, how do you build a team, like, to. For the output that you guys do? I think there's like, two separate worlds in content. There's product marketing, content, and then there's content marketing, which I think are. They're connected, but they're different. And for me, I will have product marketers who have great technical depth and they're working with the content marketers now. Sometimes, like, if you get product marketers from big companies, these people haven't made content for years. Like, if you're coming to Torque or if you're coming to a startup and you're a product marketer, you're making content. You gotta be able to write. It's not just, you know, enablement content internally and meeting with the product marketing or the product team to do roadmap stuff. Like, you're in the trenches making content with us. You gotta be able to write. You gotta be able to, you know, whether it's like blogs or white, like, you're. You're writing with us. But for me, how we've organized our team is like, we have technical product marketers. Right now, we just have one. There's been one product true product marketer, shout out to Bob. And then we have one technical marketer that does a lot of the analyst relations and works closely with our CTO and the product team. Bob makes content. Bob's on video alongside Brit, who leads social. For me, I want technical people who can inform the content. And too often I think it's like, oh, product marketing is just doing product roadmap, internal enablement. If you're coming to our team, like, you're. You're in the trenches making stuff with us. And so some of the more technical content will go to Bob. Okay, we need a white paper on, yeah, elastic scalability or whatever. Right, That'll go to Bob. Oh, we need a blog on how security operations teams are burnt out. That'll go to our content marketers who work close with Bob. Why are they Burnt out. You know, what are the leading indicators of burnout? What products, you know, what efficiencies could they gain if they adopted torque agentic AI, Right. Like that type of stuff. So they just. They're a team, but our pro. For me, it's like, I need the people who are technically really, really knowledgeable and can sit with our product folks, but I also need people who are just gonna crank out tons of content for us and great writers.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

So shout out to Michelle.

[Stephanie Postols]

There you go. Shout out to this whole team, the entire squad.

[Don Jeter]

I mean, we're a very lean team, too. It's like, I talk about all this stuff, but, man, what a team behind me to. To be able to pull it all off. And the events. We did four events my first year at Torc. We did 95 events the second year, and we've done 160 events this year. So that type of scale and the sacrifice, I think, that people are making to go to these events on the weekends to go see these monster trucks, to make all this stuff happen is like, I talk about it, but there's just so much work that's being done behind the scenes. So.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. Wow. Amazing.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

So we're gonna now move on to the Lightning round.

[Don Jeter]

Yes. I'm excited for this.

[Stephanie Postols]

Now I'm gonna start doing this more.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. Yeah, it's good.

[Stephanie Postols]

All right. So you already know the Lightning Round, I'm sure. I'm gonna ask you a question, and you have to just quickly. Whatever's top of mind, you gotta answer. Are you ready?

[Don Jeter]

Yes.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay, first question. If I gave you $10 million right now, no strings attached, what kind of big marketing experiment would you.

[Don Jeter]

Super bowl ad.

[Stephanie Postols]

Super bowl ad.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. I'd figure out how much. Like, 8 million.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

Right.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

I don't know if that's. Like, again, I'm not there yet. Like, I don't know if that's for the media buy or, like, just like, if that's. Let's just say I have 10 million. I would do everything. I could do a Super Bowl.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay.

[Don Jeter]

That's just a personal. Like, that's all I want to do. Like, if I. Once I do that, it's like, I'll go do something else.

[Stephanie Postols]

What do you think would be in it? Like, what would the concept be?

[Don Jeter]

I think it would. I have no idea what it. Like, I think our CFO would be like, absolutely not. And I think he did one.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay.

[Don Jeter]

Your own cfo. He, I think, did wix. I think he took WIX public, and I think they Did a Super bowl ad and I think he was the CFO on who approved the super bowl ad. And I think he's just like, that was so dumb, you know, which it probably is dumb.

[Stephanie Postols]

But I do wonder. I mean, the only way I have heard it work well is when we had GoDaddy CMO on and she said they took their content and they cut it up afterwards.

