“We need to get back to classic marketing – what matters to our audience is a must. Even those people who don’t ‘buy into’ sustainability – up to 70% of them are actually engaged in sustainable behaviours – they just don’t label it as sustainable….”

In this episode were joined by Denise Hicks, Global Climate Lead at strategy and insights consultancy, C-Space. We were particularly interested in a very soon to be published piece of research titled, ‘The S Word’.

Denise shares insights from the research findings, highlighting the ‘dysfunctional love triangle’ that exists between brands, their stakeholders and regulations and the tensions and frictions which are causing trust issues.

We explore some of the key highlights from the research (due out January 2025), Denise reveals, “consumers are frustrated, the problem is stuff – there is too much stuff and brands / manufacturers need to start taking responsibility”. She also talks about, “the increasing amount of skepticism at all level at the ways the S word is used for commercial gain”.

Denise shares some brilliant examples of brands who are showing up in this space and engaging with their customers however, whilst they have sustainability high up on their agendas, they aren’t leading with it – rather they are leading with good old fashion marketing tactics around what benefits their customers. The fact they are also sustainability focused is an added benefit.

Denise explains, “the need to get back to classic marketing – what matters to our audience is a must. Even those people who don’t ‘buy into’ sustainability – up to 70% of them are actually engaged in sustainable behaviours – they just don’t label it as sustainable.” Sustainability paralysis is very real, the need for strong listening, insights and learning about what truly matters to audiences has never been greater. This episode is a MUST LISTEN TO for all Marketers….packed with plenty of food for thought!

Tune in and listen as we talk to Denise about:

• The importance of research.
• Sustainability paralysis and why it is very real.
• Why it is so important to understand the views of everybody and where they are at.
• The need to drive mutual benefit and work together collectively.
• How regulation plays an important part - but we can’t just wait for it, all stakeholders need to keep moving forwards.
• Why brands / Marketers need to be asking - is sustainability a big part of our identity as a brand?
• The need to meet your audiences where they are at and focus on what matter to them – elements which aren’t necessarily sustainability related.
• What it means to behave more responsibly and asking what’s the role of responsible products and services in achieving a ‘better life’.

This really is a fantastic episode to wrap up all our 2024 conversations. Tune in, enjoy it, share it - and of course, share your comments.

Find out more information about C-Space and the work they do. Connect with Denise Hicks - and you can register to receive The S Word research once published.

We’ve got plenty more terrific conversations coming in 2025. Stay tuned… and here’s to more.

____________________________________________________________

About us…

We help Marketers save the planet. 🌍

Join the Marketers and organisations who have signed our manifesto, engage with our newsletter and training and, work with us to communicate sustainability more effectively. Sign our Sustainable Marketer Manifesto, work with us, and join us on our mission. Get in touch to chat.

You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

Episode #139. Today’s focus is on Personal Understanding, which is a fundamental pillar of the Whole Marketer philosophy and what we believe is the key to having a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. 

Abby’s guest to discuss the benefits of developing your personal understanding is Kirsten McPherson. As Marketing Director at Mondelez, Kirsten is responsible for heading up two of the UK's top brands, Philadelphia and Dairylea. Her previous experience includes Procter and Gamble, where she spent more than a decade working on an array of billion-dollar brands, driving global change initiatives such as Always ‘end period poverty’. 

In this episode, Kirsten shares her definition of personal development and its importance for leadership development, her formula for personal energy, implementing ‘prison Fridays’ and the role of community and mentoring in developing your personal understanding. 

Plus Kirsten shares her advice for career highs and learnings, and advice for marketers.

00:00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Personal Understanding  

00:02:07 What is Personal Development? 

00:05:03 Personal and Professional Growth and Leadership 

00:07:56 Kirsten’s Formula for Personal Energy 

00:08:19 Purpose, Motivation and Confronting Limiting Beliefs  

00:13:17 The Importance of Coaching 

00:15:33 3 Key Areas for Marketers  

00:16:14 The Concept of "Prison Fridays"  

00:21:59 The Role of Community in Personal Development  

00:25:19 Creating Community Initiatives at Mondelez  

00:29:23 Advice for Starting Community Initiatives 

00:30:46 Kirsten’s Career Highs and Learnings  

00:34:24 Advice for Future Marketers

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Kirsten McPherson | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com 

In a sports industry obsessed with data and measurement, brand is the great intangible asset, the bit of the balance sheet that remains largely opaque, which is why it’s so important. 

