Uncensored CMO

Scott Galloway is Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and host of the Prof G and Pivot podcasts. In this episode Prof G lives up to the billing as the most uncensored guest on the podcast ever. We cover lots of ground, including his secret to success with Prof G media, what the #1 skill for all marketers should be, why brand is dead and how to build wealth. We recorded this episode as Scott releases his new book The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula For Success, buy on Amazon UK, or US.

Links

• Jon's LinkedIn
• Jon's Twitter
• Watch the Uncensored CMO on YouTube

Timestamps

• 00:00:00 - Intro
• 00:00:57 - 25 year overnight success
• 00:01:28 - Scott’s biggest failures
• 00:07:38 - How Scott scaled himself
• 00:13:24 - Daniel Kahneman’s impact on Scott
• 00:20:26 - How social media has a negative impact on the world
• 00:28:45 - Scott Galloway on being late
• 00:31:14 - The most important skill for a marketer
• 00:33:32 - The Era of Brand is Dead
• 00:40:19 - Scott’s new book opening Aurelius quote
• 00:42:53 - The power of compound interest
• 00:43:53 - Scott’s advice to young people
• 00:48:33 - Growing your network grows wealth
• 00:56:33 - What does the agency of the future look like?
• 01:03:33 - How to get social media right
• 01:04:50 - Why big firms should stop certification based hiring

Today we're talking about more Boom! and less bust with Scott Morrison, the inspirational, energizing coach that teaches marketing teams how to be more successful, how to turn around business, how to win pitches and more.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:47 - Where did the name Boom come from
01:31 - Scott’s background at Saatchi&Saatchi
04:57 - What is Nike’s secret sauce
09:48 - Scott’s career failures
13:27 - Working on the Diesel brand
17:37 - How to go from bust to Boom!
40:11 - How to pitch to CMOs

Today we're talking about what makes a great CMO. One of the CMOs that I've admired throughout his career is Craig Inglis, who famously was a CMO for John Lewis for many years, making those ads that you saw at Christmas and really defining the genre of Christmas advertising.

Timestamps

• 00:00:00 - Intro
• 00:00:50 - Craig’s marketing background
• 00:02:25 - Craig’s biggest marketing failures
• 00:09:34 - How to have a long tenure as a CMO
• 00:13:24 - How to be a great CMO
• 00:23:53 - Guessing the most emotional John Lewis ads
• 00:28:50 - How to move from rational to emotional strategy in retail
• 00:31:17 - How to sell in creative ideas to rational CEOs and CFOs
• 00:36:00 - The business impact of Monty the Penguin for John Lewis
• 00:38:50 - How John Lewis ads does long and short
• 00:41:00 - Focusing on customer experience
• 00:51:48 - From large consumer brands to B2B
• 00:55:11 - Being the chair of the Marketing Society
• 01:00:34 - Working for The Entertainer

One of my favourite campaigns of all time is "Should've Gone to Specsavers" an idea that has completely transformed the Specsavers business. I speak to their CMO, Peter Wright and the MD of their in house creative team, Nicola Wardell, about how they've taken the idea and produced some of the best advertising on the System1 database.

Watch the episode on YouTube.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:59 - How Peter and Nicola ended up on Guernsey
• 03:02 - The Specsavers story
• 04:37 - The secret to Specsavers’ success
• 09:04 - Family owned vs corporate business
• 10:38 - How the “should’ve gone to Specsavers” line was created
• 14:17 - The world’s longest running straplines
• 16:17 - The serious case for humour - Tower Block ad
• 20:18 - Specsavers Vet Ad
• 21:14 - A cross channel idea
• 24:29 - Why Specsavers do all creative in house
• 25:52 - How to attract talent to Guernsey
• 29:23 - Being the client and the agency
• 33:56 - Advice for creating an in-house team
• 34:37 - Wear in vs wear out at Specsavers
• 43:08 - Creating the culture at Specsavers
• 50:14 - Launching the audiology business
• 53:38 - How technology will shape the future of the business
• 56:07 - Peter and Nicola’s proudest work

How does someone create advertising for a brand that is over 150 years old? That is exactly what Stephen O'Kelly has been tasked with as Global Brand Director at Guinness, one of the most iconic brands in the world. Recorded from the Connoisseur bar at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, this episode of Uncensored CMO is special. Not just because of how much history is involved in the brand, but the fact that Stephen is a fourth generation employee, carrying on the legacy of his family.

Vikki Ross is a copywriting expert. Having worked for some major brand in the past two decades, she knows a thing or two about branding and tone of voice. This episode is a copywriting masterclass. We start by delving into the principles of great copy, before looking at it in action with our very own Copy Safari (where we go out into the world to find real ads), and then round off by asking the big question; is AI going to replace copywriters?

