Champagne Strategy

Brain Hurt Scale = 2/10. Dealing with creative fills up a good chunk of any marketing department's time. But do you really have a binary choice between in-house vs agency? Or is there a better way?

We interview co-founder of Creatively Squared, Scott Thomas to talk about the awkward creative production transition many companies are faced with. From one where a high-priced TVC sits at the core of the campaign. To the modern reality that embraces media fragmentation and takes advantage at scale.

If you don't learn something, you haven't been listening.

Brain Hurt Scale = 6/10 - full episode featuring San Redfern from Canva who details how the company transitioned from a digital marketing attribution mindset into something far more world-leading and sophisticated.

Where part 1 of the Digital Marketing Apocalypse series focused on the technical and legal changes that have occurred over time.

And part 2 uncovered the impact this has had on company's marketing.

Part 3 gives us a concrete example of how to successfully transition from the old way of measurement to the new way. Providing a great example of how teams should be measuring and operating. Including all the politics and subtle considerations you need to be aware of along the way.

So if you're thinking of also making the switch from staring at digital marketing dashboards and spreadsheets....have a listen

Brain Hurt Scale = 5/10. Following on from part 1, we explore a paper that studied thousands of online retailers between 2020 and 2022. The findings from this study have massive implications on the digital marketing industry, decision-makers, executives and investors.

They analyzed 100's of billions of digital marketing expenditure and looked at how this affected customer acquisition and growth. Finding that not only have costs increased on average but firms who targeted certain customers and used particular channels realized the greatest drops in yield.

So why are so few in the industry talking about something so momentous? There are a few reasons for that which we discuss near the end.

Brain Hurt Scale = 8/10. Why is Apple all about privacy all of a sudden? Why is it so vogue for governments around the world to legislate user data protections?

Take a trip back in time all the way through to the present to understand where it all started and where it's going. From the birth of Google Analytics, the cookie, UTMs through to Meta and Google ads, conversion columns and everything else in between.

Why do we no longer hear the story about the stay-at-home mom who found online retailing success by mastering Facebook or Instagram?

Why was there a mobile app boom that's since fizzled out?

In the second half we then talk about the implications of the privacy crackdown. What this means for the industry supply chain and all the participants. Especially digital marketing platforms like Google, Meta and programmatic display. Is everyone operating in time that no longer exists and in denial? Why don't they want to change?

Find out answers to all these questions by pressing play

Brain Hurt Scale = 5/10. Want a crash course in AI without the sale pitch? Listen to people who have actually used it for years without the buzzword consulting BS getting in the way.

Listen to this episode and get the perfect grounding in what you need to know. The terms you need to know. The history you need to understand in order to be confident talking about it even if you haven't used it very much.

How did it start?

Where did this new wave come from?

What's an LLM?

What's a diffusion model?

What are the different brands?

Is it better than a human?

How do you prompt it properly to get results that are actually useful?

All these questions answered and more.

This summary was even written by AI

Brain Hurt Scale - 2/10 - The first of a world-wide mini-series exposing true life stories behind the number 1 impediment to workplace success - politics.

Mike Harris is an accomplished former executive and consultant with deep personal skills in consulting, sales, marketing, operations and product.

He gives us three examples from a storied career. The first of which is 30mins about a successful turnaround at Phillips.

On the surface all three stories are about political conflict and resolution. But also cover common constraints you'll frequently encounter in the workplace: interdepartmental cooperation, incentive dynamics, culture, capability, alignment and executive communication.

But they're also just great examples of basic strategy hygiene: diagnosis, problem identification, objectives and action. A skill Mike says has been lost in the face of a few modern trends that are getting in the way. Even though his first story is from the 90's, the takeaways are perhaps even more relevant today than they've ever been.

So no matter what sized business or what position you're in, I'd be very surprised if you don't learn something very valuable by listening to this series of wisdom-laden episodes.

Especially if you want to know how to deal with people to get what you need done

Let the games begin!

Brain Hurt Scale = 4/10. Why does ChatGPT provide me with terrible responses. Why does DALL-E give me an image that's terrible?

Learning how to brief creatives is an art form. After all, their job is to create artwork so this probably shouldn't come as a surprise. But if you've never created something yourself, you'll be oblivious as to how it all goes down.

That mismatched perspective can all be fixed by listening to this episode where Brett Friedman goes through start-to-finish the entire process that goes on behind closed doors when you hire an agency.

So if you want to be left to your own devices fumbling around using Canva or Photoshop or dealing with Upwork freelancers that's fine.

Or if you're an AI creative guru who is adept at prompting the most sophisticated technology on the planet but can't get something back you like...

This is the episode you need to listen to.

Now

Brain Hurt Scale = 6/10. Republished with permission of an interview John James did with Cognism's Jamie Skeels on The Loop podcast.

The Brandingmag articles caused quite a stir and Jamie was keen to dig a little deeper into some of the issues it raised for practitioners.

How do we target people to build brand and sales at the same time?

Which channels should we use?

How do we sell these campaigns (or not) to senior directors and executives?

What are the red flags or reasons not to invest in a brand campaign?

Is John the antichrist when it comes to brand advertising?

All important questions that are answered in this guest interview.

Nice one gov-ner!

Brain Hurt Scale = 3/10. A live recording of that time I was invited by James Pember to speak at the inaugural SXSW Sydney 2023. Note: this is a repost with permission of an episode of the Own The Moment podcast by Komo Technologies.

James interviews me on-stage in front of 70+people and I try to answer a series of questions completely impromptu.

James is a product leader and host of a podcast run by martech firm Komo Technologies. They have a podcast called 'Own The Moment'.

Reposting here because I think the questions and answers will be of interest to you all.

There were many things I wish I had said or rephrased or prepared for, but I suppose that's the nature of live interviews.

What do you think?

Brain Hurt Scale = 5/10. No one in B2B buys based on value.

If you want your career to be occupied with creating ads, rely on correlation, work status and manipulate company politics to get ahead. Nothing wrong with that, it's fine. Go for it. You will do well.

But if you actually want to affect revenue and profit, this is an episode you can't miss.

Dale and John reveal some of the dirty secrets that lie hidden deep within the industry. Use this rare information to get ahead as a challenger brand and succeed in the marketplace if you want to.

Learn the history of Salesforce's success. The one that doesn't get talked about.

Learn why some of these academic 'laws' of marketing actually work or don't work in real life.

Why should you be really skeptical about the propositions ABM vendors and demand-gen platforms sprout?

What lies do marketing heads and vendors tell you which you should actually ignore?

Start listening to get head.

Or be left behind.