The Six Sells Podcast

What happens when brands stop competing for attention on screens and start putting something physical into customers’ hands?

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson talks to Charlotte Pearce, founder of Inkpact, about the resurgence of physical marketing, why direct mail is becoming more valuable in an increasingly digital world, and how brands can use human connection to drive customer loyalty and growth.

Charlotte started Inkpact straight from university, having never had a traditional full-time job. She shares the remarkable story of building the business from an idea around handwritten letters into a physical marketing platform working with major retail brands including Victoria Beckham, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis.

They discuss why handwritten notes, gifts, catalogues and other physical experiences can cut through where email and digital advertising struggle, and why the growing desire to spend less time on screens could make physical marketing increasingly important.

Charlotte also explains how Inkpact measures the commercial impact of physical communications. She shares examples of customers buying more frequently after receiving handwritten notes, and why a simple message that makes somebody feel valued can influence their relationship with a brand across other channels too.

Topics discussed include:

• Why physical marketing and direct mail are making a comeback
• How handwritten notes can increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases
• The psychology of costly signalling and why physical communications feel valuable
• Victoria Beckham, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis campaigns
• Why brands should treat their best customers more like influencers
• The growing analogue movement and consumer screen fatigue
• Combining physical mail with CRM and first-party customer data
• Charlotte’s journey from university straight into entrepreneurship
• Building Inkpact and finding its first customers
• Why founders need to leave room for unexpected opportunities
• The realities of running a business and learning as you grow
• Charlotte’s ambition to make physical mail a measurable growth channel alongside email and SMS

The Six Sells Podcast is hosted by Mike Nicholson, founder of Six Sells, and features conversations with founders, leaders and innovators shaping media, advertising, marketing and technology.

How should advertisers really think about attention, media quality and the true cost of advertising?

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson is joined by Tom Kerr from SeenThis to talk about attention, video delivery, media planning and why the industry needs to move beyond simply measuring whether an ad had the opportunity to be seen.

The conversation starts with a broader challenge facing adtech businesses: how do you stand out in an increasingly complex market?

Tom argues that two things matter: differentiation and being easy to buy.

You can have a highly differentiated product, but if agencies find it difficult to work with you, you will struggle to win budget. Equally, being easy to buy is not enough if nobody can understand what makes you different.

Simplicity matters too.

Tom believes adtech has become far too complicated, and that the businesses that win are often the ones that can clearly explain the problem they solve, why their product is valuable and how somebody can actually buy it.

From there, Mike and Tom get into the main subject of the episode: attention.

Historically, media planning was largely built around reach, frequency and cost. Attention was assumed.

Then came viewability.

But viewability only tells you whether an ad had the technical opportunity to be seen. It does not tell you whether somebody actually looked at it.

Tom explains why he sees attention as an extension of media quality, and why advertisers should start combining attention with CPM to understand the real value of the media they buy.

A cheap CPM is not necessarily good value if nobody pays attention.

A more expensive impression may actually be more cost-effective if it generates significantly more human attention.

They also discuss how Dentsu used attention in planning work for brands including Coca-Cola and Heineken, why social can look very different once attention is added to the equation, and how advertisers can build creative around the amount of attention people realistically give an ad.

Tom also talks through SeenThis' work with Lumen Research and the relationship between video loading speed and attention.

SeenThis streams video rather than relying on traditional heavy video downloads.

The principle is simple: if an ad appears faster, there is a better chance somebody will notice it before moving on.

As Tom puts it: speed times quality equals attention.

The episode also covers publishers, retail media, lightweight video, planning tools, agency workflows and what needs to happen if attention is going to become a genuinely useful part of media buying rather than another metric on a post-campaign report.

Topics include:

• Why differentiation and ease of buying both matter in adtech
• Why agencies are harder to get meetings with than they used to be
• Why simplicity is one of the most valuable skills in media and advertising
• The difference between viewability and actual human attention
• How attention can improve media planning and buying
• Why CPM alone does not tell you whether media is good value
• Attention-adjusted CPM and media quality
• How Coca-Cola and Heineken used attention in planning and measurement
• Why creative needs to work within the attention people actually give it
• SeenThis' research with Lumen
• How video loading speed can affect attention
• Streaming video versus traditional video delivery
• Why lightweight video matters for publishers and retail media
• The future of attention measurement
• How attention could become embedded directly into agency planning and buying systems

If you work in media, advertising, adtech, publishing or marketing, this is a practical conversation about what attention actually means and how it can be used to make better media decisions.

The Six Sells Podcast is hosted by Six Sells and features conversations with senior people across media, advertising, adtech, marketing and technology.

