The Overthinkers

Can you work in marketing — a job literally built around driving demand — and honestly call yourself anti-capitalist? Shann and Lynette try to find out. They start with definitions: what capitalism actually is, where anti-capitalism begins, and what gets lost when people conflate the two. From there it gets messier: the degrowth debate, whether brands like Ursa Major offer a real alternative or just a nicer story about growth, whether market forces can actually push companies toward better behavior (China's EV shift makes a strange cameo), and what Rory Sutherland's NRA-at-Cannes provocation says about marketing's blind spots. No tidy resolution. But a clearer picture of where the real tension lives — and why marketers, of all people, might have more say in it than they admit.

We all want to matter. But in a world where the average person has 700 followers and every brand claims to be meaningful, what does significance actually look like — and can it scale? Shann and Lynette get personal about where they've genuinely felt it, some pushback on the idea that brands should chase it, and make a case for why going smaller might be one of the most powerful things you can do in your life.

Anthropic's latest report says 65% of marketing tasks are headed for AI replacement — making us the fifth most disrupted profession out of 800.

Lynette came in hot with a confession: she literally built her own AI replacement in her last role at Ogilvy. Shann came in skeptical of the "AI won't replace you, someone using AI will" line — and called it, diplomatically, a bit of a myth.

We get into why marketing's own love affair with mediocrity made it so easy to automate, the automotive company that replaced its entire research process with synthetic audiences (and why it was probably the right call), and why the real crisis isn't the jobs disappearing — it's the junior talent pipeline nobody's properly investing in.

Plus: the one skill both of us think will matter more than any prompt engineering course. Hint: it involves knowing what you actually think.

Nearly 200 episodes in, The Overthinkers is turning a page. This is Rachel Mercer's final episode as co-host — and the debut of Lynette, a former global strategy lead at Ogilvy, ethnographic researcher, insect farm co-founder, and current Vermont transplant who consults for small businesses at what she calls her "community rate" (sometimes paid in sausage).

To mark the moment, the three of us tackle mid-career transitions out of advertising: how to actually make the jump, why transferable skills are almost too broad to be useful, and what question you should be asking yourself before any of the rest of it matters.

Rachel shares how client relationships built over 20 years quietly become your best career infrastructure. Lynette makes the case for low-stakes pilots before big leaps. And Shann is, characteristically, the most pessimistic person in the room about where AI leaves the advertising industry — and what that means if you're thinking about waiting before making a move.

A proper goodbye, a warm welcome, and genuinely useful career advice in between.

This wonderful episode was recorded over a year ago with the legendary Rob Campbell, CSO at Colenso in Auckland. Rachel and Shann were planning to publish this as part of a last series of guests, but for a variety of reasons couldn't get to it.

Together with Rob, they explore what satiety can look and feel like in a project (or your career). It ventures into some very personal stories for our guest, and shares what three old sods have experienced working in advertising - whether they still have the drive for it or not.

Today, we're delighted to publish this last episode in the Rachel Mercer era, before we start a new chapter with the amazing Lynette Wong, who will start as co-host for the podcast starting next week!