Explore every episode of the podcast Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBP 240: SBP Interview - Target Canada: The Rise and Fall of a Promise, with Omar Roubi | 29 Sep 2026 | 01:03:21 | |
Target is a company people love. More than 1,700 stores, a brand with real pull. Then it came to Canada, lost billions, and walked away inside four years. This is a story about Big and Little marketing. Little is the advertising. Big is everything else: product, price, place, and how the whole business organizes around the customer. Roger Martin says a promise has to be memorable, valuable, and deliverable. Advertising makes it memorable. Price and place make it valuable. Product makes it deliverable. In Canada, Target's ads were excellent, and the business broke the promise anyway. CPA Omar Roubi joins Marc and Vassilis to reverse engineer the collapse through the four Ps. Omar teaches this case at the University of Colorado Denver and built a definitive audio case study on it at LumiQ. He also lived it: his wife moved from Texas to help launch the Toronto-area stores. Inside: the Zellers real estate deal that started the countdown, empty shelves sitting above full back rooms, the imperial vs metric mix-up, three distribution centres across a 6,000 km country, and why the famous $5.4B loss is mostly a writedown, not operating losses. A case study in why great marketing can't save a broken business. Our Guest: Omar Roubi - https://www.linkedin.com/in/omar-roubi-cpa-texas/ Chapters: 00:00 Cold open: one bad decision begets more 00:26 Big marketing vs Little marketing 02:16 Omar Roubi returns 03:14 The personal connection: launching Target in Toronto 06:14 "Too big to fail" 06:36 The accountant's takeaway 09:22 Place: the Zellers real estate deal 12:08 Wrong locations, wrong customer 18:47 The 12-month countdown clock 22:25 Product: empty shelves, full back rooms 25:02 Physical availability and the metric mix-up 32:46 Price: "expect more, pay less" meets three warehouses 41:05 The currency headwind 45:07 The $5.4B loss vs the $200M operating loss 48:27 Little marketing: is ROI the wrong number? 53:01 The apology videos, and brand vs performance 57:04 The one number that signals trouble first 1:00:07 The human cost: 17,600 people References: References CBC News. (2011, January 13). Target buys Zellers leases for $1.8B. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-buys-zellers-leases-for-1-8b-1.981132 CBC News. (2012, July 6). Target wins approval to come to Canada. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-wins-approval-to-come-to-canada-1.1160485 Castaldo, J. (2016, January 1). The last days of Target. Canadian Business. https://canadianbusiness.com/ideas/the-last-days-of-target-canada/ Kumar, N. (2025, September 2). The experience paradox: Why better satisfaction scores don't always mean growth. Kantar. https://www.kantar.com/north-america/inspiration/experience/the-experience-paradox LinkedIn B2B Institute & WARC. (2024, August 13). Making a promise to the customer: How to give campaigns a competitive edge. https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/resources/b2b-institute/making-a-promise-to-the-business-customer Roubi, O. (Host). (2021, August). The rise and fall of Target Canada [Audio podcast]. LumiQ. Strauss, M. (2013, April 5). Target Canada prices 0.2 per cent higher than Wal-Mart's: Survey. The Globe and Mail. Strauss, M. (2014, September 22). Target Canada winning price battle with Wal-Mart. The Globe and Mail. Target Corporation. (2011, January 13). Target Corporation to acquire interest in Canadian real estate from Zellers Inc., a subsidiary of Hudson's Bay Company, for C$1.825 billion [Press release]. https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2011/01/ Target Corporation. (2015a, January 15). Target Corporation announces plans to discontinue Canadian operations [Press release]. https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2015/01/ Target Corporation. (2015b, January 15). Form 8-K. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000027419/000002741915000005/ Zellers Inc., Hudson's Bay Company, Target Corporation, & Target Canada Co. (2011, September 12). Amended and restated transaction agreement [Exhibit 2(a) to Form 10-Q]. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000027419/000110465911066091/ | |||
| SBP 239: The Sharp Cut - Who Killed the Click? | 24 Sep 2026 | 00:25:45 | |
Marketing runs on comfort blankets. The Sharp Cut cuts them up to see what's inside. This week, we did it as a murder mystery. The victim: the click. Once upon a time a click was one honest fact, a machine noting that a file left a building. Over eleven years it got poisoned, dose by dose, until it was taking credit for sales it never caused. The body: in 2012, eBay turned off roughly $51M in paid search across a third of the US, with matched control markets. Scored the way a dashboard scores it, the return was over 4,000%. Scored against the control, the only way that actually answers the question, it was minus 63%. Same company, same spend, same year. Then we line up six suspects, the auction, the platforms, last click attribution, the CFO, the agency, and us, and ask each one the same two questions: did they have a reason, and did they have the access? Marc and V get out of the costume for the part that stings: the doses we added ourselves. The Sport Chek war room. The machine V built to move money faster. The P&G cut everyone quotes that fails our own evidence test. And what happens to the click when the shopper is an AI. We won't hand you a verdict, because we don't fully agree. You're the jury. Enjoy the show! Chapters: 00:00 What the Sharp Cut is 00:49 A murder mystery: who killed the click? 01:30 Meet your six suspects 01:45 The body: eBay turns off $51M in paid search 03:35 4,000% ROI or minus 63%? Same campaign, two scores 03:57 What a click actually was (the first banner, 1994) 05:23 The 44% click rate nobody can verify 06:25 Cause of death: poisoned over eleven years 06:42 Three doses: price, bouncer, then credit 08:43 When a measure becomes a target (Goodhart's Law) 09:09 Whodunit: motive and opportunity 11:21 The evidence: Facebook's own 2016 deck 12:45 Out of the costume: the doses we added ourselves 15:28 The Sport Chek war room18:16 Building a machine to move money faster 19:41 The P&G $200M cut, and why it fails our own test 20:49 The alibi that holds: same test, opposite answer 21:27 The click's replacement: AI shoppers 22:39 The verdict is yours 24:06 One warning before you turn anything off Sources: Allouah, A., Besbes, O., Figueroa, J. D., Kanoria, Y., & Kumar, A. (2026). What is your AI agent buying? Evaluation, biases, model dependence, and emerging implications of agentic e-commerce. In Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2026 (pp. 8697–8700). https://doi.org/10.1145/3774904.3792943 Blake, T., Nosko, C., & Tadelis, S. (2015). Consumer heterogeneity and paid search effectiveness: A large-scale field experiment. Econometrica, 83(1), 155–174. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA12423 Chan, D. X., Yuan, Y., Koehler, J., & Kumar, D. (2011). Incremental clicks: The impact of search advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 51(4), 643–647. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-51-4-643-647 Golden, J., & Horton, J. J. (2021). The effects of search advertising on competitors: An experiment before a merger. Management Science, 67(1), 342–362. Gordon, B. R., Zettelmeyer, F., Bhargava, N., & Chapsky, D. (2019). A comparison of approaches to advertising measurement: Evidence from big field experiments at Facebook. Marketing Science, 38(2), 193–225. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1135 Lewis, R. A., & Rao, J. M. (2015). The unfavorable economics of measuring the returns to advertising. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(4), 1941–1973. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv023 Lysen, S. (2013). Incremental clicks impact of mobile search advertising. Google. https://research.google/pubs/incremental-clicks-impact-of-mobile-search-advertising/ Simonov, A., Nosko, C., & Rao, J. M. (2018). Competition and crowd-out for brand keywords in sponsored search. Marketing Science, 37(2), 200–215. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1065 The Procter & Gamble Company. (2017). Additional definitive proxy soliciting materials (DEFA14A). U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000080424/000119312517299631/d464866ddefa14a.htm Facebook. (2016). Everything competes with everything [Slide presentation]. GoTo.com, Inc. (1999). Form S-1 and Form 10-Q. To be reformatted as SEC legal sources. Nielsen. (2009). NetEffect CPG home scanner panel meta-analysis of 200+ online campaigns. As reported in Facebook (2016). Nielsen. (2015). BrandEffect meta-analysis of 478 online global campaigns, October 2014 to April 2015. As reported in Facebook (2016). | |||
| SBP 238: The Barber's Brief - Playing on rented land, again. | 22 Sep 2026 | 00:32:00 | |
Marc and V are back with the Barber's Brief: the good, the bad, and the overhyped from the last couple of weeks, with data, a few strong opinions, and Great Creative getting the last word. This week:
Plus Ad of the Week: Tubi's funeral spot from "Find Any Feeling For Free," the funniest ad with the weakest branding you'll see all month. Enjoy the show! Chapters 00:00 Intro: welcome back to the Barber's Brief 01:11 Story 1: "My CEO doesn't get brand" 02:07 Education gap or proof gap? 04:05 The B2B Institute evidence: brand as the icebreaker 05:53 Story 2: Google AI Overviews are eating your traffic 07:23 Playing on rented land, again 09:34 Own your audience, or just change landlords? 12:12 Story 3: QR codes, Andrew Tindall, and measurement theater 15:07 Marc's rebuttal: signal vs noise 18:01 Last click is dumb, so why do we default to it? 20:04 Story 4: Nobody owns demand 22:54 You don't own the four Ps, but stay close to them 25:08 Ad of the Week: Tubi, "Find Any Feeling For Free" 27:06 The gag that outran the brand 29:31 Coming up: Who Killed the Click, and Target Canada Links: Title: Lack of CEO understanding harming B2B brand building push Link: https://www.marketingweek.com/brand-spend-b2b-ceo-cfo/ Title: Google AI Overviews Are Eating Your Website Traffic. Here’s How To Get That Traffic Back Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/terdawn-deboe/2026/05/18/google-ai-overviews-are-eating-your-website-traffic-fight-back/ Title: Andrew Tindall: If you’re still putting QR codes in your ads, sorry, you’re a moron Link: https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/andrew-tindall-if-you-re-still-putting-qr-codes-in-your-ads-sorry-you-re-a-moron Title: Nobody in your company owns demand. Link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matsgeorgson_nobody-in-your-company-owns-demand-ask-activity-7505219391089983488-BoMM?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAASDjbUB2U9VXn6rXo3lEfvMAwrkF_01wlk Ad of the Week Title: Tubi Fakin' It 30s Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGklD2yU-3I&t=30s | |||
