What if one of the biggest problems with marketing strategy is that we keep making it more complicated?
In this episode of The Evergreen Playbook, I sit down with strategist, consultant and author Judd Labarthe to explore a simpler, more rigorous way to think about strategy, brand growth and marketing effectiveness.
At the centre of the conversation is a planning cycle built around four deceptively simple questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How might we get there? And are we actually getting there? We explore how these questions can uncover what genuinely drives a business, where future growth might come from and how to make better strategic decisions.
Along the way, we get into brand distinctiveness, fame and memorability, ROI and marketing effectiveness, creative constraints, generic corporate values, shiny-object syndrome and Judd’s wonderfully simple view of marketing’s core job: make your brand easier to buy.
Judd has spent around three decades helping brands and businesses compete and grow, including global and regional strategy leadership roles before founding the Singapore-based consultancy Planner At Large.
Since we recorded this conversation, Judd has published a substantially revised edition of the book discussed in the episode.
The new edition is titled:
Swimming Downstream: A Clearer Way to Think About Markets and Marketing
It replaces the original edition and is now available globally in paperback and ebook. You will still hear us refer to the previous title during the recorded conversation, as the revised edition was still being developed when we spoke.
The audiobook has finished recording and is currently being engineered, with publication expected around the end of September 2026.
Swimming Downstream: A Clearer Way to Think About Markets and Marketing
Amazon
More from Swimming Downstream
www.swimmingdownstream.com
Planner At Large
www.planneratlarge.com
Judd on LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/judd-labarthe-0565954
Judd on Instagram
instagram.com/thejuddlabarthe
David Göz is a marketing strategist and founder of Hexagram Creative. Through The Evergreen Playbook, he talks with practitioners, researchers and founders about the principles behind brands and businesses built to last, with a focus on strategy, marketing effectiveness and ideas that remain useful beyond the next trend.