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Fern Potter spoke to Rowena Humby about ‘Understanding Why People Buy’.

Rowena is the CEO and Co-Founder of Starcount, a consumer behaviour science business with a market-leading customer data platform which enables brands to upload their 1st party data and match it with the best of 3rd party data. She is also Trustee of the foundation that runs The Female Lead, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to creating and promoting positive role models in schools and universities for future generations.

Topics discussed include:

•⁠ ⁠Uncovering “the why behind the buy”

•⁠ How spending, search and location data can reveal clues about people’s motivations

•⁠ How brands can use these insights and identifying the gap between research that explores people’s motivations and the audience data used to deliver advertising

•⁠ Understanding what drives customers, then making that understanding usable in campaigns

•⁠ Drilling down to the commercial opportunity and identifying where a brand can grow

•⁠ Campaign results in the context of the wider market

•⁠ Why human judgement matters as AI becomes more involved in business decisions

•⁠ Understanding women as consumers, founders and leaders

•⁠ Harnessing women’s experiences to inform how businesses build products and use technology

•⁠ Remembering that customer choices contain clues about motivation. 

Who is Six Sells? 

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology. Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web. We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email [email protected] for more information.

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Fern Potter speaks with Barney Worfolk-Smith, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of DAIVID, about creative effectiveness in the age of generative AI.

With AI making it possible to produce thousands of advertising assets, how can brands identify which creative will perform best and where to invest their media budgets?

Barney explains how DAIVID uses AI-powered creative intelligence to predict advertising effectiveness by measuring attention, emotional response and brand recall.

Here are some of the topics discussed:

* How generative AI is changing advertising production and creative effectiveness.

* Why emotional response is so important to advertising performance.

* How AI can predict which advertising creative deserves media investment.

* What DAIVID's research with Boots and Billion Dollar Boy reveals about creative effectiveness across different platforms.

* Why human creativity remains essential to long-term brand-building.

* How creative intelligence and media planning can work together to improve advertising performance.

* The risks of allowing advertising platforms to create, distribute and measure their own ads.

About The Six Sells Podcast:

The Six Sells Podcast is for people working in marketing, media, advertising and adtech.There are over 150 episodes and counting, and the biggest episodes have achieved 30,000 views across all platforms.Want to get in touch? Email [email protected]

Who is Six Sells?

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology.Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web.We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.Email [email protected] for more information.#TheSixSellsPodcast

#CreativeEffectiveness #Advertising #GenerativeAI #Adtech

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson is joined by Yommi Alake from Allwyn, operator of The National Lottery, to discuss the future of search marketing, AI visibility, app marketing and practical AI automation.Yommi explains why even household-name brands need paid search and organic SEO, how marketers can reach customers searching for products rather than brands, and why relevance is fundamental to successful search campaigns.The conversation explores Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), also known as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), and what businesses can do to improve their chances of being cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews.Yommi also shares his perspective on how AI is changing search traffic, why SEO fundamentals still matter, and how blog content, FAQs, structured data and YouTube videos can support AI search visibility.Mike shares how Six Sells has approached AEO and why LLMs have become the company's biggest source of new business enquiries.The discussion then moves into mobile app marketing at The National Lottery, including Apple Search Ads, customer acquisition, conversion and the responsibilities involved in marketing regulated products.Finally, Mike and Yommi explore agentic AI, the difference between AI tools and AI agents, and how businesses can automate repetitive workflows to save time.Topics discussed include:- Why established brands still need paid search and SEO- How ChatGPT and AI Overviews are changing search behaviour- SEO vs AEO vs GEO: what's different and what stays the same?- How to track AI citations and competitor visibility- Why FAQs, evergreen blog posts and YouTube matter for AI search- Measuring AI referral traffic and LLM-generated leads- Apple Search Ads and mobile app acquisition- Responsible marketing and advertising restrictions at The National Lottery- AI agents, MCP connections and workflow automation- Measuring AI ROI through time saved and error rates- The challenges of AI token pricing and usage limitsKey questions answered:How do you optimise your website for ChatGPT and AI search engines?Is traditional SEO still relevant in the age of AI?How can brands get cited in AI-generated answers?Can AI agents automate marketing reporting and CRM tasks?How should businesses measure the ROI of agentic AI?If you work in marketing, digital advertising, SEO, adtech or AI, this conversation offers practical perspectives on adapting to changing search behaviour and making AI useful within your business.What is The Six Sells Podcast?The Six Sells Podcast is for people working in marketing, media, advertising, adtech and technology. There are over 150 episodes (and counting), and the biggest episodes have achieved 30,000 views across all platforms. Want to get in touch? Email [email protected] is Six Sells?Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology.Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web.We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.Website: https://www.sixsells.co.ukContact: [email protected]

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson and Fern Potter spoke to Ben Williams about ‘Agentic Advertising’.

