The Lunchtime Series

A new CEO can change the story. What changes the business is what happens next.

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and Craig Page-Lee examine leadership transitions across South Africa’s grocery retail sector and what they reveal about succession, commercial pressure and the relationship between brand promises and operational performance.

With leadership changes affecting several of the country’s major retailers, the conversation explores what incoming CEOs inherit: established cultures, customer expectations, investor scrutiny and teams looking for direction.

An appointment makes the headlines. Earning confidence takes longer.

Kevin and Craig discuss the transitions at Woolworths, SPAR, Pick n Pay and Boxer, alongside the role of leadership continuity at Shoprite and the competitive pressure surrounding Walmart’s expansion.

The discussion then turns to the first 100 days and the choices that can shape a leader’s tenure:

• Listen to the people on the shop floor

• Identify a small number of clear priorities

• Understand the team before reshaping it

• Build confidence through early operational wins

• Allow time for strategy and organisational changes to produce results

Drawing on Spencer Stuart’s succession research, Kevin and Craig explore the dynamics of internal appointments, first-time CEOs and the expectations placed on leaders entering demanding consumer businesses.

The conversation also examines how organisations communicate leadership changes.

Employees should hear the news from their organisation before reading it in a public announcement. Clear internal communication gives people context and helps them understand what a transition means for their work.

For marketing leaders, a new CEO also creates a need for alignment. CMOs must connect their measures and investment decisions with the incoming leader’s growth priorities and show how marketing contributes to business outcomes.

But even a well-loved brand cannot make up for consistently weak execution. In grocery retail, the promise has to hold up where customers experience it: in stores, through service and in the everyday reliability of the business.

The takeaway?

A successful leadership transition connects the boardroom, the brand and the shop floor. Lasting confidence comes from what the organisation delivers after the announcement.

#Leadership #RetailLeadership #CEOSuccession #SouthAfricanRetail #BusinessStrategy #ChangeManagement #BrandStrategy #MarketingLeadership #CMO #CustomerExperience #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Organisations are removing management layers in pursuit of speed, efficiency and simpler decision-making. But when a management role disappears, what happens to the work that person was doing?

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and Craig Page-Lee explore the great flattening: the global push to reduce hierarchy, widen teams and rethink how work gets done.

The trend is gathering momentum.

Kevin and Craig discuss a Korn Ferry survey in which 41% of organisations reported cutting management layers in the previous year, and explore the growing role AI is expected to play in reshaping organisational structures.

From Amazon and Google to Uber, Citigroup, Bayer and Block, major organisations are approaching restructuring in different ways. Their stated goals include faster decisions, greater employee ownership and less bureaucracy.

But fewer layers do not automatically mean less work.

The conversation examines the responsibilities that can fall through the gaps when management roles are removed:

• Translating decisions and strategy for teams

• Coaching and developing employees

• Resolving conflict and absorbing pressure

• Maintaining accountability and human connection

At the same time, the managers who remain are often responsible for larger teams. Kevin and Craig discuss Gallup findings showing average team sizes rising from 10.9 to 12.1 across more than 92,000 teams, and consider the effect wider spans can have on engagement and leadership capacity.

When senior leaders inherit more direct reports, time for strategy and people management can quickly come under pressure.

The episode also considers what flattening looks like in South Africa, where changes may happen gradually through unfilled vacancies and merged roles. Kevin and Craig discuss why local restructuring decisions need to account for business circumstances, consultation and South African employment requirements.

For agencies, the risks can reach beyond the internal structure. Removing management layers may increase the workload on managing directors while affecting client relationships and the development of junior staff.

So how can organisations flatten responsibly?

Kevin and Craig explore practical steps, including:

• Map the work before removing roles

• Set team sizes according to the nature of the work

• Assign coaching and people development explicitly

• Track the effects after restructuring

• Decide what work must stop when managers take on larger teams

• Build internal team structures and protect regular communication

The takeaway?

A flatter structure can only work when organisations are clear about where the work, decisions and responsibility for people will go.

#Leadership #Management #OrganisationalDesign #TheGreatFlattening #WorkplaceCulture #PeopleLeadership #Restructuring #EmployeeEngagement #ChangeManagement #SouthAfrica #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Managers are expected to support their teams, navigate change and keep people engaged. But what happens when the managers themselves are struggling?

