The Brave Technologist

Latest Episodes:

Mindsets For Success: How Marketers Can Stand Behind Their Brave Ideas Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

Sierra Reed, Vice President Director of Social Strategy at Digitas, discusses how she's successfully leaned into brave marketing moments and stood up for her values, even in the early days of her career. She also shares how she's helping brands like Macy's and Crocs act boldly through her agency work.

Key Takeaways:

Why marketers should think long term and create memorable brand experiences that last
Social media trends and how consumers are engaging with each of the social media platforms (TikTok, twitter, Facebook and Instagram) in different ways
How brands can work with creators in an empowering way that strengthens the creator economy as a whole

Guest Bio: Sierra Reed has over 10 years of experience in Social, Influencer, and Content Strategy. She was the lead social strategist for brands such as Estee Lauder, MAC Cosmetics, and Chime as they expanded into TikTok and worked with Creators across the globe. As a strategist, she is always looking at how the internet's changing landscape provides new opportunities for people to better connect with brands and one another.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

The Brave Marketer Podcast is hosted by Donny Dvorin, VP, Head of Sales at Brave Software - the makers of the privacy-respecting browser with a built-in ads platform that rewards users for their attention with the Basic Attention Token. Brave is at the forefront of a new online privacy frontier and has unique insights into the future of marketing and advertising in a cookieless world.

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Authentic Team Cultures Build Authentic Brands That Standout Sep 19, 2022

Show notes

Laura Mesa, Vice President of Community and Marketing at Product Hunt, shares how allowing your team to be vulnerable in the workplace, allows your brand to show up authentically too. She also discusses the importance of developing a customer first product strategy and putting in extra effort to personalize based on real needs of your users

In this episode we discuss:

How "Makers" like Notion and Figma got their start on Product Hunt – what made them successful on the platform and how it's great resource for discovering the next big idea
Dating and Job Hunting: how Laura combined both efforts to launch her marketing career, including getting the chance to meet Steve Jobs and launch the iPhone
Testing, learning and using sentiment validation when evaluating products and features
Why standing up for your customer is the bravest thing marketers can do

Guest Bio: Laura Mesa, Vice President of Community and Marketing at Product Hunt, is a mother, wife and a tech marketer with more than 15 years experience in consumer tech brands, including roles at Facebook, Apple, Mozilla, Yahoo, Sequoia Capital and currently, Product Hunt.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Culture is Changing: How Marketers Can Prepare For The Future Now Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

Quynh Mai, Founder & CEO of Qulture shares how culture is changing quickly from Gen Z and what brands need to change in order to be successful on platforms like TikTok, the Metaverse and Twitch. We also talk about making your audience the star of your campaigns with user-generated, collaborative content.

In this episode we discuss:

Working with Kanye West on the "Life of Pablo" International Campaign
Bringing Kylie Jenner's Kylie Cosmetics into the Metaverse
Embracing Decentraland as the new platform for events and community
Why marketers need to respond and reiterate quicker than ever before

Guest Bio:

Quynh Mai who is the Founder & CEO of Qulture, a digital creative agency that helps their clients confidently embrace the near future.

She has worked with global brands like Sephora, Nike, H&M, Google, L'Oreal, Yeezy and Ferrari and directly with tastemakers who have been at the forefront of cultural change including Kanye West, Kylie Jenner, Angelina Jolie, Annie Leibovitz, and Jennifer Aniston.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Favorability Focused Storytelling For Nestlé's Locally Minded Audience Sep 05, 2022

Show notes

Liz Caselli-Mechael, Global Head of Digital & Content for Nestlé, discusses how she's built her career around purpose-driven digital storytelling and engagement. She shares how to focus on favorability rather than driving sales, by integrating important values like sustainability, social responsibility, and climate action into Nestle's brand strategy.

Key Takeaways:

Measuring favourabilty and brand lift with specific target segments
Being willing to fail forward and iterate quickly from audience signals when your messages turn out to be wrong
Getting involved with nonprofits and local communities to use their brand as a force for good
Ways to showcase "who is behind the logo" for Nestle's many consumer facing brands and challenging internal perspectives of the brands

Guest Bio: Liz Caselli-Mechael is the Global Head of Digital & Content for the Nestlé master brand and has built her career around purpose-driven digital storytelling and engagement. Her team leads in-house content and creative development for Nestlé digital channels and campaigns, crafts audience strategies for both consumers and KOLs, uses data and insights to craft and refine reputation messages, and supports local market teams in 50+ countries to develop their own digital capabilities.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Why Your Audience Is Not Your Community Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

Claire Kart, VP Marketing & Community at Mina Foundation, discusses how they're leveraging "just in time marketing" as a go to market strategy for their upcoming SDK launch. Claire also shares Mina's rebrand story and how it actually started with getting sued by a larger player in crypto!

Key takeaways:

What "zero-knowledge proof" means and the practical utility of it
Marketing to ever evolving audiences when building an L1
The role of brand strategy in setting realistic expectations to earn user trust
Differentiating between community and audience – how strategies and tactics for growing each should differ

Guest Bio: Claire Kart is the VP of Marketing and Community at Mina Foundation, the non-profit steward of Mina Protocol. She has been with the project since 2019 as one of the first non-engineering team members and helped to foster adoption and growth through testnet, mainnet, token offering, SDK beta, and is currently gearing up her team for the full SDK launch.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin

How Twitter is Promoting Safety and Gamifying Privacy Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

Maura Tuohy Di Muro, Global Head of Product Marketing at Twitter, discusses how Twitter is promoting safety on their platform and the unique ways they're adding gamification to privacy, including a recently released video game experience they made for their users. We also discuss how Web3 can deliver on its big promises of accessibility and inclusivity and how Twitter thinks about earning trust.