| SBP 237: The PostPod - Lessons from Ian Whittaker, Data is not the problem. | 17 Sep 2026 | 00:18:00 | |
Fresh off the Ian Whittaker interview, Marc and Vassilis sit down for the PostPod to unpack what actually stuck. The through line: marketing keeps losing the budget argument because it treats finance as an obstacle instead of a customer. Ian's framing reframed it. Follow the incentives. Understand what executives are rewarded and punished for. Reframe budget as risk, not just missed opportunity. And stop leaning on "ROI" as if the word alone wins the room, because it is a ratio you can improve simply by cutting spend. They also get honest about the echo chamber marketers live in, the gap between how advertising works and how people believe it works, and why infinite data and AI still have not cracked proof. Marc brings it down to earth with a personal lesson from running a real P&L. No tidy answers. A much better set of questions. Chapters: 00:00 The board is a customer too (cold open) 00:41 PostPod: why our heads were spinning 02:22 Follow the incentives, the question we never ask finance 03:12 Marc runs a P&L now, and cost is a worthy adversary 05:07 Marketing's echo chamber problem 06:10 Finance is the customer: vocabulary vs grammar 07:16 Learn capital allocation, not just the buzzwords 09:42 Why leading with ROI can get you cut 10:27 How advertising works vs believing how it works 11:40 Understand board priorities before you pitch 12:53 Infinite data, still can't prove ROI, enter DCF 15:05 The bridge and the ravine 16:45 Getting marketers closer to the business | |||
| SBP 236: SBP Interview - Data is not the problem. With Ian Whittaker. | 15 Sep 2026 | 00:50:14 | |
Marketers have spent years trying to prove marketing works. Better attribution. Better dashboards. Better measurement. More data. And yet marketing still struggles to defend investment when budgets come under pressure. Maybe proof isn't the real problem. In this episode of the Sleeping Barber Podcast, Marc and V sit down with Ian Whitaker, Founder and Managing Partner of Liberty Sky Advisors and a former equities analyst with more than 20 years covering media, technology and telecommunications. Ian argues that marketers have learned the vocabulary of finance without necessarily learning its grammar. Boards aren't simply deciding whether marketing works. They're deciding where the next dollar of capital should go, what return it could generate, what risk it carries and what risk the business accepts by not investing. That changes the marketing conversation. Ian explains why he thinks marketing should be understood as intangible capex, why brand investment could be separated into maintenance and growth, and why cutting marketing can create risks that aren't visible on the next quarterly earnings report. The conversation also challenges one of marketing's favourite financial metrics: ROI. As Ian points out, ROI can improve simply by reducing the denominator. You can cut marketing investment and increase marketing ROI, even while potentially making the business weaker over time. The metric may tell us something about efficiency without necessarily telling us whether we're maximizing effectiveness or enterprise value. The discussion explores discounted cash flow, pricing power, financial incentives, the accounting treatment of brand investment and why strong brands can paradoxically become victims of their own success. And ultimately, Ian makes a much simpler argument: Data isn't the problem. Data is evidence that supports the business case. It isn't the business case itself. Our Guest: Ian Whittaker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianwhittakermedia/ Chapters: 00:00 Why Marketing Keeps Losing the Budget Argument 01:46 Meet Ian Whitaker 04:54 Seeing What Others Miss 07:16 Why Brand Is an Underappreciated Asset 09:42 The Board Is Another Customer 11:19 Marketing Knows Finance's Words, Not Its Grammar 13:45 Why Marketing Budget Is Really a Risk Conversation 18:18 Marketing Is Intangible Capex 22:10 Why Accounting Makes Marketing Easy to Cut 25:01 Marketing Compounds — It Doesn't Just Add 26:46 Why Investors Value Brand but Still Cut Marketing 32:16 What's Wrong With Marketing ROI? 34:32 A Better Financial Model for Marketing 39:58 When Strong Brands Become Victims of Their Own Success 42:18 Data Isn't the Problem 43:11 Building the Bridge Between Marketing and Finance 45:48 Becoming a Better Marketer by Thinking Beyond Marketing 46:27 Start With the Business and Work Backwards 47:45 Why Brand Investment Is Like Defence Spending 48:56 Where to Find Ian | |||
| SBP 235: The Sharp Cut - AI Won't Save You. Leadership Will. | 10 Sep 2026 | 00:36:52 | |
AI Won’t Save You. Leadership Will. Companies have spent the last few years buying AI tools, running pilots and training employees. Yet much of that investment still isn't producing the transformation leaders expected. Maybe the problem isn't the technology. In this Sharp Cut, Marc and V examine why AI transformation is ultimately a leadership and organizational design problem. They unpack research on the divide between AI experimentation and measurable business impact, Roger Martin's idea of the organization as a “decision factory,” and why making individual marketers faster may be solving the wrong problem. The real opportunity may lie in redesigning workflows, decision rights and standards around what AI can now do. They also examine a more uncomfortable question: as AI becomes increasingly capable at professional work, what should humans actually be getting better at? Marc shares the results of an AI marketing workshop where three groups used very different approaches to solve the same brief. All three produced impressive-looking work. The difference wasn't production quality. It was whether the people behind the work could explain and defend the decisions AI had helped them make. Finally, the conversation goes back to 1855 and Daniel McCallum's railroad organization. A new information technology — the telegraph — forced leaders to rethink how their organizations worked. AI may be creating the same challenge today. The tools are increasingly available to everyone. The advantage won't come from simply having them. It will come from how leaders redesign the organization around them. Chapters 00:00 AI Won't Save You. Leadership Will. 01:14 The AI Transformation We Expected Never Happened 02:23 AI Is a Mode-Seeking Machine 03:29 When AI Produces the Safe Answer 04:21 Why AI Always Says “Good Point” 05:25 The 95% AI Failure Problem 06:06 What Separates the Successful 5%? 07:45 The Organization Is the Constraint 08:00 Are We Moving Marketing Dollars Into AI? 09:08 The Modern Organization as a Decision Factory 10:46 What AI Exposes About Knowledge Workers 11:40 Does the Decision Factory Apply to Small Teams? 12:36 The Bottleneck Is Between People 13:28 The Comfortable Assumption About Human Skills 13:50 AI Is Catching Human Experts 15:36 What Should Humans Actually Be Doing? 16:03 The AI Capability Trap 17:04 Is the T-Shaped Marketer Dead? 18:24 Why AI Should Attack the Hard Problems 19:21 What Happened When Marketers Let AI Lead 20:55 Three Teams, One Marketing Brief 21:31 Polished Work That Nobody Could Defend 22:34 Evidence vs. Familiar Frameworks 24:18 Why AI Needs Human Judgment 25:17 Marketing's Stack of Bad Assumptions 26:35 The Streetlight Effect in Marketing Measurement 27:03 Are We Optimizing the 17% We Can See? 28:03 “Busy Is the New Stupid” 28:56 AI Should Multiply, Not Just Automate 30:12 It Ain't What You Do, It's the Way That You Do It 31:06 Should Leaders Lead From the Front or Behind? 32:12 What an 1855 Railroad Can Teach Us About AI 34:23 New Technology Requires New Organizations 34:51 What Leaders Should Do Monday Morning 36:21 The Difference Between the 95% and the 5% 36:34 AI Won't Save You. Leadership Will. | |||
| SBP 234: The Barber's Brief - More Data. More Tech. More Specialists. Better Marketing? | 08 Sep 2026 | 00:33:45 | |
Marketing has more data, technology and specialist expertise than ever. But is all that sophistication actually making marketing better? In this edition of The Barber's Brief, Marc and Vassilis unpack five stories that all raise different versions of that question. First, AI assistants are increasingly embedded in how people discover and evaluate products, yet they still rank near the bottom of trusted sources for shopping recommendations. Marc asks whether AI will eventually become a reliable source of marketing knowledge or simply produce increasingly confident averages of everything we've already said. Then, V looks at PepsiCo's decision to consolidate its global media business with Publicis under a single operating model spanning strategy, planning, activation, data, identity and technology. The bigger question: has fragmentation itself become one of marketing's biggest effectiveness problems? Marc follows with the $700 billion MarTech delusion. One former privacy executive pulled her own data-broker profile and discovered she belonged to 500 segments, simultaneously classified as male and female, low income and high income. Research discussed in the episode suggests purchased targeting data can sometimes perform little better than chance, while contextual targeting may outperform it at lower cost. Then comes something refreshingly simple. The UPS Store has introduced its first brand character, Blu, designed to help expand the brand's mental associations beyond shipping into printing, shredding, mailboxes and other small-business services. V argues the opportunity isn't simply creating entertaining advertising; it's building a distinctive memory structure that can work across multiple buying situations. Finally, Marc's Ad of the Week goes to Canva's Wild Design: handcrafted stop-motion advertising in an era where almost anyone can generate something instantly with AI. The campaign combines showmanship with salesmanship while continuing to invest in a recurring character as a potential distinctive asset. More technology doesn't automatically mean better marketing. Sometimes the advantage may come from making the whole system work together — and remembering the fundamentals underneath it. Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to the Barber's Brief 01:58 Why Shoppers Use AI But Don't Trust It 03:01 Who Do Consumers Trust for Recommendations? 04:13 The AI Credibility Gap 05:09 When Low-Evidence Categories Reward the First Answer 06:23 Does AI Know Marketing Effectiveness? 08:18 Is AI Learning From Its Own Slop? 09:01 PepsiCo's Massive Global Media Shift 10:29 The Problem With Marketing Specialization 12:24 Is Fragmentation Hurting Marketing Effectiveness? 15:15 The $700 Billion MarTech Delusion 16:02 When Audience Data Is Completely Wrong 17:30 Does Targeting Actually Work? 18:42 Did MarTech Solve the Wrong Problem? 19:15 What Should CMOs Do With Their MarTech Stack? 21:31 The UPS Store Introduces Its First Brand Character 23:25 Blu as a Distinctive Brand Asset 24:21 Why Brand Characters Need Consistency 25:41 Are Brand Characters Really Making a Comeback? 27:20 Marc's Marketing Effectiveness Haiku 28:05 Ad of the Week: Canva's Wild Design 29:05 Showmanship Meets Salesmanship 30:22 Building Distinctive Assets Over Time 31:51 Why Canva Chose Craft in the Age of AI 34:18 What's Coming Next 35:38 Stay Sharp Episode Links: Shoppers ask AI for help but don't trust its advice Link: https://www.emarketer.com/content/shoppers-ask-ai-help-don-t-trust-its-advice PepsiCo hands global media to Publicis amid transformation at CPG giant Link: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/pepsico-hands-global-media-to-publicis-amid-transformation-at-cpg-giant/829556/ The $700bn Delusion Link: https://www.mi-3.com.au/26-06-2024/data-delusion-does-using-data-target-specific-audiences-advertising-actually-make The UPS Store enlists first brand character to support franchisees Link: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/the-ups-store-enlists-first-brand-character-to-support-franchisees/829215/ Ad of the week - Canva - Wild Design Link: https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/wild-design-f89d06d3-3b9d-4cd0-95de-189714c47446 | |||
