The Rose & Rockstar: CMI B2B Marketing Trends

Welcome to The Rose and Rockstar - with the Chief Troublemaker at Seventh Bear, Robert Rose, behind the bar serving one of his splendid cocktails while our host Ian Truscott, a CMO but not a rockstar, picks his brain on a marketing topic. 

This week, over a fierce absinthe cocktail, Ian and Robert discuss the 2026 B2B Content and Marketing Trends Report from the Content Marketing Institute, based on a survey of 1000 marketers and research that Robert was the lead analyst for this year. 

Some key points they discuss from the research:

• AI should enhance creativity, not replace it.

• Budget priorities in marketing are shifting towards technology.

• Quality content strategy is more important than quantity.

• Creativity in marketing needs to be prioritized.

• The importance of human investment in marketing teams.

If you have a question for the bar or an opinion on this week's discussion, please get in touch - just search “rockstar cmo” on the interwebs or LinkedIn.

Enjoy!

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The Links

The people:

• Ian Truscott on LinkedIn

• Robert Rose on LinkedIn and on Threads

Mentioned this week

• B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026

• Ian’s firm - Velocity B

• Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Rockstar CMO:

• The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

• Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn

• Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

• We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

• Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon and Spotify.
This podcast is part of the Marketing Podcast Network

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