Ben is the MD and Founder of Kiln which sets out to solve mission-critical commercial, technology, and operational problems for media and advertising companies worldwide.

Widely seen as the OG of agentic advertising Ben has 25+ years in commercial and product roles spanning start-ups to international enterprises.

Topics discussed include:

•⁠ ⁠Ben’s approach to agentic projects and AI briefs

•⁠ Transparency of ad spend

•⁠ The concept of human + tech = the deal

•⁠ The brand agent, the sale agent and creating storefronts

•⁠ Pre-bid and off the shelf

•⁠ Testing and learning

•⁠ Hold companies and independents

•⁠ New audiences opening up including creators

•⁠ Thinking about where the eyeballs are

•⁠ The digital to AI hop

•⁠ Trust, governance and confidence within the process and the people

•⁠ Collaborating and growing opportunity

•⁠ Ben’s views on who is driving agentic advertising forward

•⁠ Changing the shape of the lumascape

Who is Six Sells? 

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology. Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web. We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email [email protected] for more information.

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson spoke to Tom Ridges about ‘Herd Mentality’.

Tom is the CEO and Founder of Herdify, a behavioural science and network science company helping brands and charities grow by finding where real-world influence is already happening. His work is about reframing marketing away from channels, dashboards and simple audience definitions, and back toward trust, social influence, connectedness and real human behaviour.

Topics discussed include:

• Tom’s views on the science behind how we make decisions as humans

• Who Herdify are, their ideal client, how they work and the results
• Audiences based on decision making
• The importance of word-of-mouth clusters and compound growth
• Tapping into social proof, copying as a default and peer product adoption
• Sowing the seed and being strategic rather than chasing everyone
• Simple and complex contagion and adoption of behaviour
• Exposure through people we trust and amplifying this
• Knowing the strategy of where to go next and utilising demographics
• Understanding where influence is happening and finding new audiences
• The collective value of people
• Creating advocacy and establishing momentum
• Never using round numbers!
• The importance of self agency over decision making
• Habit and copy as a short cut
• Trust, reputation and recommendation
• The negative social norm, taking a stand and the idea of creating a collective category movement

Who is Six Sells? 

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology. Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web. We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email [email protected] for more information.

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson and Fern Potter spoke to Samraj Matharu about ‘Responsible AI’.

Samraj is the Founder at The AI Lyceum which brings together a community of global practitioners and experts from technology, media, policy, healthcare, and academia to focus on ‘wisdom over intelligence’.

Topics discussed include:

•⁠ ⁠Samraj’s views on the importance on thinking ‘properly’ and ‘deeply’ with origins in ancient philosophy and its relevance to AI

•⁠ ⁠The relevance and importance of human judgment and using AI as an assistant and an accelerant, not a replacement

•⁠ ⁠Testing and learning to give clients a measurement on success and the psychological safety of growing in increments

•⁠ ⁠2026 as the year to test and fail cheaply

•⁠ ⁠Thinking deeply about philosophy and acting on it

•⁠ ⁠The danger of humans relying too much on AI and the importance of building an infrastructure that helps future generations

•⁠ ⁠Defining what good thinking actually is

•⁠ ⁠Memory, context and training data

•⁠ ⁠Personalised medical agents and the case for self analysis based on context

•⁠ ⁠Trust and AI and the growth in this mindset

•⁠ ⁠Tonality, ethics, consumer trust and responsibility

•⁠ ⁠How to build ethics, morals and principles as a standard

•⁠ ⁠The nuances in content when building a non-biased platform

•⁠ ⁠SEO strategy and ethical output

•⁠ ⁠Samraj’s view on who is doing ethics well in AI and agentic frameworks

•⁠ ⁠How brand safety will change in an AI world

•⁠ ⁠The challenge of translating the principles and values of the business into tech rules

•⁠ ⁠Deterministic and probabilistic outcomes and setting parameters for the agents to operate within

•⁠ ⁠The difference between algorithms and agents and protecting your brand and the consumer

•⁠ ⁠The echo chamber within LLM’s and the risk of bias and ‘people pleasing’

•⁠ ⁠The fingerprints in human writing, linguistic forensics and LLM’s

•⁠ ⁠The importance of transparency of the code and intellectual context

•⁠ ⁠Having consistent human judgement embedded in the process

•⁠ ⁠Moving away from actions towards what is really relevant for the consumer

•⁠ ⁠Samraj’s ambitions for the next year

Who is Six Sells? 

