Lab Grown Marketing
Podcast Description
What if you could conduct smarter, faster, and more cost-effective consumer research without alarming your budget-conscious finance team? Forget outdated advice about CTR and MQLs—what you need are evidence-backed strategies.
For over a decade, we’ve partnered with LinkedIn's experts to uncover key B2B marketing principles. Now, we’re using those insights and cutting-edge research tech to break down what really drives growth.
Join Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo each week as we explore proven, lab-backed tactics to help marketers thrive in today’s landscape.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
Focuses on B2B marketing principles, consumer research, and growth tactics with episodes exploring evidence-based strategies, cost-effective research methods, and the role of LinkedIn in modern marketing efforts.
What if you could conduct smarter, faster, and more cost-effective consumer research without alarming your budget-conscious finance team? Forget outdated advice about CTR and MQLs—what you need are evidence-backed strategies.
For over a decade, we’ve partnered with LinkedIn’s experts to uncover key B2B marketing principles. Now, we’re using those insights and cutting-edge research tech to break down what really drives growth.
Join Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo each week as we explore proven, lab-backed tactics to help marketers thrive in today’s landscape.
A 10-table restaurant in Harlem became a $2.7 billion CPG brand by mastering one thing: being easy to want and easy to buy. Rao’s didn’t scale the restaurant—it scaled the desire.
Jon and Peter break down how Rao’s built extreme mental availability through myth, scarcity, and cultural relevance—then paired it with physical availability through disciplined distribution. From mafia mystique to premium pricing, every move reinforced the same positioning: this is not everyday sauce. Also, Peter has a special guest joining him today: Eric Skae — the CEO who took Rao's from 5% annual growth to 40% in four months, and is now running the exact same playbook at Carbone Fine Food — for a rare inside look at how the brand actually scaled.
They unpack the full playbook—segmentation, positioning, pricing, distribution, and brand assets—and show why Rao’s is one of the cleanest real-world examples of Ehrenberg-Bass in action. If you want to understand how brands actually grow (and why most B2B companies get it backwards), this is the case study.
00:00 – The $2.7B question
03:13 – RAO's History and Strategy
17:44 – Segmentation and Targeting
24:08 – Positioning
28:14 – Line Extensions
30:48 – Distinctive Brand Assets
38:46 – Non-Synthetic Salon: Interview with Eric Skae, CEO of Carbone Fine Food
1:06:12 – Future Predictions of Carbone
1:09:23 – Ideas Wrap
1:15:36 – Commercial Outcomes
1:17:41 – Million Dollar Data
1:20:59 – B2B Lesson
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.