Canva positions its data science team as a partner that empowers marketers with information, rather than a gatekeeper that stifles creativity. This allows the marketing team to remain focused on their core function and take big, creative swings that can't be fully measured upfront.

Rather than creating disparate events, Canva designs its annual "Canva Create" conference as a central brand moment with tailored tracks for different audiences like enterprise customers, educators, and creators. This "center of gravity" approach allows them to make the investment work harder and deliver a cohesive brand experience at scale.

Canva's enterprise value proposition focuses on solving the chaos created by its own PLG success. For CIOs and brand leaders, the key benefits are not just advanced features, but granular controls, brand kits, and security (SSO) that rein in uncontrolled organic usage and ensure brand consistency at scale.

The Super Bowl is most effective for brands facing a fundamental awareness problem—when the mass market simply doesn't know a product, feature, or solution exists. The platform's massive reach is ideal for closing this knowledge gap at scale.

Canva's success wasn't from targeting competitors but from identifying a real market gap through their first niche product (a yearbook tool). When users asked to use the tool for newsletters, it validated a larger, unsolved pain point that Canva then focused on exclusively.

Canva's marketing org avoids a rigid B2B/B2C split, recognizing users don't distinguish between these contexts. They structure teams by business unit (B2B, B2C, International) and support them with channel centers of excellence, promoting collaboration and a unified brand experience.

Analysis of B2B marketing shows that ABX is not a discipline where creative execution typically shines. Instead of fighting this, marketers should embed robust, data-driven thought leadership into their programs. This approach effectively shifts buyer perceptions and builds trust without relying on traditional creativity.

Marketing teams often mistake demand programs for campaign strategy. A true campaign strategy is a higher-level "canvas" that orchestrates all efforts—reputation, demand creation, and enablement—against a specific audience, ensuring a consistent customer experience rather than disjointed tactical execution.

For a mature company like Square, the primary marketing challenge is not building awareness but correcting an outdated public perception. Many customers still associate them with their original 'little white reader,' unaware of the full product portfolio, requiring a strategy focused on education and perception shift.