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology. Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web. We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email [email protected] for more information.

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson spoke to Daniel Glynn, who is Head of Media Buying at Heineken, about ‘Client-Side Media’.

Dan is the perfect person to give us insights into both his agency and client side experiences following his years at MediaCom working across leading brands including Centrica, Coca Cola, Tesco, GSK and CRUK. His work for Heineken began back in 2023 as Programmatic Lead and he is highly skilled in digital transformation, delivering commercial targets and achieving great campaign results for his clients.

Topics discussed include:

•⁠ ⁠Dan’s views on the differences on working on the agency and client sides

•⁠ ⁠Why it’s important to speak to new people, have the discovery phase and look to innovate whilst looking at the best tech in the industry

•⁠ ⁠How capabilities are constantly changing, making it even more important to be as bold and brave as possible with activations

•⁠ ⁠Using AI, segmenting, and different data points to minimise brand overlap and evaluating to make sure that you don’t just ‘blend in’

•⁠ The power of the Open Web and showing premium credentials for brands

•⁠ How we can build an efficient cross channel plan utilising our different partners whilst using past results to inform our decision making

•⁠ The importance of creating a connected eco-system and collaboration

•⁠ Why journalism, semantics and a free society are so important alongside brand safety

•⁠ Why attention is the touchpoint that we should be looking at within the media industry and its value as a health metric to catch the eye

•⁠ How building a holistic media plan can tap into the right moments and create standout

•⁠ Nudge versus nurture, and how understanding the difference gives you a balance of effectiveness and efficiency

•⁠ How LinkedIn helps Dan to get know a wider network, reach out to clients and help others in the industry

•⁠ Actively looking for new partners to revolutionise the brand’s offering

•⁠ Why having a personalised touch is important to make sure that genuine writing and conversations are still happening in an AI world

•⁠ The importance of intent and what is happening behind the screen and partnerships that help with context

•⁠ Why brand awareness is key and the value in finding the moments of undivided attention

•⁠ The campaign that Dan is most proud of and the uplift in sales that followed

Who is Six Sells? 

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology. Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web. We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email [email protected] for more information.

In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, Mike Nicholson spoke to Lucy Verby, James Latham and Kenya Peters about UN//Scene, the industry event created to give fresh thinking and new voices a platform, while making events more affordable, inclusive and useful for the people attending.

Topics discussed include:

• Why Lucy Verby created UN//Scene after becoming frustrated with the lack of genuinely fresh thinking and new voices at traditional industry events.

• Why Lucy believes the industry needs to find "the faces that are going to be the headliners of tomorrow" and give them somewhere to develop their ideas and experience on stage.

• Why Kenya Peters believes industry events can become too focused on familiar conversations, and what happens when people are encouraged to talk about the subjects and ideas they genuinely care about.

• Why UN//Scene refuses sales pitches and panels, and instead asks speakers to bring their most creative and exciting thinking.

• How the event is built around three principles: pragmatism, positivity and participation.

• Why speakers are encouraged to leave people with something tangible they can actually take away and use.

• How this year's sessions cover everything from neurodivergence and magic to toxic leadership, matrescence, community, respectful rejection, queer advertising and creativity.

• Why James Latham came away from the first UN//Scene feeling "more nourished" and with new ideas and conversations he could take into his work.

• Why the organisers want both new entrants and senior industry decision-makers in the room, so the people attending have the ability to create meaningful change.

• Why speakers are encouraged to stay, watch other sessions and become part of the audience rather than disappearing after their own talk.

• How every penny generated by the event goes to charity.

• Why Kenya believes that "no matter where you are in your career, there's going to be something that you can take from it".

• Lucy's thanks to Craft Media, this year's UN//Scene sponsor, and why having a sponsor whose values align with the event matters to the team.

• Why the team believes UN//Scene ultimately works because alongside the learning, networking and industry impact, as Lucy puts it, "it's just a really good day of exciting stuff."

UN//Scene takes place on 17 September at Conway Hall.

Viewers of The Six Sells Podcast can get 10% off tickets. Simply enter the code SIXSELLS10 when you check out here:

https://www.unscenefestival.co.uk/2026-tickets

Who is Six Sells?

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology.

Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web.

We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email [email protected] for more information.

Huge thanks our sponsors and partner, Intelligent Assistance, who combine Human Intelligence with Artificial Intelligence to solve real business challenges - www.intelligentassistance.ai