| SBP 233: The PostPod - Lessons From Fiona Stevenson. Why Innovation Fails. | 03 Sep 2026 | 00:21:52 | |
Everyone wants innovation. But what exactly are we asking for? In this Post-Pod, Marc and Vassilis unpack their conversation with Fiona Stevenson, co-author of Built for Breakthrough, and start with one of the simplest problems: organizations frequently use the word “innovation” without agreeing on what it actually means. Breakthrough? Disruption? A game changer? Incremental growth? A new tactic? That distinction matters because, as Fiona argued, an idea doesn't become innovation until it is implemented and creates value. From there, the conversation turns to the organizational conditions that innovation requires. Marc and V discuss why teams rush to solutions before properly understanding the problem, why genuine innovation creates fear, and how the pursuit of certainty can push organizations toward safer incremental improvements. They also revisit Fiona's Six I's framework: Identify → Insights → Inspiration → Ideation → Iteration → Implementation Rather than treating those stages as a checklist, Vassilis argues they should be viewed as multipliers. Skip one and you risk weakening the entire system. The conversation closes with two bigger questions. First, if innovation requires focused thinking, why do we expect it to happen between back-to-back meetings? And second, if AI is giving us unprecedented productivity gains, will we use that extra capacity to explore new possibilities — or simply fill it with more of the same work? A Post-Pod about innovation, uncertainty, AI, marketing and why being busy isn't the same thing as building the future. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to the Post-Pod 00:21 Why “Innovation” Means Different Things to Everyone 01:43 What Kind of Innovation Are We Actually Asking For? 02:24 Defining Innovation Before Starting the Work 02:53 An Idea Isn't Innovation Until It Creates Value 04:04 Are We Solving Before Understanding the Problem? 04:47 The Optimization Trap 06:42 Why Fear Kills Innovation 08:39 Why Incremental Innovation Feels Safer 10:04 Fear Creates Overanalysis 10:21 “How Might We?” vs. “We Should” 11:10 Fiona's Six I's of Innovation 11:40 Innovation as a Multiplicative System 12:53 Is Intuition the Seventh I? 13:20 How Marketing and Innovation Overlap 14:28 Should Marketing Be an Innovation Function? 17:39 Innovation Doesn't Happen Between Meetings 18:32 Are We Using AI for Efficiency or Growth? 19:48 Why AI Should Create Possibility 20:08 AI Increases the Need for Discernment 20:55 Final Thoughts | |||
| SBP 232: SBP Interview - Why Innovation Fails Before the Idea Ever Gets a Chance. With Fiona Stevenson. | 01 Sep 2026 | 00:55:27 | |
Why do organizations say innovation is mission-critical, then create conditions that make innovation almost impossible? Fiona Stevenson has spent her career on both sides of that problem. After 12 years at Procter & Gamble, she co-founded The Idea Suite, an innovation consultancy that has worked across hundreds of innovation projects. She is also the co-author of Built for Breakthrough: Why Innovation Fails and How Smart Leaders Get It Right. In this conversation, Fiona joins Marc and Vassilis to unpack why innovation usually fails long before the idea itself is tested. They explore the famous Febreze story and why understanding the actual consumer problem changed the brand’s trajectory, before getting into the organizational conditions required for innovation to survive. Fiona explains why big innovation ambitions often collide with tiny budgets, part-time teams and unrealistic timelines; why past data can become dangerous when designing for the future; and why innovators need to build evidence instead of waiting for certainty. The conversation also covers Fiona’s six-stage innovation framework: Identify → Insights → Inspiration → Ideation → Iteration → Implementation And perhaps a seventh: Intuition. Plus: Why “we should…” is not an idea Why “How might we?” is such a powerful innovation question How AI is dramatically lowering the cost of prototyping Why AI should be an input, not the final output How implementation destroys good ideas through “death by a thousand cuts” Why innovation needs dedicated time, not calendar scraps How to create an innovation charter Why the best first step is simply defining the problem properly If your organization wants innovation but struggles to actually get ideas into market, this episode is for you. Enjoy the show! Chapters: 00:00 Why Innovation Dies Before the Whiteboard 01:36 Meet Fiona Stevenson 02:16 From P&G to Innovation Consulting 04:07 Moving From Client Side to Consulting 05:41 The Febreze Innovation Story 09:09 Why Consumer Understanding Comes First 10:59 What Is Innovation, Really? 13:02 The Uber Opportunity Fiona Turned Down 14:24 Different Types of Innovation 16:23 Big Innovation Ambitions vs. Organizational Reality 17:44 Why Stakeholder Alignment Matters 20:16 The Innovation Charter 21:24 Fear and the Unknown 22:00 Why Past Data Can Mislead Innovation 23:48 Why Great Marketers Can Struggle With Innovation 25:29 Getting Innovation Out the Door 27:24 The Future Has No Data 28:04 Challenging Assumptions With First Principles 30:00 AI as a Tool for Building Evidence 32:00 AI, Prototyping and Creative Potential 32:51 AI Should Be an Input, Not the Output 34:15 “We Should” Is Not an Idea 36:03 Why “How Might We?” Changes the Conversation 37:39 Fiona’s Six I’s of Innovation 39:09 Insights, Inspiration & Ideation 40:28 Why Iteration Matters 41:53 Implementation and Death by a Thousand Cuts 42:18 Protecting the Idea’s DNA 42:45 Is Intuition the Seventh I? 45:05 Why Skipping Steps Kills Innovation 47:06 The Most Undervalued Stage 48:49 How Innovation Survives Budget Pressure 50:17 Why Innovation Can’t Be a Side Job 51:39 What to Do Monday Morning 53:48 Why Innovation Needs Champions 54:26 It’s Never Too Late to Redefine the Problem 55:41 Built for Breakthrough Resources 56:11 Where to Find Fiona Link to the book: Built for Breakthrough - https://www.builtforbreakthrough.com/ | |||
| SBP 231: The Sharp Cut - Marketing has more data than ever. So why does nobody believe it? | 27 Aug 2026 | 00:36:22 | |
Marketing has never been more measurable. It may also have never been more short-term. If measurement was supposed to solve marketing's credibility problem, why hasn't five years of better data increased CEO confidence in marketing? In this Sharp Cut, Marc and Vassilis unpack what happens when the things marketing can observe quietly become the things organizations value. They trace the progression from visibility → accountability → optimization → observability, and ask whether attribution windows, platform dashboards and ROI have inadvertently trained marketers to optimize for short-term outcomes. Using research from Boathouse, the Norwegian marketing industry and others, they explore why the same data can produce radically different conclusions depending on how it is framed. They also tackle a harder question: who is responsible? Is finance forcing marketing to think short-term? Or have marketers quietly accepted the measurement windows handed to them by platforms and brought those definitions of effectiveness into the boardroom? The answer turns measurement into something much bigger: a leadership decision. Because the moment you choose the window, you decide what value counts — and what value doesn't. Chapters: 00:00 Marketing Has Never Been More Measurable 00:50 More Measurement, Same Confidence 02:14 Marketing Won the Seat but Lost the Argument 03:49 How Measurement Became Optimization 05:13 When What We Can Observe Becomes What Counts 05:30 The Fishing Net Problem 06:47 Where Leadership Enters the Measurement Debate 08:38 Are Marketers Responsible? 09:12 When Marketing Takes Credit for the Weather 11:16 The 35 Forces That Affect ROI 12:09 The Halo Effect 13:30 Same Data, Two Completely Different Answers 15:45 The Retail Number That Changes the Story 16:26 Why Every Channel Wants More Budget 17:57 Measuring Podcast Advertising With the Wrong Net 20:07 The Problem With the 95:5 Rule 21:46 Why ROI Can Mislead 24:06 How Cutting Spend Can Improve ROI 25:20 What Does “Return” Actually Mean? 27:03 When Long-Term Evidence Loses to the Quarter 28:23 Can Marketing Choose a Different Window? 31:29 Measurement Becomes a Leadership Problem 32:42 You Can Predict the Answer by Looking at the Net 34:07 Five Questions to Ask Before Measuring 35:00 What Marketing Can Learn From Finance 35:35 The Measurement Problem Is a Leadership Problem 35:59 What Comes Next: Discounted Cash Flow Episode Sources: Boathouse, Fifth Annual CEO Study on Marketing and the CMO, 150 US CEOs, fielded January 2026. Coverage via Marketing Dive, SmartBrief, CommPRO. Gartner, May 2024, CMO survey on internal skepticism of marketing value. Calgary Marketing Association and Stone-Olafson, 2024 ROI report, Alberta marketers, n=124. Kapero, ANFO and the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association, The Commercial Power of Brands in the Digital World, 13 Norwegian companies, 2024 data. Podscribe, Conversion Rate by Podcast Player, more than 50 direct response brands, 30 daywindow. Quatical, The 35 Factors That Affect Marketing ROI. Rosenzweig, P. (2007). The Halo Effect. Free Press. Eddington, A. S. (1939). The Philosophy of Physical Science. Cambridge University Press. The ichthyologist parable, told in summary. No direct quotation used. | |||