Links

• Eats, Shoots and Leaves book
• Elements of F*cking Style book
• Bland Book
• Vikki's Twitter
• Vikki's LinkedIn

Timestamps

• 00:00:00 - Intro
• 00:00:59 - How Vicki got into copywriting
• 00:03:53 - Advice for people wanting to get into copywriting
• 00:07:34 - Why are car ads so bad?
• 00:09:39 - Is copywriting intimidating?
• 00:11:26 - Why copywriters need a good brief
• 00:14:50 - When copy goes wrong
• 00:18:17 - The principles of great copy
• 00:23:03 - This sentence has five words
• 00:25:49 - Power of a six word story
• 00:26:47 - #CopySafari
• 00:30:13 - Prime - It’s Right Here
• 00:31:58 - Nurofen and Nuromol
• 00:35:28 - Why marketers should work with lawyers
• 00:38:39 - Uber Eats - Just a tap away
• 00:41:19 - Subway - Saver Subs
• 00:43:00 - Lebara Mobile - Blady Blah
• 00:44:27 - Sacla - Spaghetti You Won’t Forgetti
• 00:45:56 - Monday.com - Meet your power suite
• 00:47:32 - TFL - See it, say it, sorted
• 00:49:42 - Greatest copywriting examples of of recent times
• 00:52:00 - Vikki’s favourite campaigns she’s worked on
• 00:55:05 - Will AI take copywriter’s jobs?
• 01:03:28 - Advice for clients on copy

We're doing things a little bit differently this week. I've just recorded a webinar with Mark Ritson on advertising effectiveness with a very special guest, the VP for global marketing, Gui Ferreira from Mondelez. They are responsible for some of the epic Cadbury work that has scored right at the top of the System1 charts. We discussed what makes their advertising so good, what are the principles of advertising effectiveness and what can we learn?

Watch the ads referenced in this podcast:

• Cadbury Garage
• Oreo Twist

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 03:23 Why creativity matters
• 04:31 Investing in creativity
• 08:00 Being forced into short term tactics
• 10:46 How to write a better brief
• 14:45 Distinctive assets (Oreo Ad)
• 20:10 Cadbury Garage Ad
• 22:07 Orlando Chart
• 23:21 Cadbury Generosity
• 27:24 How Cadbury approaches creative development
• 29:22 Data vs creative judgement
• 32:53 How to measure creative
• 40:15 Q&A

Today I'm joined by Mike Cessario, the founder and CEO of Liquid Death, a water brand worth $1.4b. With the use of creative brand marketing and punk aesthetic, Mike was able to break into the biggest beverage category in the US and disrupt market dominated by huge brands such as Coke and Pepsi. This is a truly inspirational story on how you can defy the odds, break convention, disrupt a category and do it all on a shoestring budget. If you're a challenger brand, this is a must listen.

Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:10 - Mike’s background
00:06:24 - Mike’s brandy startup
00:10:33 - Navigating regulation
00:12:46 - The benefits of being an outsider distrupting an industry
00:14:57 - Coming up with the idea for Liquid Death
00:19:30 - How to create an innovative brand
00:23:48 - Selling the Liquid Death concept
00:27:08 - Raising money for Liquid Death
00:29:50 - Launching on Amazon
00:30:52 - Generating demand in the early days
00:31:46 - Figuring out distribution networks for the drinks industry
00:35:45 - Why limited budgets helped Liquid Death grow
00:44:11 - Why D2C was pivotal for Liquid Death
00:46:12 - Liquid Death’s unique Super Bowl campaign
00:49:54 - The power of the Liquid Death merch
00:53:00 - Innovation for the future of Liquid Death
00:54:15 - Scaling and exit
00:56:02 - Having famous investors
00:57:29 - Maintaining the challenger spirit
01:01:58 - Mike’s advice to aspiring founders

As Chief Marketing Officer, Michelle Taite leads Intuit Mailchimp’s Marketing teams and is responsible for the business’ end-to-end brand, acquisition, performance, product, and lifecycle marketing activities globally in addition to Mailchimp's in-house creative agency Wink. Joining just after Mailchimp's $12b acquisition, Michelle had the task of integrating their marketing into the wider Intuit team.

Intro

00:00 - Intro
00:48 - Starting out desigining sneakers
02:39 - From New Balance to Unilever
04:13 - Doing purpose work for Dove
05:15 - Michelle’s favourite work at Unilever
06:27 - From CPG to SaaS
09:29 - What is Mailchimp and why is it successful
11:06 - Staying close to the customer
13:26 - How to market to marketers
14:54 - Email is not dead
16:15 - Integrating an acquired company
20:40 - Performance vs brand marketing
25:16 - How AI will enhance creativity
29:20 - Mailchimp's distinctive assets
33:21 - How marketing influences the product
35:56 - How to market to marketers
38:35 - Obsessing about the 95% not in market
40:45 - Top CMO advice from Michelle

Jo Shoesmith is the Global Chief Creative Officer at Amazon. She leads lead brand creative, design, production, social, and brand identity functions, as well as agency partnerships, in the largest fixed marketing portfolio investment at Amazon. 

00:00 - Intro
01:04 - From rural Australia to Los Angeles
01:58 - From agency to client side
04:44 - That famous Jeff Bezos marketing quote
05:50 - What does the Chief Creative Officer at Amazon do
07:41 - Creating emotional, brand building advertising
09:22 - Using the brand distintive assets
10:33 - Creating inclusive advertising
13:05 - Advice for writing a really good brief
14:43 - Tenets to inform great creative
15:45 - Benefits of having in house creative (and working with agencies)
17:42 - Managing global creative teams
19:36 - What’s it like making a Super Bowl ad
22:42 - Innovation within Amazon
24:12 - Making things happen in a huge business
25:13 - Simplifying complex creative ideas
28:23 - Work Jo is most proud of
31:39 - How Amazon are using AI
33:44 - Advice to a young Jo