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and Craig Page-Lee examine the mounting pressures on managers, drawing on Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace research and its implications for organisations and leaders.

The picture is concerning.

The episode discusses global employee engagement at 20%, its lowest level since 2020, and a sharp decline in manager engagement from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025.

For years, managers tended to be more engaged than the people they led. That advantage has disappeared, raising questions about the support and expectations placed on the people responsible for leading teams.

Kevin and Craig explore what is driving the decline, including:

• The pressure to explain decisions managers did not make

• The responsibility of absorbing team anxiety during change

• Higher levels of stress, anger, sadness and loneliness among leaders

• The practice of promoting strong technical performers without equipping them to lead people

The conversation also brings the discussion home to South Africa, where employee engagement stands at 18%, below the global figure discussed in the report.

South African managers work within a distinctive context. Financial and social pressures can extend beyond an individual employee, with a single income often supporting an extended family. Understanding that context matters when leaders are supporting their teams.

So what can organisations do differently?

Kevin and Craig discuss the importance of selecting managers intentionally, investing in coaching and tracking manager engagement separately rather than assuming it mirrors the wider workforce.

The research points to encouraging possibilities: best-practice organisations reported manager engagement of 79%, while coaching programmes were associated with improvements in both manager and team engagement.

Providing managers with context before changes are announced can also help them lead with clarity and give their teams more meaningful support.

The takeaway?

If organisations want engaged teams, they need to invest in the people leading them, giving managers the skills, context and support to do the job well.

#Leadership #Management #EmployeeEngagement #ManagerWellbeing #WorkplaceCulture #PeopleLeadership #Gallup #SouthAfrica #LeadershipDevelopment #EmployeeWellbeing #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

A million followers can buy visibility. But what makes someone trust a recommendation enough to act on it?

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee explore the evolution of the influencer economy, the business behind creator culture and what brands need to understand before investing.

From celebrity endorsements to communities built around everyday expertise, influencer marketing has become a significant part of how brands reach audiences and shape buying decisions.

But scale tells only part of the story.

Kevin and Craig unpack the differences between mega, micro and nano influencers, examining why smaller, more focused communities can generate stronger engagement and deeper trust than celebrity-sized audiences.

The key question for marketers: are you paying for audience size, or for a relationship that can influence a decision?

The conversation explores:

• The growth and maturation of the global influencer economy
• How creator tiers differ in reach, engagement and audience relationships
• TikTok’s engagement dynamics and the importance of platform fit
• How expert recommendations can transfer credibility to a brand
• The role of micro and nano creator networks in producing content at scale

Kevin and Craig also look at creators such as MrBeast and Emma Chamberlain, whose businesses show different ways of turning audience relationships into commercial opportunities.

For brands, the opportunity extends beyond a sponsored post. The right creator can bring relevant expertise, distinctive content and access to a community that already values their perspective.

That makes choosing the right partner a strategic decision.

The episode also examines the risks behind the headline numbers, from bought followers and engagement pods to undisclosed partnerships and unclear contractual terms.

A large following means little if the audience is manufactured. And a promising collaboration can become complicated when expectations around content ownership, usage rights or exclusivity have not been agreed.

Kevin and Craig discuss why brands need to give attention to:

• Audience authenticity and the quality of engagement
• Transparent disclosure of paid partnerships
• Intellectual property ownership and content usage rights
• Exclusivity and reputational expectations
• Clear responsibilities across creators, agencies and brands

As the industry matures, marketing leaders need to assess creator partnerships with the same commercial discipline they apply to other investments.

The takeaway?

The value of influence lies in the trust behind the audience and how well that trust connects with your brand, your customers and your business objectives.

#InfluencerMarketing #CreatorEconomy #MarketingStrategy #BrandStrategy #MicroInfluencers #NanoInfluencers #ConsumerTrust #ContentMarketing #DigitalMarketing #MarketingROI #MarketingLeadership #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Marketing does not earn boardroom credibility through a better presentation. It earns it by showing how its decisions drive growth, protect profit and strengthen the business.

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee explore the practical priorities CMOs need to address to turn strategic ambition into commercial influence.

The starting point? Speak the language of the people making the investment decisions.