| SBP 230: The Barber's Brief - Are We Measuring Marketing Value — or Just What’s Easy to Measure? | 25 Aug 2026 | 00:37:25 | |
Are marketers getting better at measuring activity while getting worse at understanding value? In this edition of The Barber’s Brief, Vassilis and Marc unpack four marketing debates that caught their attention. First, the agency industry's truth-in-pricing problem: agencies teach clients to build premium brands while continuing to sell their own expertise through hours and headcount. As AI changes how quickly work gets done, what should clients actually be paying agencies for? Then, a provocative challenge to Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass school of thought: if mental and physical availability are table stakes, what actually allows a brand to break away from the competition and win? The conversation then turns to attribution vs. incrementality, and why creators, affiliates and reviews can appear to generate revenue without necessarily creating incremental demand. Finally, we explore pricing power and the idea that the biggest danger isn't failing to become a premium brand. It's losing the ability to set your own price. And for Ad of the Week, Spotify shows how data, culture and great outdoor creative can create personalization at scale without needing to personalize advertising to individuals. In this episode:
Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to the Barber’s Brief 01:23 The Marketing Industry’s Truth-in-Pricing Problem 03:36 What Should Clients Actually Pay Agencies For? 06:54 Why the Agency Model Is So Difficult to Change 09:14 Will AI Actually Reduce Agency Costs? 11:04 The Mental & Physical Availability Trap 14:52 What Actually Helps a Brand Win? 16:06 Breaking Out When Every Competitor Plays the Same Game 18:58 Attribution vs. Incrementality in Creator Marketing 21:18 How Creator Content Changes Value Over Time 22:49 Do We Have Too Much Attribution Data? 24:23 Pricing Power: Permission, Not Intent 28:20 Have Discounts Trained Consumers to Wait? 31:28 Ad of the Week: Spotify’s Hyperlocal Playlists 33:56 Why Spotify Gets Personalization Right 35:41 What’s Coming Next 37:12 Stay Sharp Links: The marketing industry's truth-in-pricing problem (and why adland is to blame) Link: https://www.mediaweek.com.au/marketing-industry-truth-in-pricing-problem Off Kilter 232: The Availability Trap. Link: https://offkilter.substack.com/p/off-kilter-232-the-availability-trap How to measure the true value of creators and review content Link: https://searchengineland.com/value-creators-review-content-485028 Pricing Power Link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mary-kyriakidi-4a5a4a57_when-i-talk-about-pricing-power-the-question-share-7496127277890568192-nzTS/ Ad of the Week - Spotify Spotify turns playlist names into hyper-local punchlines Link: https://www.thedrum.com/news/ad-of-the-day-spotify-turns-playlist-names-into-hyper-local-punchlines | |||
| SBP 229: The PostPod - Lessons from Pats McDonald. AI Won't Decide the Future of Marketing. We Will. | 20 Aug 2026 | 00:26:58 | |
AI is going to take our jobs. AI will commoditize creativity. AI will make strategy worse. But AI isn't making those decisions. We are. In this PostPod, Marc and V reflect on their conversation with Pats McDonald, Chief Strategy Officer at dentsu, and explore one of the most important ideas emerging from the AI conversation: human agency still matters. They discuss why AI may eliminate barriers without eliminating expertise, how LLMs naturally pull marketers toward the average, the danger of settling for “strategy-ish,” and why faster answers don't necessarily produce better thinking. The conversation also explores what AI means for specialists and generalists, how marketing organizations may need to evolve, and why companies may eventually need to onboard their AI systems with the same strategic frameworks, principles and ways of working they use to onboard their people. Because the biggest question may no longer be what AI can do. It's what we're going to choose to let it do. Chapters: 00:00 Stop Blaming AI 00:46 Reflecting on Pats McDonald 02:02 AI, Jobs and Human Agency 03:00 AI Is Removing Barriers to Entry 05:13 Why Expertise Still Matters 06:36 Design for Difference, Not Sameness 09:27 The Danger of “Strategy-ish” 11:24 When AI Becomes “Good Enough” 13:53 Do We Still Need Specialists? 14:58 The Marketer of the Future 16:16 Why AI Still Needs Human Expertise 17:07 Turning Ideas Into Reality Faster 20:16 Human Agency Still Matters 20:27 AI and Strategic Drift 21:30 Keeping AI Inside the Strategic Framework 24:00 Should Companies Onboard Their AI? 26:29 Final Thoughts | |||
| SBP 228: Interview - AI Won't Decide the Future of Marketing. We Will. With Pats McDonald. | 18 Aug 2026 | 00:28:29 | |
What if the biggest mistake we're making with AI is the way we talk about it? Pats McDonald, Chief Strategy Officer at Dentsu Creative, joins the Sleeping Barber Podcast to challenge one of the dominant narratives surrounding artificial intelligence: that AI itself is determining what comes next. Her argument is simple: AI doesn't make these choices. People do. We explore what that means for marketers, strategists and leaders as AI becomes embedded in everyday marketing practice. Pats explains why AI's greatest opportunity isn't simply doing more with less, but enabling ideas that previously weren't possible. We discuss the danger of “strategy-ish”—plausible, polished strategic thinking that never gets somewhere genuinely distinctive—and why strategists should use AI to identify category conventions so they can deliberately break away from them. We also tackle one of the biggest organizational questions surrounding AI: if technology increasingly performs the work traditionally given to junior marketers, how do we develop the next generation of senior talent? Plus:
Ultimately, Pats leaves us with a powerful distinction: Stop saying “AI will.” Start asking what people, enabled by AI, will choose to do. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 01:03 - Stop Saying “AI Will” 02:58 - How AI Is Changing Strategy 05:40 - Doing What Wasn't Possible Before 06:50 - What Happens to Junior Talent? 08:35 - Specialists vs. Generalists 11:35 - Curiosity as a Strategic Skill 13:45 - Can AI Accelerate Curiosity? 15:10 - Why Leaders Must Keep Learning 16:50 - The Danger of “Strategy-ish” 18:10 - Designing for Difference, Not Sameness 19:45 - AI, Bias and Strategic Blind Spots 21:05 - Why AI Still Needs Fact-Checkers 22:45 - Can AI Prevent Strategic Drift? 24:15 - AI as Institutional Brand Memory 25:55 - Great Examples of AI in Creativity 27:35 - AI Becomes Part of the Creative Toolkit 28:50 - Human Agency and the Future of AI 30:05 - Stop Saying “AI Will” | |||
| SBP 227: The Sharp Cut - Brand Does Not Belong to Marketing | 13 Aug 2026 | 01:07:55 | |
Ask ten marketers to define brand and you get ten answers. Ask them who owns it and you get one: marketing. Marc and V think that second answer is the problem. In this reboot of episode 4, they work through three questions with no guest and no script. What is brand? Marty Neumeier calls it the gut feeling people have about you. Roger Martin calls it generating confidence. Both descriptions point at things the promotion team does not control. Who owns it? V argues brand needs its own team, possibly reporting to the CEO, because the frontline, the packaging, the product roadmap and the customer service queue all write the brand whether marketing likes it or not. Marc pushes back on where the line sits, and lands on why an ad only ever amplifies the truth. Why is any of it useful? This is where it gets uncomfortable. NPS goes up when you lose customers. Last click hands the credit to the channel that was standing closest to the till. Share of search actually predicts something. And the retention economics everyone repeats turns out to be a thought experiment nobody checked. Recorded in 2021. Republished because the org chart problem has not moved. | |||
| SBP 226: The Barber's Brief - The AI Efficiency Trap: When Doing More With Less Backfires | 11 Aug 2026 | 00:29:17 | |
What happens when AI makes marketing more efficient, but every dollar saved gets taken out of the marketing budget? Welcome back to the Barber’s Brief, where we unpack the marketing stories, ideas and creative work that caught our attention. This week, we start with what might be one of the unintended consequences of the AI revolution: the efficiency spiral. As marketers use AI to accomplish more with less, are they inadvertently proving that their organizations need less marketing investment? We also explore why marketing may have the "loneliest seat at the table," despite having one of the broadest views of the business, and why marketers need to reconnect what they do to financial outcomes if they want greater influence inside organizations. Then we turn to Google. A German court ruling could fundamentally change the relationship between platforms, publishers and AI-generated answers by treating Google's AI Overviews as Google's own content. If an answer belongs to Google, does the responsibility for that answer belong to Google too? Finally, Marc's Ad of the Week takes us back to Cannes with Columbia Sportswear's Expedition Impossible, a brilliantly committed challenge to flat-earthers that demonstrates why great creative showmanship is about much more than spectacle. In this episode:
Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to the Barber's Brief 00:34 The AI Efficiency Spiral 01:01 How CMOs Are Funding AI 02:15 Why Smaller Companies May Be Winning With AI 03:22 AI as a Growth Tool, Not a Cost-Cutting Tool 05:49 Marketing Has the Loneliest Seat at the Table 06:12 Marketing's Panoramic View of the Business 08:43 Does the Rest of the Business See Marketing Differently? 10:42 Why Marketing Feels Unpredictable 12:31 Should Everything Marketing Does Link to Financial Outcomes? 13:39 Marketing's Retreat Into Communications 15:16 Getting Marketing Back Into the Business 16:36 Google's AI Search Liability Problem 18:45 When Google Becomes the Answer, Who Is Responsible? 20:18 How AI Overviews Are Changing Search Behaviour 23:18 Ad of the Week: Columbia's Expedition Impossible 24:02 Challenging Flat-Earthers to Find the Edge of the Earth 25:35 Why Columbia's Commitment Made the Idea Work 27:11 Showing a Different Side of Columbia 28:08 Why Showmanship Makes Advertising Great 28:57 Closing Thoughts | |||
| SBP 225: The PostPod - Lessons from Traci Alfford. Good Work Is a Habit Not a Score | 06 Aug 2026 | 00:26:42 | |
