Squid Game: B2B Marketing Lessons on Winning the Survival Game of Campaigns with Chief Marketing Officer at Aviatrix, Scott Leatherman

Survival isn’t just for dystopian dramas. The best B2B marketing strategies demand experimentation, curiosity, and the ability to outlast weaker ideas.

That’s the lesson of Squid Game, the global phenomenon where only the strongest contestants made it through each round. In this episode, we explore its marketing parallels with the help of our special guest Scott Leatherman, Chief Marketing Officer at Aviatrix.

Together, we uncover what B2B marketers can learn from gamifying campaigns to pull audiences in, running multiple “Squid Games” to see which campaigns win, and staying relentlessly curious by listening to what customers really say.

About our guest, Scott Leatherman

Scott Leatherman is an award-winning full-stack marketing and operations executive with 25+ years of leadership and business management experience. Scott is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Aviatrix. Prior to joining Aviatrix, he was the CMO at Veritone, an AI platform company. Scott served as COO at SAP Labs US for 5 years. Scott was a Global Vice President of Marketing and was a founding member of the SAP HANA go-to-market team that disrupted the database market and built a billion-dollar business in less than three years. Also during Scott’s tenure at SAP he was part of the Strategic Account Sales Team and created new channel programs to reduce shelfware and support new solution adoption. Prior to SAP, Scott held senior marketing and business development roles at several startups.

Scott was recognized by the Silicon Valley Business Journal for his lifelong commitment to helping his local community with the 2018 Individual Community Champion Award. Both at work and in his personal life, Scott is focused on helping communities reduce food insecurities, supporting underserved children, funding cancer research and Native American educational programs.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Squid Game:

• Gamify campaigns to move your audience. Marketing works best when it pulls people in emotionally, just like Squid Game. Scott explains, “Anytime you want to move an audience together, gamifying it so that they have an emotional pull on the winner is gonna make you successful.” By creating campaigns that feel participatory, competitive, or playful, brands can inspire curiosity and investment from their audience. It’s not just messaging—it’s making people feel like they have a stake in the outcome.
• Run “Squid Games” for your campaigns. Rather than guessing which message will resonate, Scott’s team tested multiple campaign “games” at once. “We invested over 500 engagements…we had 74 one-on-one engagements…to narrow it down to what we have as eight campaigns in the Squid Games.” Each campaign has a top, middle, and bottom funnel component, and their performance is tracked side by side. Scott explains, “The gamification of Squid Games is working in our B2B marketing approach…we rolled it out to the company as Squid Games…and it’s been really fun to have engineers across the world leaning in on what they think is gonna move the audience fastest.” The lesson: treat campaigns like contestants. Test widely, kill off the weak performers quickly, and double down on what wins.
• Stay curious and listen to your audience. One of Scott’s biggest lessons is that marketers often assume they know what works—but data and customer feedback may prove otherwise. He notes, “It really comes back to just what are your customers saying about you? And what are your prospects saying about you?…That listening exercise, while it sounds remedial and 101, it gets lost on a lot of us ‘cause we’re all running so fast.” Just like in Squid Game, survival depends on paying close attention and adapting quickly. In B2B marketing, curiosity and active listening turn campaigns into insights, and insights into growth.

Quote

“The gamification of Squid Games is working in our B2B marketing approach…we rolled it out to the company as Squid Games…and it’s been really fun to have engineers across the world leaning in on what they think is gonna move the audience fastest.”

Time Stamps

[00:55] Meet Scott Leatherman, Chief Marketing Officer at Aviatrix

[01:32] Why Squid Game?

[03:08] Behind-the-Scenes of Squid Game

[14:18] AI in Marketing

[17:33] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Squid Game

[42:39] AI Integration and Brand Evolution

[46:46] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Links

Connect with Scott on LinkedIn

Learn more about Aviatrix

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

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