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Ariel Rubin is the VP of Content at Air. Ariel describes himself as a “Webby Award-winning content leader, social strategist, and memetic soldier.”
Air’s content strategy is famous for its creative risks, relying less on the traditional SaaS playbook. They’ve amassed almost 80k subscribers on Instagram, 12k on TikTok, 17k on YouTube, and lots more across their LinkedIn profiles.
Ariel also has lots of experience outside of SaaS. He was previously Director of Communications at Kum & Go, a convenience store chain, and Head of Digital Content at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Below is his AMA with the Superpath Pro community, lightly edited for readability.
Can you talk a bit about how you see Air as “performance art” > marketing? I’ve seen you talk about it a bit on LinkedIn and would love to hear what that means for how you think through what content to make, getting buy-in, and measuring results. Basically tell me everything!
Lol, well I can’t tell you EVERYTHING. But I think life is performance art, and everyone is just doing their best, so if you make stuff that resonates with the people you’re trying to sell software to, then that’s a pretty good way to spend your time.
At Air, we are selling a product to leaders on marketing and creative teams. I happen to be that, so for the first time in my life I get to be the ICP, which is pretty liberating. I make stuff I want to see in the world. And hopefully that generates excitement and interest in our product. I’ve been fortunate enough that that thesis has paid off for us at Air.
Can you take us through your brainstorming and ideation phase before a campaign? How do you and your team come up with ideas and choose the best one?
I have a rad team of creatives who I love. We share ideas and beat stuff up. The stuff that survives makes it to the next stage. I have endless ideas. I love working at Air because I have the freedom to execute on them.
Mostly, the process is that there is no process. If someone sees something, they share it and say “what if we did x.” I don’t believe in process. Life is chaos.
How do you decide what not to do? What’s the filter for ideas that feel on-brand and creative but still get killed, and how does measurement (or the lack of it) play into that?
We absolutely look at what worked and what didn’t to inform what we do next. But I also try not to be constrained by that. It can be limiting to only look at what was in determining what will be. It’s a creative role, so I think it’s important to try stuff that you simply have no idea about how it will “do.”
For someone who is a mid-career marketer and mainly focused on long-form writing to date, what skills do you think are the most important for them to build to continue to position themselves well for the future?
I’m old! But I think having a sharp POV and deep experience is a massive value-add in a world flattened by AI, illiteracy, and rank stupidity. I think writing well in our age of slop has frankly never been more important. My most recent hire at Air was literally a senior writer.
I come from a background where I scaled up an alcohol brand to 70k+ followers and 35M+ views across TikTok and IG. I now work at a B2B AI accounting company, and have had trouble translating the same concepts that made the alcohol brand viral to the SaaS world. Do you have any advice about how I can bridge that gap?
I think it’s about finding out what’s important to your audience:
Bridging the gap means the same things that worked at the alcohol biz won’t work here. My job before Air was at a convenience store in Iowa, and before that I was at the International Red Cross in Switzerland. Different audiences, but same goal: engage.
For “content as a moat,” is it more important for that content to be relevant to your product or relevant to the platform? For example, if you’re making a TikTok series and I’m selling EVOO, is it more important to talk about the quality of the EVOO or to make a splashy cooking video that I think will do well on the algorithm?
I think it’s most important to make stuff people want to watch. The question of how to thread in your product is always the trickiest one! I am still trying to figure it out. I think it’s a lifelong pursuit.
How important is it that marketers can execute media themselves? (i.e. light, shoot, edit, design, photograph, audio engineer, etc.)
I think it’s pretty important to have a solid sense of how to do stuff (equally, it’s super important to understand how AI tools are changing the way creativity is working/happening). I couldn’t tell you how to engineer audio or design a flyer, but I have a working ability to do the basics on all of it. I think it’s good to know how to do stuff, it builds credibility. But ultimately, knowing what’s good and what works is probably most important. Especially if you’re (cough) later in your career like me.
You said knowing your audience and where they hang out is basically the most important part of a creative strategy. If you joined a new company and you weren’t your own ICP, how would you find that out?
Doing social media and comms for a convenience store chain in Iowa, and before that, doing content creation in warzones was pretty good practice. These weren’t my comfort zones, but pretty quickly I learned. The internet is vast, you have your own algorithms, so do the people who buy Cokes and gas in Iowa, or the people who donate money to victims of war in Sudan.
You have to start with your customers: who are they, where do they live, what do they consume? If you work for a fintech company, who’s buying your product? Is it fintech for farmers? Is it fintech for college students? Go on Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, and X. Search for terms that are aligned with the product. Who’s talking about you? Who’s talking about your competitors? It’s pretty easy to shift your algorithm, it’s damn responsive when it spies on you!
