Digital Download with Paul Sutton

The last 4 months have played havoc with us as individuals, both physically and mentally. In the marketing industry we’re having to create or adopt new business models, tactics that used to work no longer do, and in some cases we’ve lost our jobs. In the face of this, staying positive can be difficult.

In the current environment, resilience and adaptability are valuable character traits whether you’re a business owner, an employee, a freelancer or whether you’ve been made redundant. So how do we nurture this mindset when there’s so much uncertainty around?

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at how marketers can adopt a growth mindset, and at how positivity can lead to surprising but very rewarding successes. My special guest on this show is Isabella Venour, a marketing, mindset and NLP coach. Isabella worked for nine years in the public relations industry before switching careers, and is now focused on helping others develop during a very difficult time.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

It is estimated that 70% of people experience feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and of being a fraud at some time in their career. And in marketing, where it’s easy to compare yourself with others’ creativity and knowledge, incidence of imposter syndrome may well be a lot higher. I’m no different, and frequently look around at my peers in awe and think ‘I don’t deserve to be among these people’. 

At the current time, with revenues falling and redundancies on the rise, self-belief could be an important asset for agency owners wanting to embrace new business models, in-house marketers needing to adapt to new consumer behaviours, and for those looking for new positions.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at imposter syndrome in marketing. It addresses the role of fear and the pressure we put on ourselves when comparing ourselves and our work to others; why being self-aware and kind to yourself is so important; and why focusing on leaving a legacy can help beat imposter syndrome.

My special guest on this show is Tiffany DaSilva, digital marketer and founder of Flowjo.co. Tiffany speaks regularly at marketing events about her own experiences of imposter syndrome and how to overcome it.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

During 2019 the global ecommerce industry grew by 18% to almost $3.5 trillion. In 2020, with a worldwide rolling lockdown in place, online sales have rocketed further. Amazon’s groceries business has boomed, and in March it announced that it would hire an additional 100,000 staff to cope with demand.

At the same time, consumers have become increasingly accustomed to online ordering and click-and-collect services. This raises big questions over the future of bricks and mortar stores, many of which were already under serious pressure. It is difficult not to see this behaviour sticking within a significant proportion of the population when lockdown eventually ends.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at the future of ecommerce and online marketplaces, and at what brands can do to adapt to a future where online selling is becoming the predominant form of shopping for everything from food to furniture.

My special guest on this show is Matt Anderson, MD of marketplace agency Marketplace AMP.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, articles started to appear that predicted the end of influencer marketing and the death of ‘influence’. They were prompted by reports of content creators using their positions for privilege during COVID-19 and the fact that influencer jobs had dried up.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at the issue from both the influencer marketing side and the content creator side. It investigates what effect the current crisis has had on the industry, what changes we can expect to see in approach and content, the economic impact on influencers, and whether there is any future for the industry once the crisis has passed.

My special guests on this show are content creator, author and presenter Emily Leary (AKA A Mummy Too) and Scott Guthrie, influencer marketing consultant and expert.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Just a few short months ago, social networks were coming under intense fire for, among other things, data privacy, toxicity and their negative impact on mental health. The reputations of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were at an all-time low. But recently, things have changed.

Since the middle of March user behaviour has become more positive, and the likes of Facebook and Twitter have become more supportive places to hang out and connect with friends. So could COVID-19 actually provide somewhat of a reboot for social media? A lot could depend on how the social networks are seen to be helping the world over the next few months. It’s a golden opportunity to rebuild those ailing reputations.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at the evolution of social media both during and after the COVID-19 crisis. It investigates how the networks are handling misinformation, addresses the thorny issue of data privacy, looks at the current wave of innovation, and discusses where social media technology may go in the next couple of years and what brands should look out for in 2021.

My special guest on this show is Matt Navarra, well-known social media industry commentator and strategist. Matt was previously Director of Social at TheNextWeb after managing the government’s social media channels.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

After the dotcom crash of 2000, 9/11 in 2001 and the global financial crash of 2008, COVID-19 is the fourth major economic crisis in the working lives of many senior communications practitioners. But arguably unlike any of the crises that have come before it, the current situation has put the marketing communications industry on the verge of radical and lasting changes.

