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Memes, Menace, and Monster Trucks: Live from RSAC 2025
162 Plays26 days ago
Recorded LIVE at RSAC 2025: Don Jeter, Chief Meme Officer at Torq returns! He breaks down how Torq built a cult brand in cybersecurity around their "SOAR is Dead" campaign.
George K and George A talk to Don about:
- Harnessing creativity in an era of algorithmic optimization: “You're not remembered for the safe ideas ever"
- Building internal excitement with your team (especially sales) before launching campaigns
- Creating something people actually want to be part of, not just another product
- His beliefs that brand leads to demand
If you're tired of AI-generated content, algorithm chasing, and the same old B2B tech marketing playbook, this episode delivers practical advice on standing out in an oversaturated market.
This episode is presented in partnership with Torq.
Check out the full video version of this interview on YouTube.
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Transcript
Trevor's Interview Mishap
00:00:00
Speaker
We are running out of time. Where's Don? Like, what the? I don't know, dude. Like, I thought, did do we get to the right day? Are we here the right day? Yes. Shoot, guys. i'm I am so sorry. I'm running late.
00:00:12
Speaker
Trevor from Torque here, live. Hi. Hi. George. George. Bare Knuckles. Yeah, right? Am I right? ah First off, it is so great to be able to interview you guys and I feel so- Wait, we're here to interview Don.
00:00:26
Speaker
Like we are here interviewing. i I don't think that's the case. ah Like for real, we're like running time. Why holding this?
00:00:37
Speaker
So this one says, Trevor, ah to George, to my best friend. Hold on. um Being an influencer, a LinkedIn influencer myself, I feel just like very honored to be surrounded by fellow influencers. What are you talking about, bro? I have a freaking job. Yeah, no. I'm a big fan of you guys and I love you guys a lot. and You guys are my best friends and I'm done. I right feel very do right let's feel very honored like don to be around. and see yeah
00:01:09
Speaker
i think that went really well.
00:01:12
Speaker
I think that was all right. I think I did a good job. Oh, know oh Okay, well, this is Trevor from TORQ TV signing off.
00:01:23
Speaker
ah Thanks, George and George, for being incredible human beings on TORQ TV. I love you.
00:01:34
Speaker
Bare Knuckle, the brass tacks. I'm George K on the vendor side. I'm George A, Chief Information Security Officer. And we are here at RSA 2025 with the Chief Menace Officer of TORQ, Don
AI in Marketing: Pressure & Differentiation
00:01:46
Speaker
Gier. Chief Meme, yeah. Chief Meme Officer Don with TORQ here in front of this Massive Gravedigger monster truck. That's right. Official sponsor Monster Jam Tour.
00:01:56
Speaker
Well, ah Don, we want have this conversation because we look all around. There's AI, all the things. And when it comes to marketing, there's also a lot of downward pressure teams to generate using AI. This cat sent me some weird ass Instagram ad for an AI CMO that would like script the videos, make the videos, AB test them, all that.
00:02:18
Speaker
but you have invested in real stuff, you know? So just want to get your take on how do brands stand out if there's all this pressure to just use AI to to cheapen the production cost? Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think there's like two things that are happening right now, right?
00:02:37
Speaker
Everybody's getting pressure to how you know leverage AI to get more efficient, get more content out. And then at the same time, marketers are pressured to just measure everything. And I think we've kind of measured ourselves to death.
00:02:51
Speaker
Optimize, optimize, tweak, tweak, A, B test, you know, and and to to a point where we're like, we've lost creativity. And in a sea of like, you know I don't know how many boosts are, 400 or 500 boosts here.
00:03:03
Speaker
um Everybody's fighting for attention and it's really hard to figure out what's gonna get attention if you're looking at you know all the trends of the past and thinking too much about measurement.
Instinct & Audience Knowledge in Marketing
00:03:15
Speaker
We go off of gut and we know our audience and like this, when we kind of came up with this, we thought it was cool right away. And I think typically when we're excited, it works. Our audience gets excited. Our employees get excited.
00:03:26
Speaker
And I think a lot of that truly is gut and instinctual. Yeah. Right. I asked them, how do you take a startup in a market that's absolutely saturated with random point solution startups and you took it and you built a movement out of it, right? You took it beyond just the product.
00:03:43
Speaker
And then how do you get your your your team, your backers to actually line up and go with you and turn a thing into something cool? Man, that's I think that's the million dollar question, truly, because um first of all, like I'll preface it with you really can't do this without trust, right? You can't do the stuff without trust from your leadership team, your board, you know the employees.
00:04:07
Speaker
And so we spend a lot of time building trust with our stakeholders, and that trust comes when the pipeline comes. yeah And so you can't go from you know, hey, we're just gonna, you know, start with this. You have to start with monster. It didn't start with the with with the monster truck.