But mention brand in the vicinity of fans or the football media and there's a row. 

It’s no surprise that the kit launch genre has evolved during this period, growing in importance and sophistication (and cost). 

Homeground is one of the hottest creative agencies working in sport today. The London based company has pioneered the kit launch video. Working with Adidas, they are the people behind some of the most outstanding recent work in this area, from Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa to name a few. 

We talk with creative partner Rachid Ahouiyek, formerly of Iris, McCann and Wieden+Kennedy, and Polly Barnes, new business director also formerly Iris and is founder of the Women’s Rugby Association. 

Click on the showreel to see the work referenced in the podcast

https://www.homeground.london/work

THINK EQUAL is our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion initiative led by The Marketing Society. THINK EQUAL aims to drive diversity and inclusion across the marcomms industry in the MENA region. Through training, events, mentoring, policy changes, content and more. We aim to provide tangible activity that will make an impact and a difference now.

Our regular THINK EQUAL podcast shines a light on an inspiring female leader who is dedicated to levelling the marcomms playing field.

This month, THINK EQUAL Project Director, Leanne Foy met Lisa Welsh, Chief Operating Officer at Burson META.

Perfectionism often whispers, "not good enough," leaving many stuck in cycles of overwork and self-doubt. But what if we could channel that drive into something more empowering? In this thought-provoking episode, Lisa explores how to transform perfectionism into excellence by setting meaningful goals, celebrating progress, and showing up in ways that truly make you proud. Discover how to set meaningful goals, celebrate progress, and confidently show up in ways that align with your values and bring you pride—all while avoiding burnout.

Highlights include:

• Breaking free from perfectionism: shifting from "not good enough" to showing up with confidence.
• Setting realistic, joyful goals that motivate rather than overwhelm.
• Practical techniques to celebrate wins and embrace progress—starting with "messy first drafts."

Tune in to discover how to transform perfectionism into excellence and find joy in every step of the journey.

A note from THINK EQUAL

We are stronger together, than we are alone. And that’s why we want the marcomms industry to come together to make a difference. Every single person who makes up our brilliant industry can make an impact. Want to get involved? We’d love to hear from you. Whether that’s through donating your time on our working committee or putting your hand up to run an event or training session, you may have some suggestions of speakers to add to our speaker library, or have a venue you want to provide for free. Contact us at [email protected]

Businesses need to be asking themselves – “What could this business be, redesigning it from the ground up?” Start with the opportunity as opposed to the challenges.

We know communication and engagement is critical to driving change, a su bject we have explored many times on the podcast, but there’s always something new to learn. Hence why we really enjoyed meeting Laurence and Graeme from Litmus Sustainability to talk more deeply about a subject which is very close to our hearts.

Setting up their business with the aim of helping creative and ambitious organisations integrate sustainability into the core of what they do, Laurence and Graeme are working across a wide range of areas with communication playing a vital role. The need to focus on the long term vision, understand the short term wins and, navigate the challenges and confusion when you’re told one thing is good (e.g. offsetting) - and then finding out it’s bad, are all part of the complex learning curve when it comes to sustainability.

Graeme talks about the need to level up your game, he explains, “businesses need to do something really exciting that capture people’s imaginations, so thinking what could this business be, redesigning it from the ground up.” An approach and way of thinking which drives long term vision and opportunity to do something unique, as opposed to starting with the challenges.

We discuss the need for climate skills and how mobilising an army of climate champions can drive hope and motivate people who then often go on to become experts in the field (of sustainability). Laurence, talks about the fact that technical expertise isn’t always the most impactful thing. He explains, “the greatest climate skill I think is communication, one piece of research into what makes a great sustainable leader revealed it’s skills like collaboration, negotiation, influence and effective communication, once engaged this is what brings great ideas which can be uses on the ground”. And of course these are all key traits of Marketers.

We delve deep into communication with both Laurence and Graeme sharing many insights and examples...a great conversation and source of knowledge for Marketers everywhere.