[Don Jeter]

It was also the story arc though, kind of like what we've talked about. Like Walton Goggins. There's this whole narrative leading up to it and you know, is it a real. Is it a real brand? Is it sunglasses? Is he really doing sunglasses? And then it just. I mean, they nailed that timing. Also just cultural relevancy too, of Walton with white lotus and righteous gemstones. And now he's good. Like, it was like brilliant.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

I think it was about their website builder. I have no idea what it was about, but yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yes. It was about their new product coming out. Showing not just domains.

[Don Jeter]

That would be a dream to do. I don't know if mine would be as. But again, that wasn't super straightforward either. Like, that also is a. Is a kind of a proof point of. Of this kind of world building and this kind of misdirection marketers are doing now to keep you interested and to get you to lean in and want to like, learn more about. What is this?

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep. What is one sacred marketing belief that you think we'll be laughing at in a year or two?

[Don Jeter]

Oh man, that is a good one. Like a sacred marketing belief. I mean, I've never said I'm a data driven marketer. Like, like I heard that for years and I was like. And I couldn't ever say it with a straight face. Like, I'm a data driven marketer or like, not me, not a data driven marketer.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. So you think that'd be out?

[Don Jeter]

I think that's just kind of like, okay, like, you know, like, it's kind of like terms changing. I'm a go to market engineer. What does that mean? Like rev ops, you know, like, I kind of think that these trends come in same with like, you know, if I was like Don Jeter, brand first cmo. Brand led marketing. Yeah, Coin that. Brand led marketing. What does that even mean?

[Stephanie Postols]

Oh, that sounds kind of good.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. Brand TM trademark. And that's not now, but that's always been this, like, you gotta be a data driven marketer.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah.

[Don Jeter]

Yes. Use data to make informed decisions. Data driven marketer. Okay. Like, yeah, I'm not. I'm done Pretending that that's something that I'm. That I am. I'm not.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, I like it. What is the last ad that you saw that made you go?

[Don Jeter]

Our ad.

[Stephanie Postols]

You're other than your ad.

[Don Jeter]

You can't say your ad that's coming out.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay, which one?

[Don Jeter]

Tell me about it. I think it's like two weeks, 30 days. Two weeks.

[Stephanie Postols]

Oh, perfect.

[Don Jeter]

We have a new ad coming out. It's incredible. I mean, look, we don't have godaddy budget, but we're trying and I think it's entertaining and it's very connected to the world. So like, there's so many Easter eggs in this thing. So Trevor fans, sock goblin. There's layers here to unpack. And most. Most people. No one will. No one will get it. Except our small team.

[Stephanie Postols]

I might get it.

[Don Jeter]

There's little Easter eggs everywhere. So I think our. Outside of that, like, jokes aside, there was. There was an ad for some like, utility truck thing. I forget the name of the truck, but it showed how it's just incredible ad of how this truck can be used in all these different ways. It's like a. It's almost like a new brand of truck. I forget.

[Stephanie Postols]

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

[Don Jeter]

You guys can like link it. It's like they're showing this like small company using this truck. It's like a taxidermy and they're moving like stuffing people like a human taxidermy service. And they're using this truck to. To move bodies in and out of their taxidermy. And it's just. It's so funny. It's so well done. It's so well written. That that's the latest ad that I'm like, man, that is just so funny.

[Stephanie Postols]

We will definitely have to find that and play that. Okay, imagine that you are on a deserted island. You're allowed to bring one book, one piece of software because your marketing brain just can't turn off. And then three other C level leaders.

[Don Jeter]

Oh, man. Man, I don't want any C level leaders.

[Stephanie Postols]

Well.

[Don Jeter]

I gotta be around Josh on an island.

[Stephanie Postols]

You gotta pick three.

[Don Jeter]

He's gonna take all the food, you know.

[Stephanie Postols]

Well, then don't take Josh. No Josh.

[Don Jeter]

Sea level leaders, man.