00:04:25
Speaker
It started by creating that internal movement and saying, hey, here's our beliefs.
Trust Building in Brand Success
00:04:30
Speaker
This is what we believe. We believe the store is dead. We're gonna tell that story with a really bold visual identity.
00:04:36
Speaker
We're tell that story with a really, you know, confident tone. And that comes from, you know, the market research and and talking to customers and listening. That's another thing that builds trust, right? When you listen.
00:04:48
Speaker
And so, when we started saying sores that we got such a visceral reaction from our prospects and customers were like we're on to something here and then it kind of turned into this movement because enough people said yeah that's i've had that experience right my legacy source is old it's complex it's time consuming it's costly it requires a lot of expertise and we want to move on and so it happened very naturally but it but it came from listening and building trust
Standing Out in an AI-Driven Market
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker
So ah I brought up like the lower costs of production and like AI pressure, but there's also how you stand out and what you're investing in, in terms of like the customer experience.
00:05:31
Speaker
And so I think it's tempting to say like, oh, ah now there's all this AI pressure. But if you think about early web stuff, You know, companies started bending towards SEO, just like writing stuff with keywords to show up in search.
00:05:46
Speaker
Then it was like social referrals traffic. So there's always been kind of this tilt towards the algorithm. And now even in unlike LinkedIn, you'll see things are like written in a certain way, or they're even displayed in a certain way, or people jumping on whatever the latest chat GPT action figure trend is. So like.
00:06:06
Speaker
One, I guess, how do you kind of avoid that inertia to just get drawn in there? And then, like, how do you stand out if everyone is trying to optimize for algorithm? Like, how are you trying to, I guess, your culture jamming, you know? Yeah, I think, and and Forbes said this, right? Shout out to Forbes.
00:06:25
Speaker
um Torque has done a unique job of blending cultural relevance with product innovation. And I think, again, like, I think we, to your point, like the SEO, you know, writing for SEO,
00:06:39
Speaker
you know, thinking thinking about the algorithm when you're making content. We really think about it from a very human perspective on what is going to get attention, what's going to stop you from scrolling um and break through all this noise. Because there's no you know, this is the noisiest place right now in tech, is right here on the RSA floor.
00:06:58
Speaker
And you look at a lot of booths and there's a lot of booths that look the same. a lot of booths are trying to tell you everything they do on a banner or on a video wall. And you know For us, it's like we just want something that's going to stand out. And I think people forget differentiation is about being different.
00:07:16
Speaker
And you really have to think about that. You're not going to get that from looking at data. You're not going to get that from looking at what's been done. We're trying to create and shape the future of how marketers are are going to market and just with our brand. We're trying to do something nobody's done before.
00:07:31
Speaker
And so we think about that really intentionally. And I think it takes a lot of of of guts to like go for it. like You're not remembered for the safe ideas ever.
00:07:42
Speaker
And you're not going to break through on this floor if you're playing it safe. And so again, We built a lot of trust with our team and and we've had some great success and that's where it starts.
Strong Product & Team for Marketing
00:07:53
Speaker
But I can't do this stuff without a great product behind me too, right? Our team has an incredible product and that really works and that's what matters. And then we have an incredible team that supports that product and and and builds that product, incredible sales team and customer success team.
00:08:09
Speaker
So all of this falls down if you don't have an incredible team and an incredible product. What do you think about differentiation if I just move the words in a different order on the board? Just take the same words and move Just put the word agentic in.
00:08:21
Speaker
That was my bet. That was my bet coming in. Can you not do that? I'm so sipping It's going to be agentic. That's the thing we're going to see. Yeah, and I think... you know We feel that fatigue, right? We have that fatigue. um You're on LinkedIn, we see that word.
00:08:33
Speaker
We see all that, you know and and we're tired of it, right? Even the marketers, right? And and aren't yeah all of us, we're we're like exhausted by the AI and the agentic. And so for us, it's like, well, let's just not put that on the screen. Let's not put any of that in the booth.
00:08:47
Speaker
Let's just entertain. Let's you know create some emotional connection with entertainment. And I think that's kind of where things are going now. like LinkedIn is boring. We know that. Right. It's like, oh, look, you know, the action figure was like, dang, like there's like a hey it was like and stand out of like literally everyone's doing And so I think you you do have to have um you have to be really paying attention to to what culture is doing and specifically Internet culture. What's happening on the Internet? I still I like all that.
00:09:17
Speaker
your brand is is fundamentally cool like i i appreciate the fact that you know i got that really cool sweater from you guys in the holidays right so i went to all my stuffy nosy ottawa civil servant christmas parties and i think it was like kind of the talk of the town every time i walk in the room because people were like what is that Right. Not in a bad way.
