In this episode, The Two Marketeers hosts Lindsay Waugh and Sean Patrick dive deep into the age-old marketing challenge of "doing more with less." As the pressure mounts to deliver high-impact creative work with shrinking budgets, timelines, and resources, the two marketing experts explore how to embrace constraints as an opportunity rather than a threat. They discuss the role of AI and automation tools, cautioning against using them as a crutch to replace human creativity and nuance. Instead, Lindsay and Sean emphasize the importance of nurturing one's own creative spirit, developing taste and discernment, and carving out the necessary time and mental space to produce truly innovative work.

This conversation touches on the vulnerability that often accompanies creative problem-solving and how the willingness to feel challenged can actually be a strength. Sean and Lindsay share strategies for championing great creative within organizations and maintaining a mindset of using constraints to fuel ingenuity.

Happy listening, Marketeers! You will come away with a renewed appreciation for the human element of marketing and advertising, and practical tips for doing more with less in an increasingly fast-paced, resource-constrained world.

Welcome back to the Two Marketeers podcast! The hosts, Sean Patrick and Lindsay Waugh, are kicking off Season 5, and they couldn't be more excited. As Sean mentioned, this is their 90th episode, which is a huge milestone. Can you believe it? 90 episodes over the course of 5 seasons - it's been quite a journey.

When Sean and Lindsay first started this podcast, they had no idea it would grow into what it is today. They were just two marketing professionals who wanted to have honest, insightful conversations about the industry they're so passionate about. Over the years, they've covered a wide range of topics - from the latest marketing trends and strategies, to the role of creativity and innovation. And now, as they enter their 5th Season, they find themselves facing a new challenge: the rise of artificial intelligence and its impact on the creative process.

This season, their theme is "creativity crisis" - that uneasy feeling that the work they do, the ideas they generate, and the campaigns they craft could potentially be replicated, or even replaced, by AI technology. It's a topic that's been weighing heavily on both of their minds, and they know it's something many other marketers and creatives are grappling with as well. When Sean and Lindsay first started exploring this idea, Lindsay admits she felt a bit vulnerable. The thought of AI being able to produce content, develop strategies, and even come up with creative concepts faster and more efficiently than humans was, frankly, a little terrifying. I mean, what does that mean for their jobs? For their industry? For the future of marketing as they know it? But as they dug deeper, something shifted. Rather than seeing AI as a threat, they started to view it as an opportunity. Yes, the technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and yes, it has the potential to disrupt the way they work. But instead of running from it, they decided to lean into it. To explore how they, as marketers and creatives, can harness the power of AI to enhance and elevate their own skills and capabilities.

Over the course of this season, Sean and Lindsay will be diving into topics like the role of AI in content creation, how machine learning can inform marketing strategy, and what the future of creative agencies might look like. They'll be doing research, sharing their own experiences, and providing their listeners with some valuable insights and actionable takeaways. Because, at the end of the day, Sean and Lindsay believe that creativity and innovation will always be at the heart of marketing. And while AI may change the way they work, it doesn't have to replace the human element. In fact, they think it has the potential to make them better, smarter, and more efficient marketers.

So buckle up, Marketeers, because this is going to be one wild ride. Sean and Lindsay can't wait to share it with you. Happy listening!

Welcome to the finale of Season 4, Marketeers! We've made it. Four years, four seasons and 89 episodes later, The Two Marketeers podcast is wrapping up yet again. Don't worry; they only break for the summer, so you'll see them return, fresh and ready to rock, in the fall of 2024. 

Co-hosts Sean Patrick and Lindsay Waugh dedicated this finale episode to the top three things they've learned while producing The Two Marketeers podcast. After being made all too aware that an entire season and promotional plan for a podcast can be created in under an hour using AI, Sean and Lindsay wanted to share with their listeners the value of going through it. Enjoy listening, Marketeers, and see you next season. 

Welcome to part 2 of a two-part episode titled "Is Effectiveness Killing Creativity?" In this two-parter, co-hosts Sean and Lindsay explore the relationship between creativity and effectiveness and unpack how we got to today's over-engineered creative process and the need for measurement control over creativity. This episode dives further into how taking accountability for what motivates us as creative people can enable us to thrive as creative thinkers in marketing. 

Enjoy, Marketeers!

Welcome to another episode of The Two Marketeers podcast! This is a special one, so buyers should beware. Have you ever wanted an up-close glimpse into the brains of co-hosts Sean Patrick and Lindsay Waugh? Well, ask, and you shall receive.

In this episode, titled 'Is Effectiveness Killing Creativity,' Sean and Lindsay explore the relationship between creativity and effectiveness and unpack how we got to today's over-engineered creative process and need for measurement control over creativity. From digital to analytics and measurement, they call out and question it all in relation to creativity and ask some complex, possibly unanswerable, questions... Can creativity truly thrive and flourish in the handcuffs of today's environment? And, in turn, what will happen to human creativity as we know it? 

Buckle up, Marketeers, and happy listening. This one is a wild ride.  

Marketeers, it was love at first sight! Or sip? Or snack? In any case, as soon as Sean and Lindsay, co-hosts of The Two Marketeers podcast, saw the latest campaign from Kraft Heinz, produced by their internal agency, The Kitchen, they knew they had to dive in.

