Merriam-Webster named "slop" the 2025 word of the year - and it explains everything about where AI-generated content is heading.

Elizabeth Maxson, CMO of Contentful, reveals the uncomfortable truth about AI adoption: 96% of CMOs say it's a top priority, but only 65% are making meaningful investments. The gap between enthusiasm and execution is costing teams momentum.

She breaks down research conducted with The Atlantic, surveying 425 global marketing leaders. The findings expose why teams are stuck in experimentation mode, what top performers do differently, and why soft skills matter more than prompt engineering.

We explore evidence-based creativity, the rise of the full-stack marketer, and simple personalization strategies that actually move the needle - including the geo-tagging change that increased event attendance by 51% and the Lorem Ipsum homepage trick that drove 250% more engagement.

If you're tired of tools that promise speed but deliver sameness, this episode is your blueprint for moving from workslop to real strategy.

Chapters:

00:00 The Volume Trap: More Content Doesn't Equal Better Content

01:27 The Optimism-Execution Gap: Why CMOs Aren't Investing

10:05 AI Slop: When You Recognize Your Own ChatGPT Output

13:04 The Homepage Login Discovery

15:50 Why Simple Geo-Tagging Works

18:34 The Lorem Ipsum Homepage Experiment

19:29 Ruggable's Cat People vs. Dog People Strategy

28:00 The NASCAR Slide That Almost Went Wrong

31:17 Hiring Full Stack Marketers: Soft Skills Over Hard Skills

43:00 Course Correction Year: Two Pieces of Homework

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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Best practices told you to optimize reputation across all 10,000 locations equally—but granular competitive data just revealed that 7,000 of those stores don't need it, and you're wasting millions on the wrong priorities. The era of broad-based marketing is over.

Michael Walrath (CEO & Founder of Yext) reveals why we're entering a "post-best-practice world" where context trumps everything. From the 10,000 taco restaurant problem (why you're overspending on 7,000 stores that don't need help), to why pay-to-play platforms like Forrester and Gartner face disruption, to how ChatGPT's memory will match insurance agents to customers based on shared interests like golf—without anyone typing a single preference.

You'll learn why software and services are blending (Palantir trades at 105x revenue for this reason), why store managers need localized control instead of centralized brand police, and how AI context windows are fundamentally shifting from generic queries to completely bespoke recommendations. This is the playbook for moving beyond one-size-fits-all tactics into hyper-personalized optimization at scale.

Chapters:

00:00 Is "Content Everywhere" Already Outdated?
01:10 The 10,000 Taco Problem: Why Best Practices Waste Millions
04:07 Will Forrester, Gartner & G2 Survive the AI Era?
07:30 Context is Everything: The Lunch Example That Explains AI's Future 

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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Most websites are bleeding traffic before visitors even see the page… and Google Analytics can't tell you it's happening. Pantheon's data shows that if your site takes longer than 2 seconds to load, users swipe away before your page even renders. The magic number is now under 1 second, and mobile users expect websites to feel identical to opening an app.

Josh Koenig (Co-Founder and SVP of Marketing at Pantheon) reveals what's silently killing growth: the brutal shift in user expectations, how AI crawlers swarm websites like "denial of service attacks" on UFC fight nights, and why companies need to structure content for LLMs as "research assistants." He breaks down the 5 evergreen SEO tactics that still work—question/answer formats, schema markup, Reddit engagement, strong brand voice, and ungating content—plus why chasing AI micro-trends is risky.

From understanding what data Google Analytics can't see to learning why gated content is dying in the LLM era, this is the framework for building websites that survive both human impatience and AI crawler swarms. If you're still optimizing for 5-second load times or seeing unexplained traffic drops despite good rankings, this shows you exactly what's broken.

Chapters:

00:00 - Page Speed's Silent Kill (Bounce Before Load)

02:10 - The Magic Numbers (1 Second Good, 2 Seconds Dead)

04:04 - AI Crawlers Swarming Sites (UFC Fight Night Case)

08:54 - Five Evergreen Rules for the LLM Era

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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What if the marketing channel getting the least resources is actually shaping your entire brand reputation?

Daniella Sampson reveals why B2B teams chase the wrong AI trends while underfunding social media. She breaks down GEO vs SEO, why monitoring 10,000 prompts daily is mostly noise, and how AI agents are forcing brands to evolve from social listening to social intelligence.

She explains her 300-data-point framework, manually analyzing competitors across websites, LinkedIn, Instagram, press releases, and ads to create spider chart visualizations revealing genuine white space opportunities. She details why ChatGPT failed to automate this work, why brand fatigue doesn’t mean consumers are tired of you, and why Coca-Cola has never changed their red.

We explore how to build a properly resourced social team, why B2B brands need to ditch corporate TikTok dances, why LinkedIn + TikTok is the top B2B combo in 2026, and why consistency beats perfection every time.