What actually makes marketing effective? It's tempting to point to great creative. Or strong media. Or impressive results. But after our conversation with Effie Worldwide CEO Traci Alford, we realized effectiveness is something much bigger. In this Post-Pod we unpack the four-part system behind effective marketing and discuss why leadership, culture and organizational alignment often matter more than any individual campaign. Topics include:
We also introduce another edition of our Quick Fire round, highlighting the biggest ideas from the episode. Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome to the Post-Pod 00:40 - First Impressions of Traci Alford 01:20 - Effectiveness Is a System 03:10 - Are We Solving the Right Problem? 05:15 - Great Systems Need Great Teams 07:30 - Stakeholder Management & Common Language 10:40 - Do Incentives Work Against Marketing? 14:45 - Future Demand & Long-Term Thinking 17:40 - Bravery vs Risk 21:50 - Global Insights vs Statements of Fact 24:05 - ⚡ Quick Fire 24:20 - Best Quote 24:40 - Biggest Insight 25:10 - Most Practical Takeaway 25:40 - Biggest Challenge for Marketers 25:50 - Debate Question 26:05 - Closing Thoughts | |||
| SBP 224: Interview - Good Work is a Habit, Not a Score. With Traci Alford | 04 Aug 2026 | 00:38:15 | |
Most companies treat effectiveness like a scoreboard. Traci Alford, Global CEO of Effies Worldwide, sees the entries from 130 countries, and she says that is exactly where it goes wrong. Measuring the crop does not grow it. In this conversation recorded in Cannes, Traci lays out the 4 things behind every winning case:
Plenty of companies are strong at 1 or 2. Almost nobody is strong at all 4, and fewer still can tell the story that ties them together. Traci also draws a line most of the industry blurs. Brave is not the same as risky. Risk means you have not thought about your headwinds. Brave means you made a calculated choice and you can defend it in the room. And her data says you cannot do it halfway. Stick to your knitting and execute well, or take the real swing. Hovering in the middle is where work dies. Marc and V push on the parts that hurt. Why the short term always wins the budget fight. Why agency relationships go sour when a campaign is the only unit of measurement. Why marketing jargon loses the room. And where technology spend quietly eats the money that could have gone into media. Traci keeps coming back to the same place. This is a people business, and the habit has to live at the executive table, not just in the marketing team. Timestamps00:00 Cold open and welcome 02:37 The 4 pillars behind every winning case 05:39 Brave is not the same as risky 09:18 Why this is a people business 13:24 The short term trap and shared accountability 18:28 Talking to the C-suite without the jargon 24:07 Insight is the one most people fail 29:34 Risk retreat, tech debt, and opportunity cost 36:16 What to take home from Cannes Show Notes Links
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| SBP 223: The Sharp Cut - Brand Awareness Is The Wrong Metric | 30 Jul 2026 | 00:21:46 | |
Brand awareness is one of the most reported metrics in marketing. It's in almost every board deck. Almost every brand tracker. Almost every agency review. But what if it's measuring the wrong thing? In this Sharp Cut, Marc and V explore why mental availability matters more than awareness, why Category Entry Points (CEPs) outperform personas as a planning framework, and why marketers should stop asking "Who is our customer?" and start asking "What buying situations do we need to own?" Topics include:
If you've ever presented a rising awareness score alongside a flat business result, this episode is for you. Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome to Sharp Cuts 00:35 - Why Brand Awareness Is Misleading 02:00 - Mental Availability vs Awareness 03:45 - What Should We Measure Instead? 05:15 - Category Entry Points Explained 07:10 - The Seven Whys Framework 08:00 - Why CEPs Changed the Conversation 09:00 - Creative Becomes the Targeting Tool 11:00 - Why Meta Is Broadening Audiences 12:30 - Two Performance Marketers Confess 15:30 - Where CEPs Go Wrong 16:30 - The Three Cs of Prioritization 17:30 - Distinctive Assets & Memory 18:30 - Bailey's Case Study 19:00 - Stop Measuring Brand Love 20:30 - The New Measurement Framework 21:30 - Final Takeaways | |||
| SBP 222: SBP Interview - Feels vs. Deals: The Real Battle for Q4. With Andrew Tindall and Vanessa Chin. | 28 Jul 2026 | 01:03:15 | |
What actually mattered at Cannes? More importantly... What should marketers do differently because of it? In this special collaboration between The Sleeping Barber, That's What I Call Marketing, and System1, we unpack the biggest lessons from Cannes Lions and turn them into practical advice for the second half of the year. Topics include:
If you're planning campaigns for the second half of the year, this conversation is your roadmap. Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome & Why This Conversation Matters 01:20 - What Really Happened Between Byron Sharp & Mark Ritson 05:35 - Where They Still Disagree 06:15 - Why Consistency Is Marketing's Biggest Weakness 09:20 - What Marketers Often Misunderstand 11:45 - AI After Cannes: Hype vs Reality 17:15 - Are We Already Bored of AI? 18:35 - Brand Characters, Consistency & Memory 23:40 - Why Audio Could Be Marketing's Next Big Opportunity 31:30 - Why Radio Still Works 37:20 - Creators: What Most Brands Get Wrong 43:30 - Memory Is Becoming Marketing's Most Important Metric 51:50 - The Q4 Playbook 54:00 - Feels vs Deals 59:00 - Why Great Christmas Ads Return Every Year 1:00:30 - Final Advice for Marketers | |||
| SBP 221: The PostPod - Lessons from Ty Heath. B2B Marketing is Playing the Game on Hard Mode. | 23 Jul 2026 | 00:23:36 | |
Ty Heath has a way of making complex marketing ideas feel deceptively simple. After our latest conversation with the former LinkedIn B2B Institute leader, we sat down to unpack the biggest ideas that stayed with us—from why B2B is simply "marketing on hard mode," to why confidence may be the true outcome of great B2B marketing. Along the way we explore:
If you've ever wondered whether B2B marketing really plays by different rules, this conversation may change your mind. 00:00 - Welcome Back & First Reactions 01:15 - Why B2B Is "Marketing on Hard Mode" 02:15 - The B2B Institute as a Marketing Cheat Code 03:30 - Buying Committees and What Makes B2B Different 06:10 - Are B2B and B2C Actually That Different? 07:15 - Has B2B Creativity Finally Matured? 09:35 - Campaigns vs. Ecosystems 12:00 - Why Event Marketing Builds Memory 13:30 - The Contrarian Marketer 15:10 - Chasing Trends vs. Building Strategy 17:30 - Objectives Before Tactics 18:10 ⚡ Quick Fire Begins 18:35 - Best Quote 19:15 - Most Surprising Insight 20:20 - Biggest Missed Question 21:45 - Most Practical Takeaway 22:15 - Challenge for Marketers 23:10 - Closing Thoughts | |||
| SBP 220: Interview - B2B Marketing is Playing the Game on Hard Mode. With Tyrona Heath. | 21 Jul 2026 | 00:40:58 | |
B2B marketing isn't playing a different game. It's playing the same game on hard mode. In this episode, we're joined by Ty Heath, Global Director of Thought Leadership Go-to-Market at LinkedIn and co-founder of the B2B Institute. Fresh off serving as Jury President for the Creative B2B Lions at Cannes, Ty shares what separated the best work from the rest—and why B2B creativity is entering a new era. We discuss:
Whether you work in B2B, B2C, media, or brand strategy, this conversation offers practical lessons on creativity, leadership and marketing effectiveness. Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome Back, Tyronna Heath 00:38 - Tyronna’s New Role at LinkedIn 01:11 - Winning an Effie for “Only on LinkedIn” 02:58 - Becoming Jury President for the Creative B2B Lions 05:24 - Reviewing 355 Cannes Entries 07:20 - Has B2B Creativity Finally Matured? 09:14 - What Effective B2B Creativity Looks Like 12:00 - Why the Best Ideas Can Be Explained in One Sentence 13:24 - What Is Still Missing from B2B Creative? 16:01 - Why Ecosystems Can Be More Powerful Than Campaigns 18:09 - The Role of Emotion in B2B Decision-Making 18:23 - Cannes as a B2B Brand Experience 21:37 - The Origin Story of the B2B Institute 25:25 - How the B2B Institute Built Its Influence 28:05 - Thought Leadership and Betting on What Won’t Change 31:09 - Human Behaviour as the Enduring Marketing Truth 32:43 - Where B2B Creativity Goes Next 34:15 - Why B2B Marketing Is “Hard Mode” 37:07 - LinkedIn’s Long-Term B2B Playbook 38:01 - Building Authority, Credibility and Confidence 39:10 - The B2B Institute as a Marketing Cheat Code 40:05 - Where to Follow Tyronna and the B2B Institute | |||
| SBP 219: The Sharp Cut - How Advertising Really Works | 16 Jul 2026 | 00:27:48 | |
What if almost everything we've been taught about advertising is built on a sales model from 1904? In this Sharp Cut, we unpack six of marketing's most persistent myths—from "digital has no waste" to "last-click attribution tells us what works"—before rebuilding a simpler, evidence-based explanation of how advertising actually works. Rather than relying on theory, we challenge these ideas using our own careers, practical examples, and decades of marketing science from Byron Sharp, Les Binet, James Hurman, Orlando Wood and others. In this episode
If you've ever struggled to explain marketing to your CFO—or even to yourself—this episode is for you. Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to Sharp Cut 00:15 Why Most Companies Misunderstand Advertising 02:13 Myth #1: Digital Has No Waste 06:36 Myth #2: Target High-Intent Audiences 09:36 Myth #3: Advertising Is Sales Done Over Media 11:03 Myth #4: Creative Is Just Decoration 12:34 Myth #5: Personalization Is The Future 14:29 Myth #6: Last-Click Attribution Tells Us What Works 17:10 How Advertising Actually Works 18:04 Why We're Still Using a Sales Model from 1904 19:55 Advertising Is a Weak Force 20:47 The Two Jobs of Advertising 21:39 Plant vs. Harvest: A Better Mental Model 22:04 The McCain Case Study 23:59 Why Most Companies Still Think Like Salespeople 25:12 Becoming Experts in Our Own Trade 26:20 Les Binet's One-Slide Explanation 27:29 Final Thoughts: Start Planting Supporting Links: Binkley, M., & Douros, V. (Hosts). (n.d.). What marketers still get wrong with Prof. Byron Sharp (No. 215) [Audio podcast episode]. The Sleeping Barber Podcast. Hurman, J. (2026). Future demand. https://futuredemand.com Iwamoto, A. (2024). The origin of AIDA: Who invented and formulated the AIDA model? Japan Marketing History Review, 3(2), 150-166. https://doi.org/10.51102/jmhr.3.2_53 Mulroney, R. (2024). McCain: When the chips are down, margins matter. How a focus on long-term emotional brand-building reduced price elasticity and increased profits for McCain [IPA Effectiveness Awards case study]. WARC. https://www.warc.com/content/article/mccain-when-the-chips-are-down-margins-matter-how-a-focus-on-long-term-emotional-brand-building-reduced-price-elasticity-and-increased-profits-for-mccain/156769 WARC. (2026). The multiplier playbook: The CMO's guide to integrating brand and performance. WARC. Foundational sources (optional, for show notes) Binet, L., & Field, P. (2013). The long and the short of it: Balancing short and long-term marketing strategies. Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Sharp, B. (2010). How brands grow: What marketers don't know. Oxford University Press. To confirm before air: Hurman subtitle and publisher; the exact platform and date of Binet's How Advertising Really Works video (candidate: the Cannes Lions Advertising 101 course); the publication date of SBP episode 215; and a direct URL for the WARC Multiplier Playbook (produced with Analytic Partners, BERA.ai, Prophet, System1 and the ANA). | |||
