Gareth Helm has had a stellar career in marketing, including roles at some of the world's biggest brands. Most recently he was Chief Marketing Officer for McDonalds, and then Chief Marketing Officer at Homeserve. His career though has included roles with Innocent Drinks, Zoopla, Nestle and Unilever among others. Wow!

Gareth is now a non-executive director and provides career development and strategic advice through a project called Sideminds. He has also found time to write an award-winning book - The Marketing Leader's Code.

We chat with Gareth about his career path, navigating huge changes in the digital landscape, and his advice for listeners on how to climb the career ladder.

You can connect with Gareth on LinkedIn here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thehelm/

As always, you can also reach us at [email protected] and [email protected].

Louis Havriliuc has created an amazing digital marketing simulation tool called Simbound.  If you want to find out how to undertake an effective digital marketing campaign, Simbound is a great way to learn.  The online platform allows learners to create a range of digital marketing tools and experiment with different techniques to understand their effectiveness.  

We discuss the aims and purpose of Simbound with Louis, and his plans to keep developing the tool to consider aspects such as ESG and the role of AI.

You can connect with Louis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisdoruhavriliuc/ 

You can also find out more about Simbound on the website: https://www.simbound.com

Jenny Novitzky makes social media content for some of the UK's top TV shows. Her work as a senior digital producer has included content for The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Sewing Bee, The Great Pottery Throw Down and The Piano.  In fact, Jenny has appeared on more series of Bake Off than Mary Berry, Mel and Sue!  The chances are, many of you have seen and engaged with Jenny's content.

We chat to Jenny about the importance of adjusting content to different platforms, second screen viewing, and the chaos internet among other topics!

You can connect with Jenny on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-novitzky-b4952b2b/

You can also find out more about her work on her website: https://www.jennynovitzky.co.uk/

We chat with Jon Payne, an entrepreneur in the world of digital marketing.  Jon wears various hats, including being the founder of the successful Bristol agency Noisy Little Monkey, a RevOps freelance consultant, the former host of the popular Digital Gaggle events, and now one of the driving forces behind Building Brands.  Jon shares some of the lessons he's learned over the years, as well as discussing the origin and growth of Building Brands.  He also tells us what RevOps is!

You can connect with Jon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrjonpayne/

And visit Building Brands here: https://www.building-brands.co.uk/  

You can contact Hanne at [email protected] and Tom at [email protected] 

We chat with Stephen Hobbs, an expert in digital storytelling.  Stephen is a respected and experienced marketer who has worked with many household brands including Google, Volvo and O2.  We discuss the importance of content and storytelling in the age of AI.  Stephen tells us that his initial career as a journalist gives him a slightly different perspective on the world of marketing.

You can connect with Stephen here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shobbsy/

We discuss a couple of related pieces of academic research:

Sung, E., Han, D. I. D., Choi, Y. K., Gillespie, B., Couperus, A., & Koppert, M. (2023). Augmented digital human vs. human agents in storytelling marketing: Exploratory electroencephalography and experimental studies. Psychology & Marketing, 40(11), 2428-2446.

Aicha, A. B., & Bouzaabia, R. (2023). The effects of video storytelling advertising on consumers’ online reactions on Facebook: a cross cultural study. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 26(3), 247-268.

You can contact Hanne at [email protected] and Tom at [email protected] 

We chat with Google Analytics expert Jill Quick about the importance of collecting and analysing the right data.  Jill tells us why it marketers should take a strategic approach to measurement, and why she called her business The Coloring In Department.

You can connect with Jill here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillquick01/

You will also find plenty of further resources on Jill's website: https://www.thecoloringindepartment.com/

Jill also refers to a free online GA4 course on Wix Studio Academy: https://www.wix.com/studio/academy/courses/google-analytics-4

She also refers to a good book on analytics: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lean-Analytics-Better-Startup-Faster/dp/1098168186/

We discuss a couple of related pieces of academic research:

Many people don't use Google Analytics to its full extent: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3578503.3583601

Need to map analytics to the consumer journey: https://doi.org/10.1057%2Fs41270-020-00098-0

You can contact Hanne at [email protected] and Tom at [email protected] 

In this episode, recorded in the Bristol Business School studio, we speak to five of the presenters from the Building Brands Conference in Bristol.

Each guest gave a quick summary of the main points from their presentations, as well as telling us a little bit about what their work in digital marketing involves. Our guests are (in order of appearance):
1. Heather Murray, AI for Non-Techies: Why AI doesn't need to be daunting
2. Harry Cobbold, Unfold: The importance of user-experience
3. Maret Reutelingsperger, Mobe Digital: The link between email and search results
4. Joe Wright, Ambitious PR: Protecting your online reputation
5. Harriet Barter and Owen Prior, Launch: AI and PPC advertising

To find out more about Building Brands, including the next event in Exeter on 7th November, go to https://www.building-brands.co.uk/ 

If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe!

This is a great discussion with Vasia Apostolaki, an expert in social media advertising. Vasia is an account director at dentsu international in London, with particular experience working with luxury brands.

We discuss why social media advertising is so effective, ethical issues, and areas for future development.

As usual we also discuss some interesting academic research in this area.

You can connect with Vasia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apostolaki/

Please also share and subscribe to the podcast, and let us know your feedback at [email protected] and [email protected] 

We sit down with digital marketing consultant, James Vincent, to discuss his expertise in artificial intelligence (AI).  James is also a digital marketing lecturer and a PhD student studying the use of artificial intelligence in marketing.

James refers to some AI tools that he is currently working with, as well as reflecting on some of the points from his recent TedX Talk about ethics and AI.

As always, Hanne and I also discuss some of the latest research relating to this week's topic - AI and marketing.

You can reach James via LinkedIn and find out more about his consultancy, Hot Source Creative, here: https://www.hotsourcecreative.com/. 

Please also share and subscribe to the podcast, and let us know your feedback at [email protected] and [email protected] 

As always, Hanne and I discuss relevant academic research that caught our attention – this time research looking at how different demographic groups use search engines.  

 
We then chat to Luke Whitaker, Senior SEO Consultant at Organic, about search engine optimisation (SEO).  Luke tells us about his passion for educating people about SEO.  We also discuss recent changes to the Google algorithm, his advice for smaller businesses trying to attract traffic on search engines, and tools for understanding user behaviour.

We also discuss the role of generative AI in SEO, and whether TikTok is a search engine…

To contact Luke, you can email him ([email protected]) or find him on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-whitaker-886948b4/ 

You can also subscribe to Luke's podcast Making Everyone A Little Bit SEO here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1b5mAiXiTIZhIIKghR9hbh