One of New Zealand's most prolific marketing leaders, Matt Bain, joined us on the Love This Podcast.

This episode stands at the intersection of business, leadership and human psychology. We discussed how his experience leading European operations at AKQA shaped him for the role at Spark, how to meet and exceed customer expectations across every touch point, the role of data and personalisation at scale in the modern marketing landscape, and how agile processes are leading to better work and creative culture for NZ's leading telco.

For those that are into bio hacking, we were also shocked by Matt's ambition to live to 120, which he then brought back to the reality curve by explaining why and how he's determined to make that happen.

Caitlin is the EMEA Regional Director for Facebook Creative Shop. Heading up a multi-award winning team of creative directors, planners, producers and technologists who partner with brands big and small to create ground breaking ideas across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger platforms.

In this episode, we talked more about the era of creation for both brands and individuals, why brand activism and purpose is necessary, how to create more distinctive, relevant and meaningful communications, and some tips from her experience both agency side and now at Facebook.

Cool fact: Caitlin started her own coffee shop - Lantana Cafés - to bring a slice of Melbourne café culture to London. We go into more detail about balancing the running of a business with her day job and family, and the learnings she's taken from this that she now applies to every area of life.

We were delighted, and somewhat overwhelmed, to welcome the legendary Sarah Watson onto the Love This Podcast.

From the snow-trodden offices of BBH New York, Sarah plunged into several topics that will pique the curiosity of marketers around the world. The role of planning in an agency today and why it’s still fundamental to making the work better. Marketing to mothers, our industry’s hiring decisions and defining customer archetypes. The important of a diverse team and why clients should push back on agency’s that don’t represent their customers. How and why we should use a combination of data and our instincts to evaluate the work. Tensions of every kind. There was even one point where we may have stepped out of the sound room, into the therapy room – see if you can spot it.

Building her career and the careers of those around her at two of the most reputable agencies in the world (DDB and BBH), Sarah’s wisdom and 50,000ft viewpoint on the world is one that should 100% be heard, and then shared.

Just some text hanging out whilst you read our podcast description. Jeez, intros are awkward.

Jordan Doucette is a mind blowingly talent creative human that Beth and Joe had a chat with in December 2019. After recently taking on the CCO role at Leo Burnett Chicago, we remembered some fond times from her journey to getting there, getting honest about her experience en route.

Other key points of parler were how to create, present and sign off on great work, the importance and relevance of awards shows (and initiatives like Cannes' See It Be It), why open mindedness and nimbleness are two character traits that Jordan massively values, and why we (as an industry) should leave more room for the weird.

Description notes can be a form of gratitude, right? A ginormous thank you to Jordan for sharing her story with us, and now you.

Benefit Cosmetics have been creating world class digital experiences since digital became trendy.

The marketer behind a lot of the brand's success since 2013, Toto Haba, joined us on this episode of the Love This Podcast to talk a little more about his background, how Benefit Cosmetics have continued to grow their business through distinctive products, services & communications, how technology is contributing positively to the total brand experience (especially through digital touchpoints), the role of a global marketer and investigating cultural nuances.

Having worked on both the agency and client side, Toto has a rare perspective on the strengths and direction of each. A geek at heart, Toto revels in the technical details of everything and is fascinated with making things easy to understand.

Have you considered starting your own agency? Or do you currently run your own agency? How did you find clients and become profitable? How did you create an agency positioning that's so damn unique, people come to you? And how do you cut through the noise in a clustered city like New York?

Whether you're in your first few years in the advertising industry, or have decades of experience, the courage to do your own thing can be frightening.

We were delighted to talk to Lisa Clunie & Jaime Robinson, Co-Founders at JOAN Creative, about all the challenges and benefits of starting your own agency. We also got under the skin of practical leadership tips and working styles, where they see the advertising/marketing industry heading, and why they're on a mission to make legendary brands modern and modern brands legendary.

This is one for the brand & agency marketers and the thousands of freelancers - make sure to subscribe for future episodes.

Transferwise is one of the world's leading online money transfer services. Founded in 2011, TransferWise is valued today at $3.5 billion. For a company that's just 8 years old, that's some serious growth.

Tech-driven marketer Nick Lembo joined us on the podcast to talk more about how he and his team are driving growth across the entire APAC region.

This episode leans into the importance of purpose for a brand, how radical transparency is at the forefront of everything that the company does, why agile ways of working with a multidisciplinary team are integral to the success of Transferwise, and how data informs every single customer touchpoint.

Whilst we recommend this recording to anyone in the marketing industry, those in the financial services sector, or those with a genuine eye for the value of creative thinking beyond communications, will value this one the most.

Beth and Joe were delighted to welcome industry legend Brent Smart onto the Love This Podcast.

With a wealth of experience on the agency side of the fence (Saatchi & Saatchi, Colenso BBDO, BBDO San Fran, M&C Saatchi), Brent shifted over to IAG in Australia back in 2017. A creative leader, he believes that a creative culture on the inside leads to more creative content on the outside, ultimately elevating brands out of their categories and into culture.

And whilst we did dive deep into marketing strategy and practical lessons for marketers, we took some time to share tips for buying great work, to explain why collaboration and clear communication are so important to a client/agency relationship, and to pontificate over how the industry is evolving at such an exciting pace.

One of the most quotable and valuable episodes we've recorded to date, we recommend that you grab a pencil and paper - this could be the episode that turns your latest creative thought into action.

Caroline Rainsford is the Country Director at Google New Zealand.

In this episode, we discussed how Google are helping businesses transform and grow in the digital age, how Google's purpose shows up in the world across every touchpoint, her fascination with and desire to do good in the education sector, and practical tips to those looking to get into the industry or work at Google.

Anselmo Ramos is an ad nerd. And proud.

He and his team have the guts to make stuff that's never been done before.

In this episode, Anselmo talks about his experience working on the agency side and founding two agencies, why obsessing over the work helps both agency and client marketers, why he likes to feel uncomfortable all the time, and the kind of clients he likes to work with and how they discover him.

Quote of the episode: "If my aunt, a retired teacher in Brazil, sees an ad and doesn't use emoji's, the ad isn't good enough."