The budget-boosting playbook: 6 creative stunts that amplified Gong’s brand

Every marketer wants to make an impact, especially when they’re working to launch a bold brand campaign.

It’s a challenge that Udi Ledergor knows well. Ledergor is the Chief Evangelist and former Chief Marketing Officer at revenue intelligence leader Gong. During his time as CMO, Ledergor led the company from a new startup on the scene to becoming an industry leader.

Taking a company from zero to millions of dollars in revenue is no easy feat. And even in large enterprises, where every marketing dollar is scrutinized, finding ways to maximize brand impact without overspending is more relevant than ever.

So, how did he do it? Ledergor got creative by making bold bets to capture his audience’s attention while keeping Gong’s finance team in the black.

Ledergor joined us in June for our INSIDER Virtual Summit, where he shared how marketers can use bold brand plays to create an outsized impact. From unexpected billboards to Super Bowl hacks, Ledergor reveals his playbook for making small bets feel like big brand moments.

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Best practices = boring practices

One of Ledergor’s first bold moves at Gong was tossing the B2B brand design playbook out the window.

He and his team studied dozens of competitor sites, all of which were painted in the same tired tones. A teammate called it “Series A blues.” Instead, Ledergor chose something else entirely. Pinks, purples and a drooling bulldog named Bruno.

It worked. People noticed. Especially when that bulldog landed on the product login screen. Shortly after making his debut as part of the new brand identity, the product team received an email from an enterprise customer asking why there was a bulldog on their login screen.

Gong’s Chief Product Officer forwarded the email to Ledergor with a note saying, “‘I guess people are noticing the new visual identity.”

Could I have avoided this message if I had consulted more people? Absolutely. Do I wish I would have done that. Absolutely not. Because this is how we stand out. We are not for everyone. We have a personality. We're not trying to blend in. We're trying to lead.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

Could Gong have played it safer? Sure.

Would anyone be talking about their brand today if they had? Not a chance.

6 creative stunts that amplified Gong’s brand

Having a bigger budget doesn’t always mean big results. Ledergor said that sometimes having the budget to throw money at a problem can lead to lazy results. Not having a massive budget means you can’t afford to be boring.

Great marketing makes your company appear to be two years ahead of where it really is.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

1.The most subtle billboard you’ll never forget

Billboards aren’t always affordable or practical, especially ones that simply say, “Have a great day.”

But that’s exactly why it worked.

With only 30–40 employees and a tight hiring market, Gong needed to stand out. So Ledergor put up a billboard outside their office in Israel. One side greeted employees in the morning, the other thanked them in the evening. It was simple, warm and completely unexpected. Applications to Gong surged in the weeks and months following the billboard's installation.

So many people saw this thought, ‘that’s very different. What is this company Gong? Why are they using this huge billboard?’ It cut through the noise, and we were able to recruit a lot of employees.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

💡 Key takeaway: You don’t need a massive budget to make a massive impression. A clever, human message in the right place can outshine flashier tactics.

2.The billboard that made a $500 stunt look like a $5M flex

Speaking of billboards…Ledergor shared an example of how you don’t need millions of dollars to get your brand onto a digital screen in Times Square. All you need is a billboard, a camera and a plan.

Every year, Gong features its top-performing employees (affectionately called “gongsters”) on some of the world’s most iconic billboards. Times Square. Piccadilly Circus. Tel Aviv. Dublin. The catch? It’s not about who sees it in person. It’s about what happens after.

Ledergor said that a 30-second digital billboard slot can be purchased for as little as $500. He then sends a photographer and videographer to get the perfect shots and then amplifies them across Gong’s social media and employee networks. The result? A high-gloss moment that looks and feels like a multimillion-dollar brand move.

I don’t care about the random tourists in Times Square. I care about the reach we get when we share the content from that billboard with our actual audience.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

💡Key takeaway: Big brand energy doesn’t come from budget. It comes from perception. Capture the moment. Amplify it. Make a small spend look like a global statement.

3.Skip the booth. Own the moment.

Why pay six figures for a booth near the bathroom when you can hijack the entire experience for less?

At Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference, Ledergor didn’t shell out for official sponsorships or a cramped expo booth. Instead, they went off-script with two bold moves that stole the spotlight.

First, they took over San Francisco’s Montgomery BART station, a key artery for attendees heading to the event. A full station wrap delivered high-visibility branding at a fraction of the sponsorship price tag, and set the stage for a broader social push that extended far beyond the city.

Then came phase two: a fleet of 20 Uber and Lyft cars, each wrapped in Gong’s brand and slogan at the time, “Goodbye, opinions. Hello, reality.” These cars circled the Moscone Center throughout the conference, ferrying attendees and turning heads in the process. Some attendees even posted about the “Gong cabs” on their own, giving the campaign unexpected organic lift.

I could maybe afford the smallest booth near the bathroom. That would still cost me a six-figure amount of money. That sounds obscene. I don’t want to do that.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

💡 Key takeaway: When everyone’s inside the event, take over everything around it. With smart placements and creative amplification, the outside can be the loudest voice in the room.

4.Print isn’t dead

Almost everyone recognizes the power of a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal. It screams credibility. It whispers big budget. And that’s exactly the point.

Gong didn’t run a national campaign. They ran a clever one. By purchasing the West Coast edition (the least expensive option), they got the Wall Street Journal masthead without the Wall Street-sized price tag. And because the paper itself doesn’t scream “regional edition,” no one was the wiser.