Kevin and Craig discuss why marketing leaders need to move beyond jargon and vanity metrics towards measures that reflect the priorities of their business, including customer acquisition costs, reduced churn and profit stability.

That requires measurement that makes the connection between brand strategy and business outcomes clear enough for the board to act on.

The conversation then turns to AI and the gap between buying technology and building the capability to use it effectively.

Tools alone will not redesign workflows, strengthen judgement or create accountability. CMOs need to establish how work changes, who owns the outcomes and where human oversight remains essential.

Craig outlines four capabilities teams need:

• Editors to assess and refine outputs

• Channel operators to put activity into practice

• Enablement leads to build adoption and capability

• Governance owners to establish boundaries and accountability

Kevin and Craig also tackle a familiar budget tension: the pressure to prioritise immediate performance at the expense of long-term brand investment.

Brand distinctiveness builds mental availability and can make future customer acquisition more efficient. Treating brand and performance as one connected system helps leaders understand how investment today supports conversion tomorrow.

The episode explores how marketing mix modelling can help translate those longer-term effects into evidence finance teams can use.

But commercial influence also depends on how the organisation operates.

Kevin and Craig examine why businesses need to:

• Give CMOs authority to shape cross-functional commercial strategy

• Use marketing’s high-volume activity and short feedback loops to test AI transformation

• Connect brand and performance through shared measures

• Bring CFOs into planning early

• Invest in human capability alongside technology

The CFO relationship is particularly important. Involving finance while the strategy is being built creates a stronger foundation than waiting until the budget needs defending.

The takeaway?

Marketing earns its position as a growth engine when commercial evidence, capable people and shared accountability guide its decisions.

#Marketing #CMO #MarketingStrategy #MarketingLeadership #BusinessGrowth #MarketingROI #AI #BrandStrategy #PerformanceMarketing #MarketingMixModeling #CFO #Leadership #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Marketing leaders are being asked to own growth, understand the customer, master AI and prove commercial value.

But do they have the authority, support and boardroom influence to deliver?

In this introductory episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee explore the changing role of the Chief Marketing Officer and the pressures reshaping marketing leadership.

The remit keeps expanding. Ownership keeps getting more complicated.

As Chief Digital, Data, Revenue and AI Officers join the leadership table, responsibility for the customer experience becomes increasingly fragmented.

How does a CMO deliver an integrated customer journey when the decisions sit across multiple departments?

Kevin and Craig unpack the tension between growing commercial expectations and an outdated view of marketing as simply advertising. When the CEO and CMO understand marketing differently, budgets, priorities and measures of success can quickly fall out of step.

The conversation also challenges assumptions about CMO tenure.

A short stay can be a stepping stone to broader leadership, including the CEO role. But repeated leadership changes can also fuel a cycle of short-term decisions, underfunded measurement and interrupted strategy.

So what does it take to succeed?

Kevin and Craig explore the capabilities modern marketing leaders need:

• Financial fluency to connect marketing with profit, shareholder value and pricing power

• AI literacy to guide decisions and build relevant capability

• Cross-functional influence across sales, product, technology and finance

• Full-funnel thinking, from awareness and acquisition to conversion and retention

• Active governance of marketing technology

• Balanced teams with complementary skills

The breadth of the role makes one thing clear: no CMO can be the expert in everything.

Building the right team and creating shared accountability across the business are essential leadership responsibilities.

This episode sets the scene for a series exploring what marketing leadership needs to become, and what organisations must change to help it succeed.

The takeaway?

If businesses expect CMOs to deliver growth, they need to give them the mandate, access and influence to shape it.

#Marketing #CMO #MarketingLeadership #MarketingStrategy #CSuite #BusinessGrowth #CustomerExperience #AI #Leadership #MarketingTechnology #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Everyone is talking about AI. Far fewer marketing teams are turning it into measurable results.

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee continue their exploration of McKinsey’s State of Marketing Europe 2026 report, unpacking its third theme: “Be Bold.”

The focus? Generative AI, agentic AI and what it takes to move from isolated experiments to business impact.

The gap between ambition and execution is striking.

Only 6% of European marketing leaders rate their generative AI maturity as high. Yet those leading the way report efficiency gains of 22%, with gains projected to reach 28% within two years.