00:09:39
Speaker
So I from then on, I was like, OK, cool. Everything you guys do as a brand is like everything I thought was cool as a teenager, but it's mature. It's refined. Yeah. So how did you how did you come up and ideate taking a good brand and kind of turn it into a cult brand?
00:09:56
Speaker
Man, that means a lot. Like ah building a cult brand is like, you you know, it's like stuff that martyr is remote. That's what you want to do is because I think awareness isn't
Cult-like Brand Community
00:10:05
Speaker
even enough. Right. I think it's the belief. You need that tribal belief yeah and and community. I think when you start that movement and you're able to create a cult brand, it means people are believing in what you're doing and they want to be a part of what you're doing. And marketing at the end of the day is about that. It's not about just selling the product. It's about creating something that people want to be a part of. And that's really powerful, right? That's what create cult is. It's like people want to be a part of something. And so a community is at the end of the day is like building something that people want to be a part of and want to belong to. real i mean, I was going to even when I wore that sweater out, like non-cyber people were like, I dig that Christmas sweater. No, dude, like tech is lame. Twerk is cool. look Like straight up. Tech is lame, torque is cool. Yeah, that no I like that. I'm using that tagline.
00:10:54
Speaker
um um
00:11:04
Speaker
So all the seed startups, all the Series A who look at this and it's like, yeah, that's cool in the gang, but like we don't have those resources. Torque was at one point ah a series A. ah So what is your advice? We're going we always talk about the brass tacks. I'm like, what would be your advice to your fellow marketers on how do you scale branding? with Where can you start? And then like, how do you build from there to, you know, if you got a good product and you get the series C, D, then you can bring this stuff in.
00:11:34
Speaker
It's a great question. And like, it's gone so fast. I think money. This marketing team's been here and and our CRO and his team have been here for like two years. And it's wild to look back. Like we were in a 10 by 10 not long ago here at RSA, right? I remember the first store is dead, like tiny booth. Yeah, and and and yeah, ah like a demo station, right? yeah So um I think a thing that we really work on, I think has got us here is we work closely with our sales team and we wanna build something that is a reflection of the DNA of the company.
00:12:08
Speaker
And when you take a big swing, when you make a big bet, it can't just be your bet. Okay, you got to have everybody in on it, right? This isn't just marketing thinking that this is going to work or be cool. This is our sales team.
00:12:19
Speaker
Like when we announced this,
Sales Team's Role in Marketing Strategies
00:12:21
Speaker
we did it at SKO and we didn't necessarily go jump through all the right hoops and get, you know, approval. ah with our CFO the way we probably should have, but we got everybody excited.
00:12:32
Speaker
And then by that time, it's like, you can't say no to this, right? Like we need this budget to go do this monster truck because look at sales. These guys are motivated. Like they're going to go sell now. And so for the seed company,
00:12:44
Speaker
For the seed startups, I'd say work with your sales team and build something you are all proud of, right? And that you guys are all excited about because that's when the real momentum starts is like, it's not just marketing. Yeah, marketing and sales are so- Yeah, no, telling you gotta to be, you know, I'm joined at the hip.
00:13:01
Speaker
with my partner in crime, ah Josh, our CRO. like And when when he found out we were doing this, he was like one of the first ones. yeah know We were very secretive, highly secretive marketing department. But he texted me gifts all night long of Gravedigger. And I was like, this is going to be a hit. Like Josh is in. if You can get your sales guys in and your sales ladies in on the on the um plan, right? If you can get them in on the conspiracy of what you're going to pull off.
00:13:30
Speaker
that's That's magic, right? And I think like, that's what I would tell the early stage is like, build something that, you know, the whole team's going to love and you got to work with them on that. This isn't just marketing. Yeah, because everybody's back up back to what you were saying about like, get people excited internally.
00:13:46
Speaker
Internally. Because like, You know, RSA is also like a noisy time for press releases funding and stuff like that. It's like sometimes the press releases goes out and like half the company is like, oh, we heard about that on the all hands. But it's like a like if we were trying to launch the confetti cannon, it's just like a.
00:14:02
Speaker
Dude, if you can't get your internal employees excited about what you're doing, you're never gonna get your prospects and customers excited. your Your internal team, especially sales, they have to feel it because they're out on the front lines talking to customers prospects.
00:14:17
Speaker
And you can tell when a sales team is excited, the customer can feel it. There's like a magnetism when a company has that juice, that energy, because they believe in what you're doing. And I think this this is as much for our internal team, this grade bigger as it is for the prospects or customers. I just want to make something that our team loves because then they're going to have that belief and that's going to be felt by the customer. Yeah, I feel it too. Like when, you know, we're watching the, you can't see here in this shot, everyone that's walking by is turning their head, looking at this thing is eye catching.
