Nick Petroski left Wall Street to found Promethean Research: an agency that analyses trends and strategies within the agency world, armed with data from thousands of digital agencies. Today, he helps agencies make smarter, more informed choices. We discuss persistent scope creep, the real impact of AI and why ‘scaling’ is a toxic term.

In sports marketing, it’s always go time. Clients are demanding, the workday does not end at five o’clock and everything is based on data. You need a team that instinctively knows where the ball is headed, like a true Johan Cruijff. Enter Sharon Bennett, Head of Client Services & Women’s Sport Lead at WePlay. She works for some of the world’s biggest sports brands – PSG, AC Milan, the UFC and ESPN – and tells us about the ins and outs of the profession. ‘The sports marketing playbook has not been written yet.’

Business development for agencies has changed dramatically. CMOs no longer take meetings on a whim. Your website is your shop window. And good work is no longer a ticket to new clients. Duncan Wood (Ingenuity, Mad//Fest) shares what agencies should do today to get on the radar – and to stay there: sharper propositions, better casting, and long-term thinking. ‘I think agencies need to wake up a little bit.’

Creating ads that people actually want to see is a challenge in itself. But creating viral ads that get shared in group chats? That’s a whole different ballgame. Yet, that’s just a regular day at Studio B. The British creator-led agency was founded by YouTuber Brandon B, who, with his 16M followers, knows a thing or two about going viral. His Business Development Director Dean Joffe tells us how to build a business with the motto ‘Entertainment first, sales second’.

What does an agency need to stay financially healthy and grow? Mark Probert is managing partner at Cactus, where he helps agencies scale healthily, and founder of Agencynomics, the largest free peer-supported network of agency owners in the UK. Agencynomics is also a book, featuring 40 techniques for successfully scaling up to a team of 50. With Cactus and Agencynomics, Mark and his colleagues have already supported around 20,000 agencies. In other words, this guy knows what he’s talking about.

Want to sell your agency? You can. But ask yourself the right questions first, and above all, don't sell to a holding company, says Michael Farmer. Holding companies are obsessed with cost reduction, which leads to erosion of creative talent and ultimately the value of the agency itself. Find out in this episode how agencies can remain successfully independent, and why private equity is sometimes a better option than listed holding companies.

Gen Z. Who are they? What drives them? And what do they want from your agency? At 24, Carolyn McMurray is the boss of Word Tonic, a community of 10,000+ Gen-Z copywriters and creatives. For its 2,000 paying members, Word Tonic also organises masterclasses and challenges with big brands like Puma, Bumble, Lego and Spotify. Carolyn is the perfect person to answer a big question: how can agencies best work with and for Gen Z?

In the creative hub of South Africa, Pepe Marais is catalyst. With Joe Public, he has won many local and international awards, and the advertising and communications group is one of the largest on the continent. What drives Pepe? Creative excellence, a hunger for knowledge, and a positive attitude – unless it's about that awful ‘billable hour’ or ‘the digital tsunami of cr*ppy advertising’. Still, he puts positive spin on that as well. “Globally, there's a bit of darkness in creativity that's maybe needed for us to start refocusing on what we bring to the world.”

‘The anti-bullshit copywriter with massive fingers’ is perhaps the most apt meta description ever for Dave “The Word Man” Harland, founder of boutique agency Copy Or Die. You may know him from his playful LinkedIn posts taking on online scammers and AI gurus, gathering an audience of 95,000 followers. His clients know him as a freelance B2B and agency copywriter, specialising in transforming corporate lingo into words people really want to read. We interviewed him about humour, freelance work vs agency work, and getting so good at your craft that your work speaks for itself.

Two gentlemen from the world of advertising for the price of one: that's what you get in this episode. Steve Harrison opens up about Howard Luck Gossage, a 1960s adman who – like Steve himself – was not averse to a dash of controversy. The key lesson? Advertising is show business. “It's our job to entertain.”

Reading tip if you want to dive into the life and work of Howard Gossage: Check out Steve's latest book ‘The Howard Gossage Show: And what it can teach you about advertising, fun, fame, and manipulating the media’.