Meanwhile, 89% of laggards have seen no material efficiency gains.

Access to AI clearly isn’t enough. What matters is how organisations put it to work.

Kevin and Craig explore the barriers holding marketing teams back, including:

• Technology infrastructure, cited by 81%
• Challenges with scaling, cited by 65%
• Strategy, cited by 51%
• The tendency to use B2B complexity as a reason to delay implementation

The conversation examines why leaders are prioritising customer-facing applications, from product discovery and personalisation to more efficient creative production.

But generative AI is only part of the story.

Agentic AI introduces systems that can plan, make decisions and work towards goals without constant human intervention, changing how marketing activity can be delivered.

Kevin and Craig discuss Coca-Cola’s use of autonomous AI agents, which achieved four times higher click-through rates on personalised offers, and explore how AI-driven discovery is pushing marketers to think beyond traditional SEO towards Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO.

If customers are discovering products through AI, how will your brand show up?

The episode also examines BMG’s Marketing Asset Generation pipeline, which achieved a reported 98% efficiency gain.

The lesson goes beyond speed. It reframes AI as a way to amplify creative work and expand what people can achieve.

For marketing leaders, the strategic priorities are clear:

• Move successful experiments into production at scale
• Strengthen data quality and consented customer identity
• Integrate the marketing technology stack
• Maintain human oversight of creative quality, emotional resonance and strategic direction

Being bold requires more than adopting another tool. It requires making deliberate choices about where AI can create value, then building the foundations to deliver it.

The takeaway?

AI’s commercial value comes from turning experimentation into execution, with people providing the judgement and direction that make the results matter.

#Marketing #GenAI #AgenticAI #MarketingStrategy #CMO #MarketingLeadership #GEO #MarketingTechnology #MarTech #Personalisation #CreativeStrategy #BusinessGrowth #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Marketing leaders are under increasing pressure to answer a deceptively simple question:

What commercial value is marketing actually creating?

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee continue their exploration of McKinsey’s State of Marketing Europe 2026 report — this time focusing on effectiveness, measurement, ROI and C-suite credibility.

The challenge is significant.

While 72% of CMOs planned to increase marketing spend through 2026, marketing leaders are simultaneously facing greater scrutiny from CFOs and CEOs about where that money goes and what it produces.

The report identifies profit growth, revenue and market share as key objectives, signalling an important shift: marketing needs to speak the language of the business, not simply the language of marketing.

And that creates a measurement problem.

An extraordinary 90% of marketing spend is not covered by formal ROI measurement systems, while only 3% of CMOs can formally explain more than half of their marketing spend through ROI metrics.

Kevin and Craig unpack why this is happening, including:

• Lack of sufficient data

• Poor data quality

• Measurement capability gaps

• The limitations of deterministic attribution

• Increasing privacy restrictions

• The difficulty of measuring long-term and upper-funnel brand investment

The conversation explores why leading marketers are turning toward approaches such as Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) and incremental lift studies to develop a more complete picture of marketing effectiveness.

But measurement isn't simply a technology or analytics challenge.

It's also an organisational alignment challenge.

Craig introduces a three-layer measurement operating model consisting of central owners, decentralised doers and cross-functional users, and discusses how organisations can build measurement capability across the business.

One statistic highlights the problem: only around 50% of European CMOs report regular, meaningful collaboration with their CFOs.

That relationship matters.

Synchronising metrics, planning budgets together and developing a shared understanding of the customer can fundamentally change marketing's position in the boardroom.

We also examine where CMOs are investing next, with Gen AI, measurement capabilities and customer insights emerging as major priorities.

And perhaps most importantly, Kevin and Craig challenge the assumption that difficult economic conditions automatically mean marketing budgets should be cut.

Evidence suggests that organisations continuing to invest strategically in marketing during downturns can emerge stronger — particularly when they balance short-term performance with long-term brand equity and consistent media investment.

The takeaway?

Measurement isn't simply about proving that marketing worked. It's about giving marketing the commercial credibility to influence where the business goes next.

#Marketing #MarketingROI #CMO #MarketingStrategy #MarketingMeasurement #MarketingMixModeling #MMM #GenAI #BrandStrategy #CFO #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #MarketingEffectiveness #CustomerInsights #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

In a world dominated by AI, performance marketing and relentless pressure for measurable results, something interesting is happening: branding is back at the top of the CMO agenda.