| SBP 218: The Barber's Brief - The Shelf Life of Competitive Advantage | 14 Jul 2026 | 00:25:16 | |
What do Netflix, Reddit, AI, M&M's and Lyft have in common? More than you might think. In this episode of The Barber's Brief, Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros unpack one of the biggest strategic lessons in modern marketing: competitive advantages don't last forever. From Netflix reconsidering binge watching, to Reddit fighting AI generated spam, to the explosion of Martech tools and one of the year's smartest advertising campaigns from Lyft, this episode explores why the brands that continue to grow are the ones willing to challenge yesterday's assumptions. Topics include:
If you enjoy evidence-based marketing, creative effectiveness and challenging conventional wisdom, subscribe for new episodes every week. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Netflix and the Innovator's Dilemma 05:30 Reddit vs AI Spam 10:05 AI Tool Overload 15:30 The M&M Mascot Ban 19:45 Ad of the Week — Lyft 23:20 Coming Next: How Advertising Really Works News Links: Did Netflix Break the Habit It Created? - https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/06/netflix-invented-binge-watching-now-it-may-have-outgrown-it/ Reddit Is Cracking Down on AI Marketing Slop - https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/reddit-cracking-down-ai-marketing-115000368.html 5 questions to ask AI vendors before buying a tool -https://searchengineland.com/ai-vendor-questions-481765 M&M’s brand character gets ad banned under unhealthy food rules - https://www.marketingweek.com/mms-brand-character-lhf-ad-rules/ Lyft. Save the Money - https://youtu.be/7KARBlOzx8E?si=a4ummQl8NvYFmPO8 | |||
| SBP 217: The PostPod - Lessons from James Hurman. Ads Don't Persuade People to Buy. | 09 Jul 2026 | 00:25:17 | |
What if marketing's biggest challenge isn't proving its value—but explaining it? Following our conversation with James Hurman, we reflect on one of the most practical frameworks we've encountered in years: Future Demand. Rather than revisiting every topic from the interview, this Post-Pod explores what the ideas actually mean for marketers trying to influence leadership, defend budgets, and build long-term growth inside their organizations. In this episode:
If you've already listened to our interview with James Hurman, this conversation helps connect the dots between marketing theory and day-to-day practice. Enjoy the show! Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to the Post-Pod 00:45 James Hurman’s Core Idea: Advertising Creates Future Demand 01:40 Demand Creation vs. Demand Capture 03:55 Future Demand as a Leadership Conversation 05:00 The Smartphone Example and the 95/5 Rule 07:55 Market Dynamics and Performance Marketing Bias 08:50 Why Brand Matters Most in Recessions 11:05 Campaigns Wear In, Not Out 12:40 The Problem with Platform Metrics 15:15 Objective Truth vs. Personal and Political Truth 17:20 Why Future Demand Is Easier to Sell Internally 19:15 Evidence-Based Marketing and Organizational Buy-In 21:50 Why Repeatability Matters 24:20 Final Reflections on James Hurman’s Book | |||
| SBP 216: Interview - Ads Don’t Persuade People to Buy. With James Hurman. | 07 Jul 2026 | 01:06:19 | |
Advertising doesn't work by persuading people to buy. It works by creating future demand. James Hurman returns to unpack his new book: why the funnel is the wrong model, how the biggest group of buyers isn't in the market yet, why green dashboards can hide a dying brand, and how to make the case for brand spend to a CFO who only sees this year. There are two types of demand in any market: the small group ready to buy now, and the much larger group who will come in later. Most advertising pours everything into the first group, watches the dashboards turn green, and wonders why the business numbers stay red. James Hurman returns to The Sleeping Barber to explain the fix at the heart of his new book, Future Demand. Marc, V, and James work through the two-part funnel that replaces the old model, the myth that great companies don't advertise, why Volvo's Epic Split kept paying off for a decade, and why ads wear in rather than wear out. They get practical on the boardroom case: share of voice, the five to ten percent rule, and how to reframe brand as future cash flow for a finance team. They close on AI: the book's Pocket Advisor app, and how language models lean on brand signals when they choose what to recommend. Enjoy the show. Show note links:
Guest Social:
Chapters: 00:00 - The two types of demand, and why James rewrote the book 06:25 - Brand isn't a big-company luxury: the 18-month payoff 09:42 - Two types of demand, made visual 14:14 - Why the funnel is the wrong model 16:03 - The great-companies-don't-advertise myth 22:30 - Target tight for now, broad for later 26:32 - Volvo's Epic Split and the milk paradox 31:35 - Ads wear in, they don't wear out 37:21 - Boats and tides: why green dashboards lie 43:30 - The boardroom case: share of voice, budgets, and the CFO 52:51 - Recessions: cut performance, protect brand 56:40 - AI: the Pocket Advisor and how models pick brands | |||
| SBP 215: What Marketers Still Get Wrong. With Prof. Byron Sharp. | 02 Jul 2026 | 00:26:00 | |
Byron Sharp — Professor of Marketing Science, Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of Adelaide, and author of How Brands Grow — joins us at Cannes fresh off his sold-out Bassey Theatre session with Mark Ritson (a thousand people queued to get in). We dig into the five fundamentals he and Ritson agreed on and, more usefully, where the industry keeps getting them wrong. Byron explains why mental availability is not the same as brand awareness, why “search advertising” was a branding con that confuses purchase availability with memory-building, and why your media metrics are lying to you about reach. Along the way: the retail-media gold rush (sorry, Marriott Media), the AI hype bubble he expects to pop, why Elsa buried every other Disney princess, and the “non-artificial intelligence” agent Ehrenberg-Bass is building to stop corporate AI from breaking marketing’s laws of physics. A masterclass in thinking clearly about what your marketing money is actually supposed to do. Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome: Byron Sharp at Cannes, and why impact (not academic prestige) drives Ehrenberg-Bass 01:39 - The “two festivals” of Cannes: creativity awards vs. the serious fringe; the sold-out Ritson session 04:03 - What’s being sold to marketers on the Croisette — and the retail-media land grab (Marriott Media) 05:26 - Fragmentation, monetizing inventory, and why ~80% of this year’s AI vendors will be gone 07:02 -The five things Byron agreed with Ritson on 10:21 - #1 Mental availability — and the critical mistake of confusing it with awareness 12:27 - “You overestimate your reach”: fleeting exposures and inflated media metrics 14:19 - Why calling it “search advertising” was a disservice: purchase vs. mental availability 15:27 - #2 Distinctive brand assets — why a logo checkbox isn’t enough 17:46 - #3 Consistency — everyone agrees, nobody does it 18:50 - The “big idea,” category entry points, and the Frozen/Elsa problem 21:42 - Inside the How Brands Grow executive program 23:46 - “Non-artificial intelligence”: the AI agent Ehrenberg-Bass is building 25:20 - Wrap Links: Ehrenberg-Bass Institute: https://marketingscience.info/ Professor Byron Sharp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professorbyronsharp/ How Brands Grow Live: https://marketingscience.info/learn-with-us/learning-opportunities/how-brands-grow-live-for-executives | |||
| SBP 214: The Cannes Cut - The Gap Between Knowing and Doing: Day 5 Reflections. Featuring David Tiltman. | 30 Jun 2026 | 00:58:32 | |
After five days, dozens of interviews, countless presentations, and conversations with some of marketing's brightest minds, one thing became clear: The future of marketing isn't about more technology. It's about better thinking. Throughout Cannes Lions 2026, we spoke with leaders from System1, WARC, Ehrenberg-Bass, Amazon Ads, Pinterest, and many of the industry's leading creative and effectiveness thinkers. In this final Cannes Cut, we reflect on the biggest themes that emerged throughout the week, including:
We also sit down with David Tiltman (WARC) to discuss the Multiplier Effect Playbook, organisational barriers to effectiveness, why strategy is becoming more important than ever, and how marketers can bridge the gap between knowing what works and actually doing it. To close out the series, we head back onto the Croisette for one final edition of The Buzz Cut, featuring conversations with:
Presented by System1. If you've enjoyed following our Cannes journey, thank you for joining us throughout the week. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:15 - Reflecting on an Incredible Week 06:30 - Simplicity Wins 11:05 - AI Finds Its Place 16:10 - The Efficiency Trap 21:45 - Why Brand Experience Matters 26:10 - Is This the Best Time to Be a Marketer? 30:30 - Interview: David Tiltman 52:30 - Final Buzz Cut 58:15 - Wrapping Up Cannes | |||
| SBP 213: The Cannes Cut - Dull Ads Are A System, Not A Symptom. With Orlando Wood. | 26 Jun 2026 | 00:53:20 | |
