The B2B podcast that feels more like a 90s advice column for content marketers
Content Ideas Issue #24 | One standout B2B content marketing example each edition
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Hey content friends,
Sometimes it feels like everyone has a podcast.
Especially in B2B world – there are so many samey podcasts about startup growth strategy with clean white studio backgrounds and carefully positioned guests.
Contentoo’s Permission to Rant is not one of those.
It’s two content marketers who have a lot of opinions and finally got given a microphone.
I don’t think that’s an accident – the reason it works so well is that the people hosting it are the audience it’s made for.
And that’s why it’s my content example of choice for this edition. Let’s dive in!
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Content Ideas: Contentoo’s Permission to Rant podcast
What they did:
Contentoo is a content platform – they match brands with skilled content creators and manage the process from brief to delivery. So their audience is content marketers and marketing teams.
Earlier this year, they launched Permission to Rant – a podcast hosted by their Content Lead Penny Warnock and Content Marketer Nike Pucci.
The format is exactly what the name promises: honest takes and opinionated rants about the realities of working in content, with topics like “is B2B allowed to be funny?” or “AI exposes broken marketing”.
Two content marketers talking about the stuff that actually winds them up, with occasional guests.
Each episode is posted on YouTube and Spotify…
… and then gets repurposed into LinkedIn posts using clips, carousels, and image posts of shareable moments, posted by Contentoo …
…and by the co-hosts too.
Why it works:
The hosts are the audience. Penny and Nike aren’t presenting content to content marketers from a position of feigned authority – they’re content marketers themselves, talking through the same frustrations their audience faces daily. The podcast resonates because it comes from inside the experience.
The groundwork was already there. Penny and Nike have both posted consistently on LinkedIn themselves, and been seen on the Contentoo LinkedIn in funny TikTok-style videos, long before the podcast was born. The voice, the opinions, the willingness to show up publicly were already established before the podcast existed, and presumably they could see that that was resonating. Permission to Rant was a natural next step, and it didn’t feel like a brand suddenly deciding to “do personal.” It felt like a natural extension of their brand voice.
Platforming your people should be a standard part of content strategy. Penny and Nike (presumably) aren’t doing this just as a fun side project – it’s part of their content strategy to platform their internal experts to build their brand. For a content company, that comes more naturally: of course content marketers are going to get why this is a smart decision. But every company could learn from this. Identifying the people inside your company who are your audience (your Head of HR if you market to HR leaders, or your Data Scientist if you market to data people) and who are willing to show up publicly, and actively investing in them doing it – or even hiring deliberately for team members who are willing to see building a brand as part of their role.
The brand voice and the podcast voice are the same voice. Contentoo’s brand voice – no capitals, conversational, openly human, “your content matchmaker” – is the same energy as Permission to Rant. There’s no gap between how the company presents itself and how the podcast is framed or how the hosts show up. That brand consistency signals genuine audience understanding: they know who they’re talking to, and they’ve built a company identity that reflects it.
No selling, just resonance. There’s not a product mention in sight. The whole premise is “here’s a place where content marketers can feel seen – we’ll rant about the things we know you want to”. Not all content needs to move someone down a pipeline. Some content exists to build the kind of brand affinity that means when someone does need what you offer, you’re already the name they trust.
Their audience appreciates great content and creative ideas – and this is both. For an audience who spends their days thinking about what good content looks like, a genuinely creative (and also just playful) content series is impressive to see. Permission to Rant is content that both resonates with topics their audience care about, and shows that Contentoo knows what great content looks like. Marketing to marketers is fun, but it isn’t easy, and this is a masterclass in how to do it well.
What this example made me reflect on:
If you market to a specific function, do you have people in that function on your team who might be willing to show up publicly? And are you actually making use of them if you do? Or could you hire deliberately for that willingness if not?
Where in our content mix are we building genuine resonance with our community versus putting out educational resources or product info? Is there space for something that exists purely to make our community feel seen?
How much of your brand voice exists on paper versus actually showing up in how your people communicate publicly? Is there a gap between the two?
Kudos to Penny, Nike, and the rest of the Contentoo team for this one 👏
What content examples have caught your attention lately? Hit reply and let me know – I’m always on the lookout for the most creative, unique, inspirational examples to cover.
Speak soon,
Your content friend,
Tabitha
P.S. If you found this useful, please share it with a fellow content marketer. Word of mouth is how we grow this little community 🫶
this made my whole quarter
screaming crying