 Tune in and listen as we talk to Laurence and Graeme about:

• The barriers to sustainability – ‘it’s not easy being green’.
• How businesses are integrating sustainability into the core of what they do and as a result taking their organisations forward.
• The 9 principles of effective climate communication - taken from their work and evidence of what works for different people and psychologies.
• The need for Marketers to start and change the conversations.
• The difference between communication and engagement.
• How communicating and influencing other people has a much greater impact than acting alone.
• How we need to level up our knowledge about good communication and link it back to the core values of what drives a person’s behaviour.
• What your unique superpower is in bringing ‘good’ to the world.

For more information you can contact the team via : https://litmussustainability.com/

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/litmus-sustainability/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvMk_MGGoooRGnfn3uzcb9A

Dr Graeme Heyes was also involved in a piece of work with a local community group looking to embed Doughnut Economics across Greater Manchester through engagement with communities. You can find out more here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transform-gm

________________________________________________________________________________

About us…

We help Marketers save the planet. 🌍

Join the Marketers and organisations who have signed our manifesto, engage with our newsletter and training and, work with us to communicate sustainability more effectively. Sign our Sustainable Marketer Manifesto, work with us, and join us on our mission. Get in touch to chat.

You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

Episode #138. Creativity is the skill featured in this episode, however being creative is not a department or a job title; it’s a skill and mindset that every marketer can harness to keep evolving in pursuit of new, innovative ways to solve problems. 

Joining Abby is Kevin Chesters, a marketing strategist with over 25 years of experience both agency and client-side, including being the former Head of Strategy at BT and CSO of W+K London, plus Dentsu, McGarryBowen and Ogilvy. Kevin’s first book, 'The Creative Nudge' was an Amazon best-seller and he shares the concepts from his book in this podcast. 

In this episode, Kevin shares his definition of creativity, ‘nudge theory’ where small changes can lead to significant impacts, 9 behaviours to rediscover your creativity and how marketing leaders can create an environment for creativity. 

Plus Kevin shares his advice for reviewing creative respectfully and his career highs and lows. 

00:00:00 Welcome and Creativity in Marketing 

00:02:00 Defining Creativity 

00:03:32 Why is Creativity vital to stand out? 

00:06:09 Kevin’s Nudge Theory Explained 

00:08:12 Nine Behaviours to Rediscover Creativity 

00:15:12 How to Create Conditions for Creativity?  

00:17:56 Being Willing to Challenge the Status Quo 

00:21:56 Creativity and Human Evolution 

00:24:51 How to Review Creative Ideas? 

00:33:12 Reviewing Creativity and Giving Feedback  

00:37:29 Kevin’s career Highs and Lows  

00:48:18 Advice for Marketers 

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Kevin Chesters | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com 

From the power of storytelling to culture, mental wellbeing influencing developments to physical wellbeing and the power of impact. Speakers from The Marketing Society Changemakers Impact Conference in Dubai in 2024 joined us for insights into what they shared in their sessions, why marketing matters to them and why events like our conference from The Marketing Society are so important.

Thank you to our guests 

• Gernot Friedhuber, Chief Executive Officer, Grace Group
• Annie Arsane, Head of Business Marketing, TikTok METAP 
• Kiran Haslam, Chief Marketing Officer, Diriyah Company 
• Steve Chantry, VP, Growth - Innovation - Marketing, West + East Emerging Markets, KraftHeinz
• Aimee Peters,  Regional Head of Brand, Partnerships and Wholesale Marketing, MENAT, HSBC

Thank you to Pineapple Audio Production and Multitude FZE

Find out more about The Marketing Society here and browse more of our content on our content hub.

“We don’t ’speak for young people, we let them be the voice and share their perspective.”

We keep coming back to the S – ‘social and societal impact’ in many of our conversations with clients, leaders and marketers, we’re discussing the role of business, both in how they operate and what they are doing for society.

In this episode of the podcast we have a chat with the brilliant Kian Bakhtiari, Founder of The People, a Gen-Z consultancy. We were keen to know more about the work Kian does both with the youth generation and businesses, how he brings those worlds together (which is very much needed). Kian explains, “We’ve applied such a narrow lens to how business can be done, how marketing can be done that we’ve lost track of the opportunities and all the ways that we can create a more flourishing society and more sustainable future.” Kian tells us about how the younger generation feel and think about the world they are growing up in, making the point, “Wealth inequalities are a bigger determinant of your future than your education and how hard you work.” Kian and his teams bring Gen Z insights into the boardroom, they want to close the gap between as he says, “those who make the decisions and those whose lives are impacted by the decisions”, opening up opportunities to share knowledge and insights both ways and, and create a space to explore how we can change business.

