25 years ago, two strategists published their first books.

Dr William Webb, prior to joining Ofcom as a founder, drew on his work at Motorola to produce The Future of Wireless Communications, which accurately predicted many of the mobile technologies and services that we now use every day.

Michael Bayler, with co-author David Stoughton, produced Promiscuous Customers: Invisible Brands, the first in-depth examination of how digital media and networks would revolutionise customer experience and value, and the still-unfolding implications for business innovation, transformation and growth.

In the first of a short series of UNTHNKBL LIVE podcasts, the two authors compare and share their key strategic learnings over the remarkable quarter-century that has followed.

Their conversation contains important lessons from the very different - yet now inextricably-linked - perspectives of engineering and enterprise leadership.

Part Two of Michael's examination of what's happened to date - and from there what needs to happen going forward - to reestablish the contributions of marketing and brands to value for both customer and business.

The insight that matters is how business intelligence itself has been transformed by the collision of billions of human lives and minds with a global network that 95 percent of all the world's information.

And in turn, how this impacts the daily experience and expectations of our customers.

This informs the philosophy for our own transformation. We can also begin to frame what shapes and determines customer value from here on, which helps us make more sure footed, faster decisions about innovation.

One of the most critical - and critically misconceived - challenges facing leadership is the development and delivery of a real corporate purpose.

Professor Colin Mayer CBE is Emeritus Professor of Management Studies at the Blavatnik School of Government and Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.

He joins Michael to outline his pioneering work on purpose, focusing on his previous ground-breaking book, Prosperity.

Colin's latest and widely-praised publication, Capitalism and Crises, develops this foundational thinking further, and he'll be discussing this on a future UNTHNKBL LIVE episode.

Marshall McLuhan, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Herman Hollerith and Thomas J. Watson - both of IBM - and closer to home, Stephen King of JWT, all have lessons for us in the latest UNTHNKBL LIVE episode.

The critical strategic questions raised in our first four episodes, by leading thinkers and practitioners in both marketing and technology, have set the scene for framing what needs to change.

In this new recording of Part One of his recent pioneering and well-regarded essay, Building The Intelligent Brand, Michael goes back over a century to unpick and unpack the complex relationship between marketing and technology.

We discover that many of today's most troubling conundrums originate in startling historical collisions and misconceptions which, when challenged, pave the way for a simpler and more credible approach to strategic marketing and brand building in the 21st century.

Michael is joined by a great friend and co-conspirator, the renowned marketing leader David Wheldon OBE - consultant, coach, mentor, speaker and NED, WFA President Emeritus and former CMO at NatWest - to debate the hottest and most enduring challenges facing brands and marketers.

When did marketing lose its way? Why did this happen? How can the CMO regain trust, credibility and traction in the C-suite? Are brands still as important as ever? Will we ever get to the bottom of the metrics conundrum?

Above all, how - in the 21st century - can marketing deliver and demonstrate its contributions to value and growth for the business?

We cover the bad, the ugly - but also a surprising amount of the optimistically very good - of the past, present and future of the often-troubled world of the CMO.

Continuing the series of UNTHNKBL investigations into the present and future of brand marketing, we go to Silicon Valley to debate the significant - and hard to agree - positive and negative effects of emerging technologies on society and the citizen.

Michael is joined by a truly great analyst, commentator and innovation strategist, old friend and sparring partner Jessica Groopman, Founder of the Regenerative Technology Project, and Senior Innovation Advisor at Intentional Futures.

With critical contributions from big thinkers and leaders Tony Ageh OBE, Roy Vella and Adrian Leu.

As the tsunami around AI continues to rage, this conversation frames these concerns with deep technological insight and rare understanding of the potential impacts on human life and experience.

Continuing the series of UNTHNKBL investigations into the past, present and future of brand marketing, we turn to the difference between "Big M" and "little m" marketing.

Michael is joined by one of America's most respected marketers, the CEO of milkPEP, Yin Woon Rani - a close friend and critical partner in strategic thought crime.

We also have contributions from more leading marketing practitioners, including David Wheldon OBE, Nick Smith, Emma Isaac and Frank Mertens.

If marcomms are understood as no longer playing a central role, at a time when customer value is more than ever a moving target, and the business continues to question brand marketing, what then are the roles of experience, and in particular, of service design?

This inaugural UNTHNKBL podcast launches a series of episodes investigating the troubled roles of brand and branding in the 21st century.

Michael Bayler is joined by three renowned British marketing leaders:

• ​Michelle McEttrick, now CCO at Primark, at the time of recording Group Brand Director at Tesco;
• ​David Wheldon OBE, consultant, coach, mentor, speaker and NED, WFA President Emeritus and former CMO at NatWest;
• ​Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman at Ogilvy UK, TED Global speaker, author of Alchemy.

The panel investigates how brands need to evolve to deliver real value to their two masters - the customers who pay for them, and the firms that invest in them.