Day 4 on the Croisette, and the Cannes Festival of Creativity is in full swing. The Cannes Cut series is proudly presented by System1. Vanessa Chin, VP Marketing at System1, opens with a live field dispatch: which campaigns are actually scoring at Cannes, what the new Creator Effectiveness Playbook says about briefing for emotional impact, and why Dunkin' took gold while Kit Kat posted one of the highest out-of-home scores System1 has ever recorded. She also tackles the question the industry keeps circling - is AI the creative revolution everyone promised, or just a better production tool? Then the feature interview. Orlando Wood, Chief Creative Officer at System1, argues that dull advertising is structural, not incidental. Media fragmentation, measurement frameworks calibrated for the wrong school of advertising, and rules-based creative thinking all work against artistry before a single brief is written. Drawing on advertising history from Toulouse-Lautrec to Bernbach, and neuroscience from Ian McGilchrist, Orlando maps the war between showmanship and salesmanship - and explains why applying one school's measurement philosophy to the other destroys the work. The episode closes with the Buzz Cut: the sights and sounds from the attendees. Ty Heath from LinkedIn shared her perspective on life inside the B2B Lions jury room, WARC APAC's Rica Facundo on the three ceilings of social, Hannah Riberdhal from Brand Marketing Sweden on what this year's Cannes sounds like compared to four years ago, and two Young Lions competitors fresh off a 24-hour brief. Timestamps 0:00 Opening - Vanessa Chin (System1) on Cannes testing, AI, and the Creator Effectiveness Playbook 12:23 Feature interview - Orlando Wood on why dull advertising is structural, not a talent problem 23:06 Fluent devices, coherence vs consistency, and the living brand 33:08 The history of showmanship and salesmanship - and why creators may be bringing artistry back 37:11 Measuring creative: why salesmanship measurement destroys showmanship work 40:10 Post Pod debrief 41:18 Buzz Cut - Ty Heath (LinkedIn B2B Institute), Rica Facundo (WARC APAC), Hannah (Brand Marketing Sweden), Young Lions References System1 https://system1group.com/ Advertising Principles Explained (course with Sir John Hegarty) https://advertisingprinciplesexplained.com/ System1 Creative Dividend Report https://system1group.com/the-creative-dividend System1 Creator Effectiveness Playbook https://system1group.com/the-creator-effectiveness-playbook Lemon: How the Advertising Brain Turned Sour - Orlando Wood (book) https://system1group.com/lemon Thanks for keeping us in your ears, stay sharp everyone. | |||
| SBP 212: The Cannes Cut - Brand Fit Beats Follower Count: Day 3 Reflections | 25 Jun 2026 | 00:49:20 | |
Day three at Cannes Lions revealed something unexpected. Coming into the festival, many predicted AI would dominate every conversation. Instead, another topic has quietly taken centre stage: Creators. Not creator hype. Not influencer marketing. Creator effectiveness. Presented by System1, today's Cannes Cut explores one of the biggest conversations happening across the Croisette. Marc and Vassilis reflect on another packed day at Cannes, including the System1 Stars of the Show event featuring Andrew Tindall, Orlando Wood, Mark Ritson, Les Binet, Adam Morgan and many of the industry's leading thinkers. The featured interview is with Andrew Tindall, Chief Growth Officer at System1, who joins us to discuss the new Creator Effectiveness Playbook, developed in partnership with WPP and TikTok. One insight stood above the rest: Most creator campaigns aren't driving meaningful brand growth. A small "brilliant minority" are responsible for the majority of the impact. The conversation has evolved beyond follower counts and engagement rates. Instead, marketers are asking better questions:
We also bring back another edition of The Buzz Cut, hearing directly from marketers around the world, including Lauren Anderson (Amazon Ads), David Tiltman (WARC), Reno from Nikkei, and Vinnie from Leo São Paulo, sharing what's capturing their attention halfway through Cannes. In this episode:
The rosé can wait. Our questions can't. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 03:04 Insights from System1's Baoli Event 05:54 The Role of Creators in Sports 09:01 Pinterest's Marketing Strategy and Insights 11:50 The Current State of Creative Effectiveness 14:55 The Importance of Emotion in Advertising 18:11 The Evolving Role of Content Creators 21:03 Key Findings from the Creator Effectiveness Playbook 25:21 The Role of Emotion in Branding 29:08 Effective Briefing for Creators 30:34 Understanding Distinctive Brand Assets 32:17 Leveraging Social Devices in Marketing 35:08 Insights from Amazon's Brand Activation 38:35 The Evolution of Cannes Lions Festival 43:11 Creative Impact and Effectiveness 47:13 The Value of Attending Cannes Lions | |||
| SBP 211: The Cannes Cut - Creators, Commerce, and Amazon's Canvas: Day 2 Reflections | 24 Jun 2026 | 00:39:55 | |
This episode has been presented by System1. Everyone talks about the full funnel. Amazon has actually built it. Day 2 of the Sleeping Barber's Cannes Cut takes Marc and V from the Amazon port activation, a full marina-length brand experience housing a cafe, a speakeasy, 30 meeting rooms, and a stage headlined by Shaquille O'Neal and Oprah, to a sit-down interview with Lauren Anderson, US Head of the Brand Innovation Lab. Lauren explains what the 'canvas' framing actually means for advertisers: not a menu of placements to check, but a working-backwards discipline from brand objectives through to seamless customer handoffs. The Hellman's 'Mayo for a Melody' campaign, extending the Andy Sandberg Super Bowl spot into a Fire TV karaoke experience with QR-enabled purchase, is the clearest case study of how awareness converts to action without the usual clunky hand-off between platform teams. The conversation also covers creator partnerships (co-collaborators, not billboards), the messy middle of measurement (experiential value is real but long-horizon), and why the Brand Innovation Lab's ethos is restraint: not throwing every part of the canvas at a brief, but identifying what's most fit for purpose. Buzz Cut guests from the catamaran round out the episode: Esther Benzi (CMA President), Zach Grossman (Director of Sales, TikTok Canada), Neil Mohan of ClickHealth, and Jeanette from Hashtag Paid, all weighing in on creativity, measurement, and what it actually feels like when AI takes the backseat at Cannes. Chapters 00:00 - Cannes 2025, another look 05:13 - Amazon's Brand Activation at Cannes 10:03 - bInsights from the Boat: Networking and Learning 11:43 - Lauren Anderson and The Role of the Brand Innovation Lab 19:59 - Campaigns that Connect: Hellman's and More 31:36 - Esther Benzie 32:52 - Zack Grossman 34:26 - Neil Mohan 37:17 - Jeanette Rees | |||
| SBP 210: The Cannes Cut - Creativity That Works: Cannes Day 1 Reflections | 22 Jun 2026 | 00:40:18 | |
This episode has been presented by System1. What happens when Byron Sharp, Mark Ritson, System1, creators, AI, and Cannes Lions all collide on Day One? In the first edition of our Cannes Cut series, presented by System1, Marc and V unpack the biggest themes emerging from Cannes Lions 2026, including why creativity is increasingly being judged through the lens of effectiveness, why marketers may be spreading budgets too thin, and why some of the industry's biggest thinkers are converging on a surprisingly small set of principles. Along the way, the guys sit down with Vanessa Chin (SVP Marketing, System1) to discuss creativity, creators, celebrities, emotional advertising, AI-generated campaigns, and why happiness and humour continue to outperform serious purpose-driven work. They also hit the Croisette to capture perspectives from attendees, founders, creators, publishers, and marketers about the trends shaping Cannes this year. In this episode:
Plus: exclusive insights from Vanessa Chin and conversations with marketers attending Cannes from around the world. The Rosé can wait. The questions can't. In this episode:
The Rosé can wait. The questions can't. Chapters 00:00 - Welcome to Cannes: The Excitement Begins 02:53 - Insights from Industry Leaders 06:06 - The Importance of Mental Availability 08:52 - Distinctive Brand Assets and Their Impact 12:09 - The Shift from Purpose to Emotion in Advertising 14:59 - The Role of Celebrities in Marketing 17:58 - The Power of Humour in Campaigns 20:52 - The Future of Creators in Advertising 23:48 - Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways 27:25 - Conor Byrne, Exploring AI's Human Element 30:03 - Alex, Insights from AI Central Media 32:49 - Rachel Higgins, Connecting and Gaining Inspiration 35:38 - Mariam Bebiashvili, Marketing Strategies and AI Integration | |||
| SBP 209: The Sharp Cut - Buyers Don't Move in Straight Lines | 18 Jun 2026 | 00:20:21 | |
What if the biggest problem in marketing isn't your message, your targeting, or your budget? What if it's the map you're using? For more than a century, marketers have relied on funnels, customer journeys, and pipeline stages to explain how people buy. The problem? People don't move in straight lines. In this Sharp Cut, Marc and Vassilis unpack why buying behaviour looks far more like a messy search pattern than a carefully planned journey. Drawing on research from Ehrenberg-Bass, Google, WPP, Oxford, James Hankins, Gartner, Bain, and the LinkedIn B2B Institute, they explore why most consumer decisions are made before shopping begins and why so many B2B deals stall after the buying process has already started. Along the way, they tackle the real purpose of the funnel, the limits of customer journey mapping, the hidden role of buying committees, and why the pipeline may be better at reporting decisions than helping people make them. In this episode:
The funnel is a useful reporting tool. It just isn't a very good theory of human behaviour. Takeaways:
Chapters: Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 02:48 - The Complexity of the Consumer Decision Journey 06:06 - The Limitations of Traditional Marketing Models 08:49 - Understanding Buyer Behavior and Decision-Making 11:59 - Rethinking the Marketing Funnel 14:57 - The Role of Fear in B2B Buying Decisions 17:53 - Building a Better Marketing Framework | |||
| SBP 208: The Barber's Brief - The Rosé Can Wait. Our Questions Cant + Special Announcement | 16 Jun 2026 | 00:23:27 | |
For years, Cannes Lions has been the home of creativity. This year, it feels like effectiveness is taking center stage. In this special Cannes preview edition of The Barber's Brief, Marc and Vassilis discuss what they're most excited to explore at Cannes Lions 2026. From the surprising reunion of Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp, to the growing influence of effectiveness research, creator marketing, AI, and measurement, this conversation explores the biggest questions facing modern marketers. The duo also shares details about their partnership with System1 and previews the conversations they'll be recording throughout the week with Orlando Wood, Andrew Tindall, Vanessa Chin, and many others. Plus, they break down one of last year's most creative Cannes winners: Hyundai's Night Fishing. In this episode:
Oh and our theme this year? The rosé can wait. The questions can't. Enjoy the episode. Chapters 00:00 - The Excitement of Cannes Lions 2023 02:57 - The Power of Effectiveness in Marketing 05:55 - Creativity vs. AI in Advertising 09:10 - The Importance of Measurement in Marketing 11:59 - Exploring the Cannes Fringe Festival 15:07 - Ad of the week: Hyundai's Night Fishing Campaign 20:07 - Looking Ahead: Customer Journeys Ad of the week Title: Night Fishing Hyundai - 2025 Cannes Lions Grand Prix Winner Entertainment | |||