The levels of anxiety, everyone working remotely, the prevalence of video calls and the very human distraction of worrying about friends and family while trying to be professional are all new to the industry. But there are also positives, with people coming together more and being more compassionate and understanding. Change is being forced upon the industry.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at how the communications industry has evolved in the last twenty years, the current challenges that it faces, and the long-term future of the agencies and people working within it after the current crises ends.

My special guest on this show is Maja Pawinska Sims, EMEA Editor at PRovoke Media. Maja has two decades experience working within and writing about the PR industry, and has an unrivalled view across it from her current role.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

As marketing communications agencies and in-house teams struggle to get to grips with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, business continuity has leapt to the fore. 77% of PR firms around the world are expecting a loss of earnings as a result of the crisis, while national newspaper sales fell by 20% in the last two weeks of March.

The questions leaders and brands face today are around both short-term survival and long-term strategic planning, and how to reconcile the two.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast investigates the management challenges of remote working, the leadership challenges around the future of work, and the brand challenges of putting people before profit. It delves into the immediate task of how best to manage staff and what is currently expected of leadership, and also into the likely lasting effects of those outcomes on brand perception and success, and on leadership itself.

My special guests on this show are counselling and occupational psychologist Rob Stewart, and Rod Cartwright, deputy of the PRCA’s international Covid-19 task force and a strategic communications consultant.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Covid-19 has knocked the marketing communications industry for six. Projects and campaigns have been cancelled left, right and centre, leaving many in-house teams on pause and many agencies and freelancers with plummeting revenue.

Although it’s only a matter of three weeks since the economy collapsed, such has been the impact of the coronavirus that it now seems difficult to remember normal business life before it. But there was a time less than two months ago where the marketing world was just that; normal.

Today’s episode of the Digital Download podcast was recorded in the middle of February, before the World Health Organisation called Covid-19 a pandemic and long before we really took it seriously in the UK or the USA. It’s about being in business for five years, and about the lessons learned from that. It’s optimistic in tone, and it seems very at odds with the world now. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it’s a bad thing. But it certainly makes an interesting listen in the context of today.

My special guest on this show is Rich Leigh, founder of Radiocactive PR and the author of ‘Myths of PR’.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Use of private messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram have boomed in the last few years. As long ago as 2016 they were more popular than social networks, and with the recent announcement by WhatsApp that it now has 2 billion users, it’s very clear that they’re here for the long-term.

Businesses, and particularly marketers, have struggled to get to grips with messaging apps. Their very nature means that users view such apps as private spaces where they can chat to friends without the interruption of brands, while tracking activity and sharing behaviour is extremely difficult, if not impossible. And then there’s the fact that using WhatsApp for business is actually against the service’s own terms and conditions.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at the issues inherent in professional messaging and at where such services may go in future to enable the secure, trackable, private environment that organisations need in order to use them effectively.

My special guest on this show is Ashley Friedlein, CEO and founder of professional messaging service Guild, and the founder of Econsultancy.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

On 15th February UK TV presenter Caroline Flack took her own life, after years of being hounded by the tabloid media. Between September 2019 and her death, The Sun, The Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror published 120 articles about her, ranging from salacious gossip about her mental health, her relationships and her career, to vicious accusations.

Intense coverage of her life had dominated the celebrity columns and the front pages since Caroline was accused of assaulting her boyfriend in December 2019, making for a toxic environment that amounted to little more than victimisation and bullying by the media. As news broke of Caroline’s death, fingers were pointed firmly at the press, and especially The Sun. But the fact remains that the newspapers only print what people want to read.

This episode of the Digital Download podcast asks three fundamental questions. Does the media have a duty of care to the people it writes about? Are those who read the stories equally as responsible for their impact? And, where does the balance lie?

The special guests in this show are PR and Management Consultant and FuturePRoof founder Sarah Waddington, PR Consultant and PRFest founder Laura Sutherland, and Mark Mackintosh, Marketing Engagement Officer at Oxford Brookes University.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.