Welcome to the first episode of Season Two, Signals & Sparks! Our 16th guest is the brilliant Paul Evans, founder of the positioning company, version.

Paul is on a mission to transform positioning from a static, 40-year-old marketing concept into a dynamic, data-driven capability fit for the intelligence era.

In this episode, we explore:

The Signal in the Noise

Paul shares two fascinating signals he’s picked up on, framed as stories of "love and hate":

1. Hate: The recent lawsuits filed against Google by Pubmatic and Magnite. Paul highlights the incredibly smart positioning by Pubmatic, which framed its legal action around industry transparency and fairness, rather than just lost revenue.
2. Love: The partnership between Amazon and Netflix. Paul sees this as a powerful signal of Amazon's meteoric rise as a DSP, creating much-needed competition for giants like The Trade Desk and proving that competition is one of the strongest drivers of innovation.

Connecting the Dots

We dive into Paul's journey and his process for turning signals into sparks:

1. He discusses his transition from roles at Vodafone and as a fractional CMO to founding his own company, version, to address a desire to build something bigger than himself.
2. Paul explains his vision for "positioning engineering"—a rigorous, data-driven, and adaptive approach that treats a company's market position like software, capable of being updated in response to market changes.
3. He argues that positioning is the critical, often undervalued, catalyst that translates business strategy into a successful go-to-market plan.

High Five

We finish with a quick-fire round:

1. Your Hero: Victoria Asha from Ginger May, for her energy, expertise, and approach to problem-solving.
2. Your Best Decision: Starting his company, V2RSION, to transform the capability of positioning.
3. Your Worst Decision: Leaving Microsoft and the Xbox team, a decision made more with emotion than rationale.
4. Funniest Moment: Redefining "funniest" as "fun," he points to the physical challenges he undertakes, from Media Fight Night to his upcoming 250km Marathon des Sables.
5. A Bright Spark: He recommends Lucia Mastromauro, Global VP at Deliveroo, as a future guest, praising her intelligence, energy, and problem-solving skills.
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