Key takeaways:

Protecting democracy while elevating important voices
Responding to consumer distrust and increasing demands
Making platforms like Twitter safe, accessible and inclusive
Connecting human emotion to your products
How they conceptualized, built, and distributed Twitter Data Dash to help their users understand their privacy policy

Guest Bio:

Maura Tuohy Di Muro is the Head of Product Marketing at Twitter, where her team scales GTM programs for safety, privacy, and information integrity. Prior to Twitter, Maura was a Global Marketing Director at Mozilla, the not-for-profit that makes the Firefox browser. Maura is passionate about the intersection of technology and humanity and lives in San Francisco with her husband and 2 sons.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Introducing Season 5: Featuring Women Marketers Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

Many of the most memorable brand campaigns have been driven by cutting edge marketers who are driving innovation and massive growth for some of the most beloved brands. In Season 5 of The Brave Marketer Podcast, we're getting a fresh perspective and highlighting women marketers who are making an impact in both crypto and mainstream brands.

We'll cover topics like: Web3, cookieless advertising, crypto marketing, privacy and future-proofing your brand. Each week, top marketers will share the strategies and tactics behind their brave marketing moments that led them to where they are today.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

The Brave Marketer Podcast is hosted by Donny Dvorin, VP, Head of Sales at Brave Software - the makers of the privacy-respecting web browser with a built-in ads platform that rewards users for their attention with the Basic Attention Token. Brave is at the forefront of a new online privacy frontier and has unique insights into the future of marketing and advertising in a cookieless world. This podcast will provide a backstage view of how leading marketers are solving the issues facing the advertising industry so that you too can be prepared for what's ahead.

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Understanding Exotic Options and Marketing Tactics for a Mainnet Launch Jun 13, 2022

Show notes

Winston Zhang, Co-founder at Cega, shares how they're preparing for their upcoming mainnet launch. He discusses the marketing strategies they're working on, including an NFT collection, and a major risk they took by differentiating their visual branding. He also educates us on the benefits of exotic options, even in a bear market.

In this episode we discuss:

How to increase mainstream of adoption of your products
Focusing on your customers instead of your competitors
Differentiating through your branding and marketing aesthetics
Why crypto marketers should cut the jargon
Creating FOMO when fundraising and pitching VCs

Guest Bio:

Winston Zhang is the co-founder of Cega that is building the first decentralized exotic options protocol in Web3. He was previously a founder in Y Combinator's Winter 20 batch and before that, a product manager at DoorDash. Fun fact, Winston is Canadian and has a twin brother!

-----------------------------------------

About this Show:

The Brave Marketer podcast is hosted by Donny Dvorin, VP, Head of Sales at Brave Software - the makers of the privacy-respecting browser with a built-in ads platform that rewards users for their attention with the Basic Attention Token. Brave is at the forefront of a new online privacy frontier and has unique insights into the future of marketing and advertising in a cookieless world.

Music by: Ari Dvorin

Experiential Marketing and Making Crypto Events More Memorable Apr 18, 2022

Show notes

Jay Kurahashi-Sofue, VP of Marketing at Ava Labs, discusses how his team disrupted the traditional event experience with their recent Avalanche Summit in Barcelona, along with some of the risks they took that really paid off. He also shares the biggest opportunities for crypto marketers across all stages of the funnel.

In this episode we discuss:

How optimizing for speed and cost impacts blockchain adoption and attracting crypto traders
The challenges crypto marketers face when advertising on social media channels
Upper funnel activations and ways marketers can get more comfortable going horizontal with their channels
how user research can play an important role in meeting users where they are, and creating effective marketing strategies

Guest Bio: Jay Kurahashi-Sofue is the VP of Marketing at Ava Labs, a Web3 organization building Avalanche. Prior to Ava Labs, he was the Head of Marketing at Fluidity and AirSwap and also was a strategist at Ogilvy, where he co-founded its first blockchain marketing group. Jay is also the co-founder of BlockMarketers, a virtual and in-person community for marketing executives in the blockchain industry. Outside of Ava Labs, Jay is a photographer and music producer.

---------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin

How eToro is Making Crypto Trading More Social Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

Brad Michelson, Head of US Marketing team at eToro, discusses the unique social features their platform offers in an effort to reduce intimidation and attract new investors into crypto trading. He also shares his thoughts on the biggest challenges with crypto marketing and the effective strategies they've implemented to overcome them. In this episode we discuss:

What makes the eToro marketplace different from any other crypto trading platform on the market
CryptoBowl: how brands like eToro and Crypto.com took over the Superbowl this year
The clever way eToro used Twitter and its integration with Giphy to increase the performance of their ads
How to leverage online communities like Discord, Telegram, and Signal for crypto marketing

Guest Bio:

Brad Michelson is the Head of US Marketing team at eToro, a global social trading platform with over 27 million global users. He is a digital marketer with over ten years of experience taking finTech and e-commerce brands to market. Previously, Brad worked as the Director of Marketing at BlockFi.

------------------------------------------------

About this Show:

Music by: Ari Dvorin