Chapters:

01:10 - Why GEO Matters More Than You Think

02:36 - GEO vs SEO: Conversations Over Keywords

06:44 - Hidden Brand Mentions You're Missing

09:32 - AI Agents and the Future of Social Intelligence

16:12 - Why AI Still Needs Human Taste

17:25 - The Most Valuable AI Use Cases Right Now

37:49 - The 300 Data Point Framework Explained

46:20 - Building the Right Social Team in 2026

48:16 - Where B2B Brands Go Wrong on Social

49:30 - LinkedIn + TikTok: The B2B Power Combo

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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Every startup hits the same ceiling: your founder customers love you, but they won't get you to $200M. So how do you move upmarket to enterprise without losing the community that built you?

Harmony Anderson, VP of Growth & Marketing at Superhuman, gets into the real mechanics of it:

• The 70/30 resource split between enterprise and community
• Why she's hiring a "startup evangelist" to hold down their founder base
• Why they didn't need a rebrand to start winning enterprise deals
• What she learned studying how Canva pulled off the same shift

Plus, Harmony's vision for where AI-native productivity is actually headed and why the line between your personal and professional tools is about to disappear.

If you enjoyed this clip, be sure to check out the full episode on Marketing Trends: The Secret To Scaling From $20 Million to $200 Million ARR (Extremely Fast) 

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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In January 2026, a CMO at a six billion dollar software company scrapped his entire year's marketing plan only two weeks into the year. AI agents made it obsolete.

Stephanie Postles, CEO of Mission.org, and Lacey Peace, VP of Content, explain in plain English what AI agents are, why they are fundamentally different from the automations marketing teams rely on today, and what this shift means for marketing jobs, team structure, and the skills that will matter most going forward.

If you have confused AI agents with automation or wondered whether your role is safe, this episode gives a direct answer.

Chapters

00:35 - Introduction

01:31 - The CMO Who Scrapped His 2026 Marketing Plan in January

02:30 - What Triggered This, and Why It Happened in Two Weeks

05:12 - What Is an AI Agent? (Plain English Definition)

08:14 - AI Agents vs. Automation: The Key Difference

09:40 - The Mindset Shift Required to Use AI Agents Effectively

13:50 - What Happens to Marketers in Execution Roles

14:20 - How Automation Reshaped Marketing Jobs Before

15:16 - Do Marketers Need to Understand AI Internals

20:28 - Is AI Coming for Marketing Jobs, The Honest Answer

21:54 - What Marketers Should Do Right Now

23:48 - Recap and What Is Coming Next

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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Most brands think viral marketing takes months of planning and massive budgets. Nick Tran engineered it in 72 hours.

In this segment from Marketing Trends, the former Global Head of Marketing at TikTok breaks down the exact reverse-engineered playbook that turned unknown creators like the Ocean Spray skateboarder into overnight viral sensations, and why the traditional 2-3 month campaign timeline is dead.

From understanding why Nick tells marketing leaders to "kill your KPIs" and hire for intuition instead, to learning how he identified viral potential before it happened, this is a masterclass in speed-to-market and cultural relevance.

If your team is still running 90-day campaign cycles while competitors are shipping in weeks, this framework will show you exactly what you're missing, and how to move faster without sacrificing quality.

Chapters:

00:00 - The Reverse-Engineered Playbook

04:32 - Project Cheetah: 72 Hours to Viral

09:15 - Moving Upmarket Without Losing Your Soul

13:48 - Five Things Marketing Leaders Must Unlearn

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

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The marketing teams winning with AI today are not the ones chasing every new model release. They are the ones who found the boring, repetitive tasks their teams hate and automated those first.

Nir Pochter, Co-Founder and CMO at Lightricks, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what AI actually means for creative workflows and why most teams are still using it wrong.

You’ll learn:

- The "algebra problem" of AI adoption

- How to save your design team 80% of their time

- Why the gap between marketers who use AI well and those who don't is widening fast.

- How to use an LLM scoring system to pre-review documents for you

- The dangerous trend of "AI Marketer" job titles

- What’s really in store for the future of video+AI

Key Moments:

00:00 — Why AI Hasn't Improved Creative Output Yet

02:06 — The Algebra Problem: Tools vs. Knowing How to Use Them

07:27 — Nir's Background: AI PhD to Lightricks and FaceTune

09:46 — What Used to Take Weeks Now Takes Minutes

13:35 — Why Automating Everything Failed Miserably

16:38 — Start with What People Hate Doing

20:08 — The LLM Scoring System: Nothing Gets Reviewed Without an 85

21:43 — Train Your LLM to Be Mean, Not Nice

23:32 — Building Custom GPTs with Company Guidelines

26:30 — The Pitfall: Using AI to Please Leadership

28:47 — From Toys to Tools: Why Text-to-Video Isn't Enough

31:05 — Coca-Cola's 70,000 Prompts (Was It Worth It?)

