Marketing Effectiveness Unplugged

As Marketing Professor, and business Columnist of the year and successful entrepreneur founding the Mini MBA programme, Mark Ritson has spent his whole career on the marketing effectiveness frontline.In this candid episode we hear: What real marketing strategy looks like in 3 words Why simplicity is everything Why most brands get positioning wrong How advertising is overrated How brand mangers become blind to their brands The key to building price power, and why its more important than sales The limitations to Ehrenberg Bass and why he rates Kantar BrandZ’s model Why he writes his Marketing Week columns in an hour – and why he can’t stop The one thing marketers should focus on to increase impact

Becky Verano, Reckitt Benckiser’s Global VP of Marketing & Capability is a bona fide effectiveness trailblazer.With hard-won experience of how tech and GenAI are now transformational insight & effectiveness catalysts, she’s set up the RB Marketing Excellence Academy and done some on the powerful marketing in the world with Vanish ‘Me, My Autism & I’ and Nurofen ‘Pain Gap’ winning an IPA Effectiveness Award, 2 x 2024 UK Effies and 5 Cannes Lions.In this episode discover: The one question that helps tackle the toughest challenges Her top tip for successfully delivering a creative transformation The biggest mistake brands make now, and how to avoid it The big effectiveness unlocks for mastering ‘Full funnel’ marketing Why system 1 emotion isn’t enough for an idea to succeed Why not all brands should have a ‘fight’ or purpose How GenAI-enabled creators are the next generation of agency What she learnt as a leader during her time on Dettol during the COVID pandemic Her legacy

M&S is one of the UK’s most iconic retail brands, but one that had lost its way over the past decade. Hot on the heels of its 2024 Kantar BrandZ Brand of the Year win, +1 million new customers, profits +17.2%, food sales +8.1% and share price +45%, this is the story of its marketing-inspired turnaround from one of its key architects, Marketing Director Sharry CramondHear:What she did on the first day in the job How one sentence can change everything: ‘Only M&S…’The 3 keys to modernising M&SHow consistency is a creative superpower Why ‘product, product, product’ stories are the secret sauce to building differentiation  How they use Tik Tok differently to create competitive advantage Why positive attitude trumps talent 

The British Army’s ‘Be the Best’ recruitment campaign is a lightning rod for cultural commentary and one of the longest-running and & most effective around, increasing registration +57% and growing applications by +120%. Winner IPA Effectiveness, APG Gold and UK Effie 2024.  In this episode CMO Naomi Walter and Accenture Song’s Head of Strategy Amy Gilmore lift the lid on what it takes to consistently raise the bar and evolve, including:The ‘reset’ moment that shock the foundations of the agency  Why there’s nothing more powerful than a clear brief Get your intel: using deep ethnographic and qualitative research   Spotting ‘aha’ strategic and creative breakthrough moments What a full-funnel idea looks like in practice Doing your reconnaissance: making senior stakeholders participants in the process How to balance the long and short every single day  Why partnership is a team’s superpower