In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee unpack the changing role of branding, creativity and authenticity — drawing on insights from McKinsey's State of Marketing Europe 2026 report.

We explore why European CMOs have ranked branding as their #1 priority for 2026, and why trust and emotional connection are becoming increasingly important sources of long-term growth.

Craig and Kevin discuss some significant shifts in marketing investment:

• Investment in creativity and uniqueness has risen by 14 percentage points.

• Spending on cultural relevance and trendiness has increased by 23 percentage points.

• At the same time, investment in customer experience and brand engagement has declined.

But building a brand today requires more than producing better advertising.

With click-through rates declining by more than 40% as consumers experience increasing ad fatigue, brands are moving from broadcasting at audiences to creating experiences with them.

We look at the rapid growth of interactive formats, including AR, VR and gamification, and how brands such as Coca-Cola, Louis Vuitton and Doritos have used participation, technology and cultural storytelling to create deeper consumer engagement.

We also explore the rise of the full-funnel campaign, with 71% of CMOs now using campaigns designed to achieve multiple objectives — a 30 percentage point increase.

And the rules aren't only changing in B2C.

B2B brands are increasingly borrowing from consumer marketing: using humour, personality and more human communication to become approachable and memorable.

The conversation then turns to authenticity and employer branding.

With 83% of candidates reading online reviews before applying for jobs, the brand an organisation presents to customers can no longer be disconnected from the experience it creates for employees.

Finally, we examine why data privacy has become a brand issue. Ranked as the #3 priority for CMOs, privacy is increasingly being treated not simply as a compliance requirement, but as an opportunity to build competitive trust.

The central question for marketers is changing:

Are we simply communicating our brand — or are we creating something people genuinely want to trust, experience and participate in?

#Marketing #BrandStrategy #Branding #Leadership #CMO #MarketingStrategy #CustomerExperience #EmployerBranding #Authenticity #DigitalMarketing #BrandTrust #FutureOfMarketing #LTM #LeadershipByDesign

Why do so many feedback conversations leave people feeling defensive, misunderstood, or even less motivated than before? In this week's episode, Kevin Britz and Craig Page-Lee unpack one of leadership's most misunderstood skills: giving feedback that actually improves performance instead of damaging it.

Drawing on research from the Center for Creative Leadership, Kim Scott's Radical Candor, and the landmark Kluger & DeNisi Feedback Intervention Theory, they explore why more than a third of feedback interventions can actually reduce performance. The answer isn't simply what we say—it's where we direct people's attention.

The conversation examines the difference between feedback that focuses on identity versus feedback that focuses on the task, why psychological safety matters, and how leaders can create cultures where feedback becomes a normal, productive part of everyday work rather than a stressful annual event.

Craig introduces two practical frameworks every leader should know—the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) model and Radical Candor—before explaining why combining the two creates a powerful balance of clarity, accountability and genuine care.

Kevin and Craig also discuss:

• Why praise can be just as damaging as criticism when it focuses on identity.

• The hidden role of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in how people receive feedback.

• Why frequent, small conversations outperform rare, high-stakes reviews.

• The importance of separating a person's value from the work they produce.

• How leaders build trust by actively asking for feedback themselves.

Whether you lead a team of two or two thousand, this episode offers practical tools you can implement immediately to improve communication, performance and workplace culture.

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 – Welcome & business updates
03:18 – Why feedback often makes performance worse
07:12 – The research behind Feedback Intervention Theory
12:30 – Task-focused vs identity-focused feedback
17:55 – Why managers struggle to give effective feedback
23:10 – Separating people from the work they produce
27:45 – The SBI (Situation-Behavior-Impact) framework
34:20 – Understanding Radical Candor
41:18 – Combining SBI with Radical Candor
47:35 – Five practical ways to improve feedback immediately
54:10 – Structure vs connection: Does feedback become robotic?
58:20 – Final leadership reflections & Maya Angelou quote

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#Leadership #Feedback #Management #PsychologicalSafety #RadicalCandor #LeadershipDevelopment #CommunicationSkills #BusinessLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #WorkplaceCulture #Marketing #LongTimeSoon #KevinBritz #CraigPageLee