A new author, Kian has recently published his book, ‘Marketing for Social Change – How to Turn Purpose into Business and Social Impact’ , a book which explores and asks the question – What is the role of marketing in the 21st century? Like us, Kian firmly believes that marketing has a significant role to play and if harnessed in the right way can accelerate social change. “We need to find ways to bring business and communities together.” When asked how he would measure social impact, Kian shares, “There are lots of different lenses on social impact- start by being neutral, then bring in meaningful connection and impact.” “Start small – it can be really overwhelming at a system level. What is something you can do today which might have an impact and go from there.”

Tune in and listen as we talk to Kian about:

• The importance of the role of marketing in driving positive impact on society.
• Why he wrote his new book ‘Marketing for Social Change’ and what he learnt.
• Thinking about the way things are done, outside the ways things are currently done.
• The work he does with the youth community and, diverse communities.
• Understanding what businesses want from the future.
• What unifying factors young people are finding challenging.
• Social impact and how we can approach it and measure it.

For more, follow and connect with Kian here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kianbakhtiari/

And to find out more about The People and the work they do - here https://www.thepeople.work/

Kian talks about Earth Watch -and more can be found here: https://earthwatch.org.uk/

And check out his new book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marketing-Social-Change-Purpose-Business/dp/1398616842

________________________________________________________________________________

About us…

We help Marketers save the planet. 🌍

Join the Marketers and organisations who have signed our manifesto, engage with our newsletter and training and, work with us to communicate sustainability more effectively. Sign our Sustainable Marketer Manifesto, work with us, and join us on our mission. Get in touch to chat.

You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

The Buy Side is Unofficial Partner's regular series talking with brand side marketers about sport and sponsorship.

Today's guest is Willem Dinger, global head of sport and entertainment partnerships at Unilever.

The Buy Side is sponsored by KORE Software the global leader in engagement marketing solutions. More than 900 brands, venues, and sports organisations trust KORE’s tools and platforms as a source of truth to manage partnerships, assets and measure impact, with real-time insights. Through Sponsorship Management and Evaluation, Ticketing, Fan Engagement, Data Management and Analytics, KORE unites corporate sponsors, properties, and their fans with solutions that help enhance the fan experience, drive smarter decisions, and enable marketing and operations teams to spend time where it matters.

Learn more at KORESoftware.com or follow them LinkedIn or Twitter.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.

To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Episode #137. Today's episode is a holistic topic on how the breadth and depth of marketer’s roles are continuing to evolve as we move towards leading the long-term commercial agenda, understanding the advancements in science and neuromarketing for how consumers make decisions and adopting AI into our everyday lives. 

Abby’s guest is legendary marketing leader, Margaret Jobling, Group Chief Marketing Officer at NatWest Group. Before joining NatWest in 2020 and implementing agile ways of working, “Tomorrow Begins Today” brand platform and the NatWest partnership with team GB for the Paris Olympics in 2024, Marg has spent the majority of her marketing career in FMCG categories, working on some iconic brands such as Lynx, Dove, Radox, Cadbury, Dairy Milk and Birds Eye, as well as Director of Marketing for British Gas. 

In this episode, Margaret shares her definition of the role of marketing today and how it has evolved, the art and science of marketing, learnings as a CMO, marketing in the age of AI and building trust and authenticity with consumers in a digital environment. 

Plus Margaret’s career highs and howlers, and advice for marketers of tomorrow. 

00:00:00 Welcome and why we need evolving skills in marketing today 

00:03:13 Defining of the role of Marketing 

00:05:40 Key shifts in marketing 

00:06:42 Impact of technology on customer interactions 

00:10:05 What are the skills required for modern marketers 

00:11:27 The future of marketing with AI and building trust 

00:20:53 Skills Margaret looks for when hiring marketers 

00:24:56 Building relationships with stakeholders 

00:28:14 Experimentation, Curiosity and Continuous Learning 

00:31:16 Margaret’s Career Highs and Howlers 

00:36:31 Advice for marketers of tomorrow 

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Margaret Jobling | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com