From there, the play was all about amplification. Ledergor had employees snap photos of the ad over morning coffee and share it on LinkedIn, asking, “Did you see our ad in the Journal today?”

💡 Key takeaway: A full-page print ad isn’t about newsstand reach, it’s about narrative. Use the medium for credibility, then turn it into content that earns more attention online.

5.When Steph Curry hits a record-breaking shot… over your logo

No budget for prime-time sponsorship? Try being in the right place at the right quarter.

During the NBA game when Steph Curry broke the all-time three-point record, millions of fans watched him sink the shot, right over the "Gong" logo on the court.

Except Gong didn’t actually sponsor the court. Ledergor was offered a chance to test a new regional digital overlay program from a friend at NBC. It only aired locally, and the cost was just $5,000 for three quarters (plus a free fourth one). That fourth quarter? The exact moment Curry made history.

The clip was tweeted by the Warriors, broadcast live and replayed endlessly. Gong’s logo was (virtually) in the background of sports history.

This was less than most companies spend on an eBook. And we got Steph Curry breaking records over our logo.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

💡Key takeaway: Big moments don’t always come from big budgets. They come from saying yes to small bets with big upside.

6.The Super Bowl ad that didn’t cost $7 million

In 2021, Gong aired its first-ever Super Bowl commercial. But this wasn’t a national, $7M spot. It was a highly strategic regional buy in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Gong’s core tech audience lives, works and watches the game.

After hearing about Gong’s recent funding, a CBS contact pitched Udi Ledergor on the idea of going regional. The result was a polished Super Bowl ad aired in a major tech hub for a fraction of the price and sales calls with prospects saying, “I saw your Super Bowl commercial. Realized you were this big deal now, and finally reached out.”

💡Key takeaway: You don’t need a national audience. You need the right audience. Focus your spend, then blow up the impact with amplification and intent.

Make room for crazy ideas marketing experiments

Ledergor closed his talk with one last lesson: If you don’t budget for bold ideas, don’t be surprised when you can’t act on them.

After seeing Gong’s splashy-but-surgical campaigns, it’s easy to ask where the money came from. Ledergor’s answer is to plan for the unknown.

You can’t predict the opportunity—but you can predict that there will be one. Budget for it.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

Every year during budget season, he sets aside 5–10% of his program spend for what he once called “Udi’s Crazy Ideas.” A teammate later suggested rebranding it to something more CFO-friendly: Marketing Experiments. The name stuck, and so did the mindset.

This budget line allows for quick “yeses” when unexpected opportunities arise (like the Warriors court overlay) and future-proofs the team against channel fatigue.

Minimizing the committee effect

Standout ideas rarely come from compromise. They come from conviction. When Gong reimagined its visual identity, Ledergor and the CEO made the decisions, not a panel of stakeholders. The result? Bold colors. Bruno the Bulldog. And a lot of attention.

When it comes to creativity, the more cooks in the kitchen, the blander the soup. We all want buy-in, but trying to please everyone almost always guarantees you’ll excite no one.

Ledergor said it’s critical to define roles clearly in the process and keep the decision-making circle tight. He recommended frameworks like RAPID and RACI to help people understand who is providing input and who gets to stamp “approved.”

Make sure that the decision-making roles are clear to everyone, so that people know, okay, I'm being asked for input, but I'm not actually the approver or decision maker, so that's going to help you keep your creative edge and make bold decisions.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

You don’t need a Super Bowl budget to build a Super Bowl brand

Over and over, Ledergor and the Gong team have shown that smart creativity beats big spend. From $500 billboards to regional TV hacks, each campaign in this list has one thing in common. It makes the company feel bigger than it is.

Ledergor called this the “punch above your weight formula”:

1. Pick an offline medium. Look for mediums typically associated with large advertisers like billboards, print, or even the Super Bowl.
2. Buy a small version of it. Print and television offer regional versions at a fraction of the cost.
3. Get creative with the medium. Don’t be boring. Do what others aren’t doing.
4. Photograph your campaign. Like the Times Square billboard example, 30 seconds in person can be months when you capture it right.
5. Share on your company’s social. It’s not who’s seeing it live. It’s who’s seeing it on your channels.
6. Activate employees and customers. These are your secret weapons to get your brand campaign in front of the right people.

Set aside the best practices, which, in reality, are boring practices. They will only get you ordinary results. Instead, go to creative, courageous marketing, which means having a bold, unique point of view, that is you that is not a death by committee, that is not playing it safe. Be courageous. That's how you succeed in marketing.

Udi LedergorChief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong

The real value isn’t in the placement or budget. It’s in the content you spin from it. If brand is about perception, then these plays are masterclasses in creating it.

Creativity is your real currency

Marketing budgets will fluctuate, approval chains will grow and "best practices" will continue to multiply. But none of that should keep a bold idea from breaking through. As Udi Ledergor’s playbook shows, constraints aren’t the enemy—they're the creative edge.

From bulldogs on login screens to regional Super Bowl ads, the secret isn’t in how much you spend. It’s in how intentionally and creatively you spend it. A small budget, paired with a big point of view, can do more than blend in—it can define a brand.

So go ahead. Wrap a car. Hack a conference. Paint your brand in pinks and purples. Just don’t play it safe. The budget-friendly path to brand greatness is paved with experiments, amplification, and the audacity to stand out.

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