B2B Marketing Strategy

Brand Building with The Rock and Killing Old B2B Marketing Habits

Brett McGrath

July 13, 2021

Brand Building with The Rock and Killing Old B2B Marketing Habits

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson works because of his authenticity. 

I used The Rock, a professional wrestler (or “sports entertainer” as Vince McMahon likes to call them) turned blockbuster movie star as the lead man in a blog post about being real. 

Now doesn’t that sound like an oxymoron? 

The Rock’s rocket ship to stardom is quite fascinating, but a great example of what can happen when someone protects their values above all else.

I’m fanatical about pro wrestling. I’ve been struck with this strange sickness since age 3. 

There was something about the bright lights and Macho Man Randy Savage that sucked me in.

Hook, line, and sinker....oh yeah!

When the Rock entered the WWE he was billed as Rocky Maivia. He was a white meat babyface wrestler that was so pristine that fans couldn’t stand him.

I can hear the chants from the TV in my childhood bedroom now:

ROCKY SUCKS! ROCKY SUCKS! ROCKY SUCKS! 

Rocky Maivia character doesn't age well 😬

It wasn’t until Rocky turned heel (bad guy) and transformed into The Rock character that he started to gain a following.

The Rock worked because it was the real Dwayne Johnson just turned up to 20.

The Rock was one of the biggest draws in wrestling for a decade and developed a massive fan base while doing it. 

He was so good in fact that he became a crossover superstar starring in his first movie Scorpion King after making an appearance in the Mummy Returns. 

His acting career snowballed and now he’s the highest paid actor in the entire world! 

How in the heck did this happen?

Simple: A commitment to authenticity and consistency...if you smell what I’m cookin’?

Have you seen this guy's Instagram page?


I bring up The Rock because we are building a company that is based on the importance of authenticity and I think Dwayne Johnson’s path to building his audience is a great example to follow. 

I’m a career B2B marketer and it amazes me how marketers today are still using the same gimmicks to force their prospects into their funnel.

I’m talking about keyword infested content.

I’m talking about downloading a piece of content and being interrupted by a SDR before you even open up the PDF.

I’m talking about signing up for a webinar that was positioned as thought leadership, but was a thinly veiled product pitch with over produced guests. 

This stuff still happens.

ALL. OF. THE. TIME. 

These B2B marketing gimmicks are what we are taught and what we are led to believe help us hit our KPI’s every quarter. 

They simply aren’t sustainable. They don’t create a great customer experience. 

They might sound good during a team meeting, but they suck….much like the Rocky Maivia character. 

I’ve been guilty of these gimmicks. I saw the light. I joined this company that is waking up every day to try to bury them. 

I created a document in my first week of joining that I wanted to serve as the North Star against operating like yesterday’s B2B Marketing. 

We are in the process of refining it, but the ingredient for success of “Authenticity above all else” remains the same. 

We want you to understand who we are as people as we share information about our company.

V1 of GTM Strategy Document 💯

I think you can tell by now that we want to create a frictionless experience for readers of these pages. 

We want to be real and let you know what we are working on and how that is going to help you (You can check out our podcast where we will be talking about what we are building and bring on guest marketers).

Above all else we want to eliminate those negative experiences that send chills down your spine every time you are trying to read a piece of content and have to decide if it really worth the headache you are going to deal with on the back end of the experience.

We’ve only been a company for the last 6 months.

We’ve only been a team of 5 for the last couple weeks.

We are working to figure this out and appreciate you being here early with us.

As I close this out I picture The Rock grabbing the microphone, standing at the center of the ring, raising the People’s Eyebrow and saying…

Finally authenticity has come back to marketing…

If you want to learn more you can sign up here. It’s a waitlist where we won’t spam you, but will set the stage for what you can expect by receiving hand picked, frictionless content that will help you be better at your job. 💯


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