00:14:49
Speaker
It's not the typical boring F1 car or weird Tom Cruise dress up lookalike dude from last year. he's Like What I really like about it is, you know, I say gaffe factor, like give a freak something else. But yeah your gaffe factor is huge, right?
00:15:05
Speaker
I have to ask you because you're like me or a fellow C-suite. You have to ask permission from your board to get funding for like anything, even though it's like this is a brilliant idea. And boards are looking and be like, what's the ah ROI?
00:15:18
Speaker
Which is like, as a CISO, the worst bullshit conversation I hate to have was like, how do I quantify risk that I'm trying to prevent that hasn't happened yet? Right. I'm playing in theory.
00:15:29
Speaker
You're doing the same thing. So how do you advice for marketers? How do you then go to your board and get the green light for doing good brand ideas versus strict ah ROI?
00:15:41
Speaker
In my case, which won't be the case for everybody, um the discussion around the playbook of what we would roll out here at Torque started very early, even before I accepted the role, um because I really did want to build a brand first. So my belief is brand leads to demand, right? I think a lot of people make buying decisions based on brand. I think more than anybody knows in this space. yeah And I think ah Wiz is a great case study on that. They built a phenomenal brand. They have a great product, but they have a phenomenal brand and they' they've done things differently for a long time.
00:16:14
Speaker
For me coming here, it was very much my goal to build a consumer style brand. I think that this space was ready for it. And I got that sign off very early that the we were not going to do a bunch of white papers. We're not going to do, you know, the the the enterprise B2B display. Syndicate randomly. Yeah, exactly. I ignore in my inbox. Yeah. on Yeah, yeah. we We didn't want to go down that path just because we knew it wouldn't work and we wanted to try new things. And I think I give a lot of credit to our CEO and his co-founders, Ofer, Leonid, Eldad, because they bought in right away. And when they buy in, you don't have to do a lot of selling to the board because you're you're your CEO has already briefed them. And and shout out to the board and all the money. Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
But they also see right when the sales numbers are good, right? When pipelines flowing, when you're getting earned media coverage, when they can feel it. The board knows, right? They're very tapped into this stuff and they're excited. Like I saw board members last night, Trevor,
00:17:17
Speaker
ah met with board members, gave them the autographed picture and they love it too. I mean, I think people, you know, everybody at the end, they were all human, right? And they want to feel a part of it too. And I think if you do this right,
Board Engagement in Brand Decisions
00:17:30
Speaker
your board is excited because they're part of it. Right. And they're like, oh, I'm with, toy you know, I'm an investor. They're proud. Yeah. I mean, they're following us, you know, they're following on LinkedIn. Right. And they see it and they're like, this is fun.
00:17:42
Speaker
I think people, ah You know, I think there's fatigue. Yeah, for all the, you know, medic sales methodologies and playbooks, there is that in terms of process and discipline. But you also forget, I mean, you say it all the time, and he's the buyer, right? Sales is still a vibe.
00:17:57
Speaker
If I don't trust you, he's not going to give you data in your platform. and part of that vibe might also be just like, its like But I think you also said something really important too for board members of other organizations that are potentially listening to this.
00:18:10
Speaker
As a board member, be engaged, be bought in. I can't tell you the amount of organizations I've worked for or worked with where there's people on the board, the board, and they seem to cause like luminous fear like Darth Vader, but they never show up.
00:18:25
Speaker
They're never around. So why should anyone care about them? That's a good point. and And we have a very, very um active board who are adding value. And that's not always the case, right? You show up once a quarter, you see them on a little square, you run through your numbers. Give me my eBay. Yeah. And hey, these guys, they're you know these boards are smart, man. there's They got their magic numbers.
00:18:50
Speaker
um But I think they can feel it. and if If the CRO is excited, if the CEO is excited and the numbers are good, they're stoked, right? And they're a part of it. And we've had, you know, an incredible support from this. And it's only gotten better and we as it's worked and as we've earned more trust. But yeah, they they want to be a part of it just like anybody else. Yeah, yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker
Awesome. soe Well, Don, thanks for the time. Thanks for hosting us in the booth. It's been a while. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. right. If you like this conversation, share it with friends and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts for a weekly ballistic payload of snark, insights, and laughs.
00:19:28
Speaker
New episodes of Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks drop every Monday. If you're already subscribed, thank you for your support and your swagger. Please consider leaving a rating or a review. It helps others find the show.
00:19:41
Speaker
We'll catch you next week, but until then, stay real.