It used to be that B2B marketers could compete on features—until tech developments made it easy for even the little guys to mimic competitors’ features.
Then we could compete on the content we could put out there to make ourselves more visible, more searchable—until generative AI came along and suddenly everyone could pump out tomes of bespoke graphics and search engine optimized web pages.
Today, what we have to compete on is something much more slippery, but also much more deeply ingrained in customers’ lives.
Culture.
Ariel Rubin, Head of Content at the creative ops platform Air, is a culture maker.
His culture-led approach to marketing has supported 3X revenue growth, a $35M Series B, and a Webby Award recognition (won in conjunction with The Rizzler) where Air beat out giants like Apple, Squarespace, and TBWA.
“I always want to show up bigger than we are,” Ariel says. “It’s important to me to win Webbys because at that event, Air’s table was next to Google and Adobe. And that’s where we want to play.”
How does a startup stand a chance against the Big Guys?
They make something entertaining and culturally relevant. Or as Ariel says,
Air is not making a small play. Either we're the thing, or we're nothing. My goal is moonshot on moonshot.
Don’t sleep on culture
Many B2B companies underestimate the power of cultural positioning to create a competitive advantage. Even household names have trouble creating a real emotional connection with users. Or as Ariel puts it, “No one says, 'I f*** love Dropbox.'”
“B2B audiences are hoping for something that’s not just regurgitated bullshit,” he adds. “We’re all people. We all have taste.”
The danger of not building cultural relevance is that your options for being competitive shrink to price and features. This makes you incredibly vulnerable to better-funded competitors, limiting your ability to attract not only customers, but talent and investors as well.
Ask Ariel your questions
Ariel's got more great stories than a NYC taxi driver.
Have a marketing question you want to hear his opinion on? Go ahead and ask.
The moonshot matrix: How to make content that pops
Ariel measures marketing ideas across two axes at once: business impact and cultural relevance. Or as we call it, the moonshot matrix.
Here’s a breakdown of each quadrant:
The grind
(low cultural relevance, high business impact)
This is where “decent” B2B marketing content lives. Think standard content formats that can be useful, even if nobody’s, like, pumped to get them.
“That’s not to say there isn’t a time and place for webinars, events, and whitepapers,” Ariel clarifies. “We do those alongside the more spiky, creative stuff. But even the standard offerings have to be good.”
If you only live in this quadrant, you avoid bad marketing. But you’re not reaching great marketing. And you’re missing out on opportunities to create something stickier, more fun, and more inspiring.
AI slop
(low cultural relevance, low business impact)
Ariel isn’t anti-AI. But he is anti-AI-slop.
There’s a staggering glut of generative AI content clogging up the channels all marketers play in: email, social, web. We’ve gotta do better than chatbots talking to chatbots.
“Air’s audience is creative directors and agency founders. I’m convinced that we will only win them over if they remember who we are,” says Ariel. “But they won’t remember us if we’re just pumping shit at them all the time.”
In a noisy landscape, the best way to stand out is through taste and curation. Ariel believes:
You’ll always have a moat if you have an interesting thing to say.
Viral but empty
(high cultural relevance, low business impact)
Sure, it’s nice to be known.
But if your viral moment attracts 10 million views from people who will never buy your product, you’ve just spent a lot of energy building the wrong audience.
“It can’t all be funny, wacky shit,” says Ariel (a self-professed lover of funny, wacky shit). “At Air, we also make content that’s educational, serious, and real. Not just zany gobbledygook.”
🌙 Moonshot territory
(high cultural relevance, high business impact)
This right here? This is the good stuff. These are the campaigns that get the right people talking.
For example, Air’s Webby-winning ad tapped into the cultural cachet of its stars—a meme-lebrity on the rise (The Rizzler) and a comic icon (Kareem Rahma)—while also:
- Speaking directly to Air’s ICP of creative directors who appreciate a fun, high-quality ad
- Building relationships with future investors (Kareem and other public figures who worked with Air on creative later participated in its Series B)
- Using the product itself in the marketing (Air manages creative assets on its own platform)
- Demonstrating product benefits through entertainment, not just explanation
- Creating content that can be easily repurposed across channels
(Side note: We recently wrote about how they made this ad, feat. Spirit Halloween costumes, nada budget, and a borrowed basketball court.)
The cultural shift B2B marketers need to understand
Cultural positioning connects to a wider evolution happening across B2B marketing today:
B2B buyers increasingly expect B2C-level brand experiences. Read: easy to understand, pleasant to look at, geared toward real people.
B2B buying cycles are lengthening, requiring sustained brand engagement, not one-off product demos.
Social platforms are prioritizing authentic engagement over paid advertising.
Remote work and changing expectations about work-life balance are making culture and brand more important for talent acquisition, as top marketing talent seeks work that makes them feel creatively engaged.
With all these things in flux, the future belongs to marketers that understand culture as a true competitive advantage, not just a fluffy “nice to have.”
Respect the audience
If you work in B2B, your tool is not interesting in and of itself.
We don’t mean that as a knock. But B2B solutions are the means, not the end.
“At Air, our tool has great features—but the interesting stuff is what users are producing with it. It’s their podcasts, figma files, photos, video cuts, and more” says Ariel.
So he doesn’t get excited about features for features’ sake. He gets excited about the incredible brands that use Air to make cool stuff: Hims, sweetgreen, OLIPOP, Graza, and more.
“We have these beautiful brands making incredible content that lives on Air, and that’s an honor,” says Ariel. “I want to respect that.”
It’s not an honor he takes lightly.
A key way to show you respect your users and what they’re building? Make it worth their while by building something good yourself.
