#177: Brand | Startup Brand Building with Ari Yablok, Head of Brand at Island

B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt

Dave sits down with Ari Yablok, Head of Brand at Island, to share his approach to creating a brand in the cybersecurity space. Ari shares his journey from agency life to leading the brand narrative at Island, where he helped build the concept of the "enterprise browser."

Dave and Ari Cover:

• The key differences between category creation and strategic positioning, and why it matters for B2B marketers
• The steps to building a brand story that resonates with both your internal team and your target audience
• How focusing on the last 20% of branding efforts can elevate your company above the competition

Timestamps

• (00:00) - - Intro to Ari
• (04:48) - - Rapidly Growing Enterprise Browser Company Secures $375M in Series D Funding
• (08:57) - - SEO Strategy vs Branding
• (14:24) - - How Brand is an Art and a Science
• (19:39) - - Challenges in Cybersecurity Branding
• (21:23) - - Early Stage Marketing
• (30:09) - - Cognitive Behavioral Branding
• (35:18) - - How Ari Manages Projects with the Brand Team
• (37:28) - - Comfortable vs. Uncomfortable Approaches to Brand Strategy
• (41:46) - - What Founders Really Want to Do
• (46:52) - - Balancing the Day-to-Day with Visionary Goals

Send guest pitches and ideas to [email protected]
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today's episode brought to you by Navattic.

B2B websites are filled with too much story, too much narrative these days. You visit a website and you have no idea what the product does and how it works.

This is why Navattic has become a popular product for B2B Marketers. They help you build interactive demos so you can give buyers a real look at the product before they ever talk to sales.

And guess what - it works. They found that companies using interactive demos with Navattic have seen up to a 25% lift in website conversion rates and a 10-20% increase in inbound leads.

They just released their 2025 State of the Interactive Product Demo report, and it proves just how much more control B2B buyers want over the buying process. Buyers have more access to information than ever, and companies are finally catching up by making their product front and center.

Their report breaks down the top-performing demos, why ungated demos drive higher engagement and the best use cases and strategies for making them work.

So if you want to learn more about using product demos on your site, go check out Navattic’s State of the Interactive Product Demo report now.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

• They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
• Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
• Visit hatch.fm to learn more