Marketing Room 101

In this episode, host Ben Norman is joined in Marketing Room 101 by his first ever international guest. All the way from the USA, Christina Garnett is a fractional Chief Customer Officer and founder of Pocket CCO, who helps businesses to understand their customers better, to make them happier and to retain them for longer.

Championing collaborative business culture and a customer-centric approach, Christina makes the case for destroying silos (in business, not agriculture) and creating a better culture for teams, as well as highlighting the power of a whole team aligned around the customer.

She also uses a perfect Marvel related analogy and struggles to understand beans on toast.

Find out more at Pocket CCO

In this episode, host Ben Norman is joined in Marketing Room 101 by Gareth Turner, a strategic consultant with almost 25 years experience running marketing for household names like Weetabix, John Smith’s and Lurpak, who founded Leeds-based consultancy Big Black Door in 2013.

Gareth makes the case for putting strategy before tactics when planning brand activity, not jumping straight to specialisms and separating the creative idea from the execution. He also campaigns to end modern marketing slavery and laments a wonky floor.

Find out more about Gareth here - ⁠bigblackdoor.com

In this episode, host Ben Norman is joined in Marketing Room 101 by Chris Norton & Will Ockenden, co-owners and founders of Prohibition, the award-winning PR and social media agency they set-up in Leeds in 2012, who have worked together for almost 20 years.

Chris and Will make the case for a more authentic, human approach, be it in PR, social or influencer marketing, and why we need to do something about fake followers, and influencers backed by bots.

Chris also has a rant about agency pitching, Will craves some company and Ben likes George Clooney.

Find out more about Prohibition PR here and listen to Embracing Marketing Mistakes podcast here.

In this episode, host Ben Norman is joined in Marketing Room 101 by brand and tone-of-voice consultant Vikki Ross, who has spent over two decades working with some of the world’s most well-known brands, like Virgin Media, Sky, and Sony Music.

As a creative copywriter, she has helped these brands tell their stories, develop their voice, sell more stuff and stick in the mind.

On top of her day job, Vikki is also the woman behind #CopywritersUnite, which brings copywriters around the world together to support, motivate and celebrate each other. Starting in London in 2012, events now take place across the world, from Amsterdam to Berlin, New York to Sydney.

Vikki outlines her case for human creativity and why we need to unplug AI for copywriting, she raises a red flag to dishonourable people, and highlights the danger of distraction.

In this episode Ben Norman is joined in Marketing Room 101 by Taylors of Harrogate Strategy and Innovation Director, Dom Dwight.

In recent years, along with his team, Dom has been responsible for some of the most effective, creative and entertaining advertising in the UK, most famously taking Yorkshire Tea to the category top spot whilst bagging almost every effectiveness award along the way.

In this conversation at Taylor's Harrogate HQ, Dom makes the case for the death of dullness, and the return of the sort of advertising that inspired him to get into the industry in the first place, including those soundtracks that inspire a good old singalong.

Ben Norman opens the door to Marketing Room 101 for the first time. In this episode, he is joined by Paul Feldwick, an icon of British advertising with a career spanning 6 decades.

As a strategist and planner Paul worked at London agency BMP for over 30 years, and led global strategy and training following the merger with DDB. Since leaving, he has written Anatomy of humbug and Why does the pedlar sing? (which Rory Sutherland described as ‘possibly the book I would most highly recommend to anyone in marketing.’ )

In this episode Paul and Ben talk about the power of showmanship, and why marketers need to entertain. Paul makes banishes the rotten brand onion and champions looking back at brand history, not just forward at the next big thing.

If you haven't already, get hold of his books here...

http://paulfeldwick.com/books/the-anatomy-of-humbug/

http://paulfeldwick.com/books/why-does-the-pedlar-sing/