[Stephanie Postols]

You can start.

[Don Jeter]

It's a weird island. You gotta bring a computer, a book, and then you gotta bring your friends. Like, man, like, my favorite book is like Shoe dog Phil Knight book. Just cause it's like so many little lessons, like you remember for the rules you break. Like so many little gems in there and just A great Challenger brand story. Like, I love Challenger brands software. Probably something that helped me get off the island.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, that sounds smart.

[Don Jeter]

Like, yeah, like maybe slacker. Or like, zoom.

[Stephanie Postols]

There you go.

[Don Jeter]

Like, I need to make a call.

[Stephanie Postols]

I like it.

[Don Jeter]

I'm stuck on this island with Josh.

[Stephanie Postols]

Who is Josh? Is he on your team?

[Don Jeter]

He's our CRO. Yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

Poor Josh.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. I'm stuck on this island with Josh. He's eating all the food. Way bigger than me. All right, so Josh, he's like my big brother. Yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay. Who else? Do you have two other people?

[Don Jeter]

No. Josh. I would. Because he could probably like. I bet he could hunt, you know, I bet he could maybe man from my team.

[Stephanie Postols]

No, no. Anyone.

[Don Jeter]

Any sea level.

[Stephanie Postols]

Anyone you want. Just pick anyone. You're making this question hard.

[Don Jeter]

Well, I'm thinking about it. So I guess I got Josh on that island.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah. You already picked him, though. You can't.

[Don Jeter]

I probably bring Elon just to figure out how to get us off. Because that weirdo probably could get us off. Like, like off the island, Right. He could, like, build something. Or like his satellites probably could help. But that would. That'd be problematic too. Like there's something there. That wouldn't work either. I don't know. Who would you. Who would you bring?

[Stephanie Postols]

I would probably bring people. Like one person. That's just a good vibe.

[Don Jeter]

You said sea levels, right?

[Stephanie Postols]

Well, pick whoever you want at this point.

[Don Jeter]

Oh, well, definitely my wife and my son.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay, never mind. No, you can't go there. No, you gotta pick sea levels.

[Don Jeter]

Okay. Yeah, see, that's a weird.

[Stephanie Postols]

My grandma.

[Don Jeter]

No, no, Sunny. Steph.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, I think I would pick someone who's a good vibe. I would pick someone who's smart and can help me get off. And I would pick, like a good brainstorming type of person. That's who I. That's kind of. Kinds of people I'd probably go for.

[Don Jeter]

Man. I can't think of the third. If it's just a C level 2.

[Stephanie Postols]

It is.

[Don Jeter]

Then I guess it's just Josh.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yeah, just Josh.

[Don Jeter]

I guess that's how we're living now, right? Like, we need each other right now. It's like, you gotta sell it, Josh.

[Stephanie Postols]

Yep. Yep. All right, well, there's your answer. Woo. That was a long, windy one.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Postols]

Okay, next question. If you weren't in marketing, what would you be doing?

[Don Jeter]

I think I'd probably try to be building some sort of brand. I'd probably be failing as like a one of those, like, creatives in, like, California trying to be like a, like, you know, multifaceted creative director somewhere, you know, starving, probably. I think, like, I'd love to be in consumer. I think, like, somewhere, you know, like. Like a CD at, like, a big brand, probably. That's like. I think Torque is an amazing vehicle to do great creative work, and it happens to work for. For marketing and generating demand. So I think that somewhere in the creative world, I'd be for sure.

[Stephanie Postols]

Don, you were a great guest.

[Don Jeter]

Okay.

[Stephanie Postols]

Thank you for coming on Marketing Trends.

[Don Jeter]

Thank you.

[Stephanie Postols]

Where can people find out more about you and all the crazy marketing stunts you're doing? LinkedIn.

[Don Jeter]

I think it's like, LinkedIn. Good. Marketing is my.

[Stephanie Postols]

There you go.

[Don Jeter]

Yeah. Don Jeter, smash the subscribe button.