Did you have buy-in on this from the get-go? Or was it something you had to slowly convince people of, try small things to get proof of concept, and so on?
I think the honest answer is both things are true. I was hired very much because of this belief and desire to craft bold, culture-forward brand campaigns. I also had to prove I could do it. That was hard! It took time. But the leadership was behind it and I had the freedom to try it. And for that I’m very grateful.
You’ve been criticized for some of your past campaigns and partnerships. What have you learned about the relationship between marketing “ethics”/perception and impact on growth/pipeline/revenue?
WHO HAS CRITICIZED ME? JK, if people are mad they’re paying attention. The worst reaction you can get is no reaction.
Early on, how did you convince senior management to take a riskier approach to content? And how do you know whether your latest stunt actually performed well? How do you show that back (again) to senior leaders?
I didn’t have to convince my leadership to take a riskier approach to content; my leadership hired me because they wanted to take a riskier approach to content.
But actually not even a riskier approach, I think that’s the wrong lens to see it. We knew we wanted to break through, to tell a brand story about a company that does aspirational marketing liberated by death by papercuts and endless feedback loops. Air embodies that in its messaging across product, brand, and marketing.
You’ve talked about cutting marketing spend dramatically while growing revenue. Beyond the headline numbers, what does the actual measurement stack look like for the content/creative side? What are the few metrics you personally watch, what gets reported up, and what’s deliberately ignored?
Metrics that matter to me are organic engagement (likes, views, shares, comments) and follows. The other metric that’s more intangible is the “vibes-based one”: did this actually work? Are people actually talking about it? Are your friends sharing it? I think that’s the most important KPI of all, frankly.
What’s different about a VP role vs. something like a content lead role? What did you need to learn to get there? How does your day to day change?
That’s a good question, not totally sure honestly. I have been at Air for five years. I started as a director and made my way up the food chain. I think it was about taking on increased responsibility and leadership roles within the org. Ultimately, I am responsible for how we show up in the world, and I like working for a company that takes that work seriously.
Curious about any words of wisdom you have about making working with your marketing function (and possibly others like sales) as successful as possible, and also any tips for effective boundary setting?
I am fortunate to have a really great sales team! I honestly haven’t experienced much of the classic “sales vs. marketing” stuff, everyone here is pretty cool. It also helps that we have really sharp growth and product marketers at Air, so they get to do all the boundary setting for me.
What project you’ve done at Air do you think was the best or most successful? Can you break it down for us?
Hard to pick just one! Rebooting Maury Povich is honestly probably my favorite recent one. This is also the most recent and one of my all-time favorites.
You’ve mentioned that the standard B2B mindset forces content to be optimized entirely for algorithms and SEO, making the human experience boring. When you’re ideating, how do you balance the pressure for traditional lead gen and SEO traffic with taste? Is there a point where you draw the line to protect the human experience?
I have never once in my life thought about SEO. I literally haven’t.
What do you think about this age in content strategy where founders are known to think a simple prompt or two can yield a decent strategy for their startups?
I think it’s morally bankrupt and a race to the bottom.
What content marketing campaigns, stunts, or ideas do you wish you came up with first?
I really loved Coinbase’s famous campaign from this summer.
Do you think your more “creative” content strategy would work in all B2B industries or is it more of a result of your audience of creatives?
I think no one goes on the internet to be bored. Do with that what you will.
Do you use AI at all?
What’s AI?
You said you have an awesome team. What do you look for when you’re hiring people? How have applicants stood out?
I look for a voice, a sharp POV, and someone who watches and listens and reads. General vibe, influences, and previous work.
What is one thing you think marketers should stop doing?
Being afraid.
How do you report success to company leadership? You mentioned vibes-based reaction being important. Do you show screenshots of messages and reactions?
All of it. Depending on the campaign goal, I look at the analytics of post performance, website visit increases that correlate to campaigns, and earned media.
Similarly to the previous question, do you ever have to worry about attribution?
For sure, there’s always going to be attribution questions. But I think when it comes to an organic content strategy, you do have to be comfortable with some element of inattributability. Anyone can buy views. Anyone can buy likes.
What’s a reasonable success/failure rate for creative campaigns? Do you even think in those terms?
I mean, if you keep putting out duds, then I think it’s probably worth having a conversation. But no, generally, the answer is “ok, great, more.”
How do you handle internal pushback when an idea feels “too risky” or “unprofessional” for a B2B audience?
I reject the premise, honestly.
Is there a platform all freelancers should be on right now? Is the answer different for company content teams?
I hate to say it, but the most important platform to be on right now if you want to work in tech is X. I am recently back on and while I hate it, it’s absolutely essential. I think it’s essential because that’s where tech founders are and that’s where the people who fund tech are.
Thank you so much, Ariel!
For more from Ariel:
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