34:41 — AI Won't Replace Creatives, But This Will

37:04 — The Two Critical Skills: Prompting and Curation

37:55 — How AI Multiplies the Skills Gap (7 vs 10 Example)

42:47 — What CMOs Should Be Asking Their Teams

46:20 — Why "AI Marketer" Is LinkedIn Fluff

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The websites that win today are not the ones with the most content. They are the ones that deliver a fast, clean experience in the very first second a visitor arrives.

Josh Koenig, Co-Founder and SVP of Marketing at Pantheon, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what he is seeing across thousands of high-traffic sites and why most teams still miss the basics. He explains how the shift from search to ask is changing online discovery, what AI bots prioritize when they crawl a site, and why the fundamentals of clarity, structure, and speed now matter more than any growth hack.

Josh also shares how teams are using Pantheon’s new Content Publisher to eliminate copy-and-paste workflows, why vibe coding is giving non-technical teams the ability to build richer digital experiences, and what the rise of AI-powered crawlers means for anyone trying to stand out on the modern web.

Key Moments: 

00:00 — The Two-Second Rule: Why Website Speed Kills Conversions

04:30 — The Hidden Growth Killer Most Marketers Miss

08:21 — AI Crawlers Gone Wild: The UFC Fight Night Story

12:22 — Five Evergreen Website Tactics for the LLM Era

16:13 — The Gated Content Dilemma: Lead Gen vs AI Indexing

20:42 — Avoiding Artificial SEO: When Optimization Goes Too Far

23:10 — The Generic Content Trap Poisoning AI Search Results

26:00 — Content Publisher for Google Docs: Eliminating Copy-Paste

31:53 — The CMO-CTO Partnership: Why This Relationship Unlocks Growth

36:05 — Brokering Peace Between Marketing and IT Teams

40:20 — Vibe Coding for Marketers: The Prototype Revolution

44:06 — Next.js Explained: Open Source for Marketing Development

48:17 — From Vibe Code to Production: The Last Mile Problem

51:03 — Data Analysis Without the Wait: LLMs Democratizing Insights

54:20 — The Entrepreneurial Marketer: Why Technical Fluency Is Required

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The most future-ready marketing leaders aren’t the ones chasing trends… they’re the ones who can reinvent themselves every time the industry changes.

Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at Alteryx, joins Marketing Trends to break down the mindset that kept her relevant through every major tech revolution, from Web1 to cloud, SaaS, PLG, and now AI. She explains how to balance curiosity with focus, why AI is really about automating judgment (not just tasks), and how she’s redesigning her marketing org around agents, automation, and new workflows.

Michelle also shares early results from Alteryx’s AI experiments, how she’s rebuilding a 700,000-person community, and why great leaders still start with the end user even as their buyer audiences expand.

Key Moments:  

00:00 – How to Stay Relevant Through Every Tech Shift

03:42 – A Career Spanning Web1, Cloud, SaaS, and AI

06:58 – Curiosity Is the Ultimate Career Advantage

10:12 – When Leaders Should Tinker and When to Delegate

13:28 – Building a Marketing Culture That Experiments

16:41 – Why AI Is About Judgment, Not Just Automation

20:07 – Inside an AI-Powered SDR Outbound Workflow

23:34 – Do AI Agents Replace People or Elevate Them

26:58 – Upskilling Teams in an AI-Driven Organization

30:17 – Why Most AI Content Fails to Break Through

33:36 – How to Stand Out in a Noisy B2B Market

36:52 – Why Enterprise Brands Lose Touch With End Users

39:48 – How Alteryx Built a 700,000-Person Community

43:06 – Turning Community Into Competition and Learning

46:32 – Early AI Wins That Drive Real Pipeline Impact

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The strongest marketing leaders are not the ones with perfect plans. They are the ones who know how to lead through real life.

And few people understand that better than Niki Hall and Dayle Hall.

Niki, former CMO of Five9, and Dayle, CMO of SnapLogic, join Marketing Trends to share how they balance two big careers, raise a family, and approach marketing from completely different angles.

They break down how they support each other through major job shifts, navigate brand versus demand debates, and build teams that can adapt to rapid change. They also explain how AI is reshaping customer experience, what metrics actually matter, and why modern leaders need both operational rigor and creative courage.

Key Moments:

00:00 Meeting the CMO Couple

02:23 How They Met at Cisco

05:08 Early Career Moments That Shaped Them

08:16 When Their Marketing Paths Split

10:11 Growing Up as Marketers Inside Cisco

12:00 Balancing Two Big Careers and a Family

13:40 The Realities of Career Timing and Tradeoffs

15:56 Parenting, Travel, and Real-Life Leadership

18:15 Why Community Matters for Working Parents

20:38 Helping the Next Generation of Leaders

23:20 Marketing in 2026 and the Impact of AI

24:43 Brand vs Demand and How They Debate It

31:17 What They Learned From Each Other’s Strengths

32:00 Org Design and Building a Modern Marketing Team

51:03 Career Pivots, Pressure, and Personal Growth

1:12:54 Lightning Round and Final Takeaways

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Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.