“As many Canadians head to the cottage for the long weekend in May, stopping at the Beer Store for their 2-4 is an unheralded tradition,” says Brian Neumann, head of brand communication, Kraft Heinz Canada. “We took the opportunity to piggyback on this consumer behaviour with the KD 2-4, 24 cups of Canada’s favourite Mac & Cheese in our most convenient snackable format.”

Neumann adds that KD cups were a perfect fit to provide easy snacking on long weekends for Gen Z consumers searching for “cravings and convenience. He adds that the product also allows consumers to enjoy it without having to spend extra time in the kitchen during their long weekend."

For reference:

Strategy Online, "KD makes a case for being at The Beer Store"

In April 2024, Contagious sent out its weekly newsletter, the 'Contagious Edit: Your Weekly Dose of Contagious Thinking,' which immediately caught the eye of The Two Marketeers as it discussed the virtues of churning stuff out.

The newsletter states, "In his 2018 book, Atomic Habits, James Clear tells a story about a photography teacher that holds a useful lesson for creative types.

Clear had come by the story in another book, called Art & Fear, which was published in 1985. The authors of that work had — for not especially interesting reasons — obscured the truth of the tale by omitting the name of the teacher in question and changing the locale to a ceramics class. But after Clear got in touch with them — and then spoke with some of the teacher’s former students — he learned the facts behind the fable, and this is apparently how it really happened.

Jerry Uelsmann was a successful artist who taught a film photography class at the University of Florida. On the first day of class one year, Uelsmann divided his students into two groups. He told the first group that they would be the ‘quantity’ group, and he would grade them on how many photos they submitted by the end of term. The other group, he said, was the ‘quality’ group, and they only had to produce one photograph all semester, but it had to be near-perfect to earn an A.

When it came time for Uelsmann to review his students’ photographs, he saw that the best compositions almost all came from the quantity group. While the students in the quality group had fussed over one or a few pictures, the quantity group were clicking away like an arthritic ankle in winter, and apparently became better photographers for it.

Former psychology professor Dean Keith Simonton spent decades studying human greatness in art and science, and he also found that, when it comes to creative endeavours, there is great value in volume.

After researching the lives of more than 2,000 eminent scientists, Simonton told the LA Times in 1988 that the single most important quality these great thinkers shared was probably ‘the willingness to produce a tremendous amount of work — often on seemingly trivial or useless projects — without fear of failure.’

In 1997 Simonton published a paper that articulated this finding as the ‘equal-odds rule’, which states that ‘the relationship between the number of hits (ie, creative successes) and the total number of works produced in a given time period is positive, linear, stochastic, and stable.’

The relationship between quality and quantity is not written in stone. A 2008 paper by Aaron Kozbelt, for example, found that classical composers produced their greatest concentration of hit songs around five years after their productivity peak, which suggests things like experience and expertise have a role to play. And common sense would suggest that you have to pay at least some attention to the quality of your ideas and compositions to eventually hit paydirt.

Still, it’s a fairly reliable rule of thumb that you need to have a lot of ideas to have great ones."

Join The Two Marketeers in this episode as they debate the quality vs. quantity of ideas and how to become a master of more. Happy listening!

Welcome to a less-than-brief conversation all about the brief! As creative strategy people in the marketing and advertising industry, The Two Marketeers co-hosts, Sean Patrick and Lindsay Waugh, are obsessed with the brief. And rightfully so! The brief is the kick-off to brilliant (and, unfortunately, mediocre) work. But, it should NOT be the beginning of the work being done. In this episode, Sean and Lindsay discuss and debate the role of the brief, all that has to go into creating one, and what to do in the absence of a great one, or let's be real, one at all. 

Happy listening, Marketeers! Then, get out there and craft better briefs. 

For reference: 

MarketingWeek, "Mark Ritson: The idea that marketers need to be creative is a load of baloney, we’re useless at it."

Watch out, The Two Marketeers are fired up! Co-hosts Sean Patrick and Lindsay Waugh take this episode to unpack a controversial article published in CMSWire with the headline, "AI Will Replace 95% of Creative Marketing Work". And as you may imagine, Sean and Lindsay call BS.

CMSWire > "Sam Altman: AI Will Replace 95% of Creative Marketing Work"

In this episode of The Two Marketeers, co-hosts Sean Patrick and Lindsay Waugh dive into a recent article from Ad Age that sheds light on a critical shift in the advertising industry. Agencies are increasingly pressured to sell their cookie-cutter proprietary processes over their people, talent and creative chops. Sean and Lindsay unpack the why behind this trend and its implications, discussing its impact on agency culture, creativity, and client relationships.

Sean and Lindsay offer insightful advice to agencies facing this challenge, suggesting that while having a process to sell is important, it's crucial to look at the bigger picture. They strongly (ha!) advocate for agencies to change the narrative about what best-in-class agency talent looks like. Instead of focusing solely on processes, agencies should prioritize getting the right people (as full-time or contract resources) and creative capabilities, emphasizing the collective value they bring to clients beyond a one-page process.

Join Sean and Lindsay as they explore how agencies can adapt to this changing landscape, redefine their value and how they make choices (and money!) for the future of the ad industry. 

For reference: 

Ad Age, "Why Agencies are Obsessed with Pitching on Process Instead of Talent"