| SBP 207: The PostPod - Lessons from Karen Pearce: Great Creative shouldn’t feel scary | 11 Jun 2026 | 00:27:25 | |
Most marketers think great creative comes from better talent. Karen Pearce made a different case. In this Post Pod discussion, Marc and Vassilis reflect on their conversation with Karen Pearce, Partner at Rethink and one of the leaders behind some of the most awarded creative work in the world. The discussion explores why creativity often dies inside organizations before it ever reaches the market, how criticism can become a cultural trap, and why the best creative teams focus on finding sparks rather than flaws. They unpack Rethink's CRAFTS framework, the importance of psychological safety, the role of strong client-agency relationships, and why great ideas should start with human truths rather than channels. If you've ever wondered why some organizations consistently produce breakthrough work while others struggle to move beyond safe ideas, this conversation is for you. In this episode:
Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 01:42 - Rethinking Marketing Culture 04:21 - The Role of Creativity in Marketing 06:58 - The Importance of Effective Creative 09:53 - Expanding Creative Horizons 11:33 - The Value of Independence in Agencies 13:39 - Building Strong Client Relationships 16:40 - Harnessing Human Truths for Creativity 19:24 - Frameworks for Creative Success 22:30 The Significance of Briefs in Marketing 24:46 Consistency and Success in Creative Work | |||
| SBP 206: Great Creative Shouldn't Feel Scary. Karen Pearce, Rethink. | 09 Jun 2026 | 00:51:15 | |
Most people assume award-winning creative work is a high-wire act: brilliant, risky, and impossible to repeat. Karen Pearce of Rethink makes the opposite case. Fresh off Ad Age's 2026 Agency of the Year and ADWEEK's 2025 Independent Agency of the Year, and as the most-awarded independent agency in the world last year, Rethink keeps producing famous, business-moving work on purpose. Recorded as a Cannes Lions lead-up, this conversation gets into the machinery behind the run. Karen explains why independence lets Rethink protect creative standards instead of chasing scale, why the client's real job is finding sparks rather than poking holes, and how the CRAFTS framework gives a whole agency a shared language for what good looks like. Karen walks us through the Heinz philosophy that every ad is a product ad, the go-then-grow approach that turns big swings into low-risk reps, and why, going into Cannes, she expects a reclaiming of human craft in an AI-flooded market. The through-line: bold creative shouldn't feel scary. Build the right system and the right partnership, and the work that wins awards is the same work that drives the business. Timestamps 00:00 Find the sparks, not the holes 02:08 What's behind the run: independence and the receipts 05:48 Why great creative shouldn't feel scary 09:12 Builders vs hole-pokers: the client's real job 14:27 Famous brands outperform business metrics 19:17 AI, human craft, and the IKEA sleep talkers 22:42 CRAFTS: a shared language for great work 30:57 Heinz: every ad is a product ad 36:24 Go then grow: getting your reps in 44:17 Idea first: when media becomes the creative References
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| SBP 205: The Sharp Cut - Busy Is Where Strategy Goes to Die | 04 Jun 2026 | 00:33:47 | |
What if the biggest threat to your strategy isn't a competitor, a budget cut, or AI? What if it's busyness? In this Sharp Cut, Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros tackle one of marketing and leadership's biggest comfort blankets: the belief that activity equals progress. Drawing on the work of Roger Martin, Richard Rumelt, Michael Porter, Henry Mintzberg, and decades of research in strategy, psychology, and organizational behaviour, they explore why so many companies mistake plans, initiatives, and corporate buzzwords for actual strategy. The conversation unpacks:
This episode is ultimately about one uncomfortable truth: Most organizations don't have a strategy problem. They have a choice problem. And until they're willing to make difficult choices, strategy remains little more than activity wearing a strategy costume. Takeaways
Chapters 00:00 - The Illusion of Strategy 03:13 - Defining Real Strategy 05:49 - The Challenge of Decision-Making 08:49 - Indecision as a Strategy 11:59 - The Role of Ambiguity in Strategy 14:50 - The Cost of Fluffy Language 17:48 - Marketing and Strategy Alignment 21:04 - The Say-Do Gap in Organizations 23:52 - The Impact of AI on Strategy 27:03 - Practical Steps for Effective Strategy References Cappellaro, G., Compagni, A., & Vaara, E. (2021). Maintaining strategic ambiguity for protection: Struggles over opacity, equivocality, and absurdity around the Sicilian Mafia. Academy of Management Journal, 64(1), 1–37. Dixon, M., & McKenna, T. (2022). The JOLT effect: How high performers overcome customer indecision. Portfolio. Drucker, P. F. (1967). The effective executive. Harper & Row. Eisenberg, E. M. (1984). Ambiguity as strategy in organizational communication. Communication Monographs, 51(3), 227–242. Hurman, J. (2024). The case for creative effectiveness. Cannes Lions / WARC. Kantar. (2024). How optimized touchpoint planning drives brand growth. Kantar Insights. Kapero. (2024). Channels and content: The state of the marketing department. Kapero Management Consultants. Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue ocean strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Harvard Business Review Press. Lafley, A. G., & Martin, R. L. (2013). Playing to win: How strategy really works. Harvard Business Review Press. Martin, R. L. (2020, October 5). The role of management systems in strategy. Roger Martin Substack. https://rogerlmartin.substack.com Martin, R. L. (2021, April 19). It's time to accept that marketing and strategy are one discipline. Medium. https://rogermartin.medium.com Martin, R. L. (2023, January 23). Being ‘too busy’ means your personal strategy sucks. Roger Martin Substack. https://rogerlmartin.substack.com Martin, R. L. (2026, March 16). Becoming an AI-augmented enterprise. Roger Martin Substack. https://rogerlmartin.substack.com Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. Harper & Row. Mintzberg, H. (1987). The strategy concept I: Five Ps for strategy. California Management Review, 30(1), 11–24. Morgan, A. (2024). The cost of dull. Cannes Lions / System1 Research. Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy? Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61–78. PwC. (2025). 28th annual global CEO survey: Reinvention on the edge of tomorrow. PricewaterhouseCoopers. Rush. (1980). Freewill [Song]. On Permanent Waves. Anthem / Mercury Records. (Lyrics by Neil Peart.) Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good strategy, bad strategy: The difference and why it matters. Crown Business. Strategic ambiguity systematic review (Authors, 2025). Strategic ambiguity: A systematic review, a typology and a dynamic capability view. Management Decision, 63(13), 123–xx. [Full citation TK once confirmed] Turner, M. (2024). How buyable B2B emotions unlock $19 trillion in category growth. LinkedIn / The B2B Institute. WARC. (2026). The Multiplier Playbook. WARC. Waytz, A. (2023, March-April). Beware a culture of busyness. Harvard Business Review. Wilson, T. D., Reinhard, D. A., Westgate, E. C., Gilbert, D. T., Ellerbeck, N., Hahn, C., Brown, C. L., & Shaked, A. (2014). Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind. Science, 345(6192), 75–77. | |||
| SBP 204: The Barber's Brief - AI Won’t Save Bad Marketing | 02 Jun 2026 | 00:30:07 | |
Everyone is talking about AI replacing marketers. But what if the bigger problem isn't AI at all? In this episode of The Barber's Brief, Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros explore a series of stories that challenge some of marketing's biggest assumptions. They unpack new research showing that most CMOs aren't worried about AI replacing jobs. They're worried about whether their teams have the skills to use it effectively. The conversation quickly expands into a deeper question: is marketing facing an AI skills gap, or are we simply exposing a fundamentals gap that has existed all along? The discussion also covers:
Plus, Ad of the Week goes to Brazilian beer brand Brahma for a brilliant World Cup campaign that transforms 24 years of disappointment into hope by reminding Brazilians not what happened, but who they are. This episode is ultimately about one question: Are we optimizing for the dashboard, or are we optimizing for the business? Key Takeaway
Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 01:12 - The AI Skills Gap in Marketing 04:21 - Understanding Marketing Fundamentals 07:47 - The Effectiveness Say-Do Gap 11:54 - Dynamic Marketing Mix Modelling 18:52 - The Future of AI in Marketing 24:18 - Ad of the Week: Brahma's World Cup Campaign News Links Three-quarters of CMOs are grappling with AI skills gap Link: https://www.marketingweek.com/cmos-grappling-ai-skills-gap/ WARC - The Multiplier Playbook for CMO’s looking to integrate brand & performance Link: https://www.warc.com/en/the-multiplier-playbook-2026 How H&R Block rethought attribution and modelling – and found more confidence in brand and business outcomes Link: https://www.mi-3.com.au/01-06-2026/when-marketing-mix-modelling-isnt-working-how-hr-block-rethought-attribution-and Robo-dogs, driverless cabs, AI perfume & the GTM singularity: Forrester B2B Summit 2026 Link: https://www.thedrum.com/news/robo-dogs-driverless-cabs-ai-perfume-and-the-gtm-singularity-forrester-b2b-summit-2026 | |||
| SBP 203: The PostPod - Lessons from David Lui: Retail Isn't Dying. The Operating Model Is. | 28 May 2026 | 00:15:06 | |
Most marketers talk about growth through media, performance, and digital channels. But what happens when growth comes from stores, people, and product instead? In this PostPod discussion, Marc and Vassilis reflect on their conversation with David, exploring the resurgence of iconic Canadian brand Kit and Ace and what modern marketers can learn from retail done properly. The conversation moves beyond dashboards and attribution models into something much more foundational:
And the overlooked role of people in building a brand Marc and Vassilis unpack:
This episode is ultimately about something simple: Great brands are not built by advertising alone. They’re built through consistency across product, people, place, and promise. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 03:00 - The Importance of Brand Promise 05:55 - Strategic Growth and Market Positioning 08:54 - Cultural Insights and Market Adaptation 11:55 - The Role of People in Brand Success | |||
| SBP 202: Retail Isn't Dying. The Operating Model Is. With David Lui | 26 May 2026 | 00:51:15 | |
The Bay closed. Frank and Oak shuttered. Insolvencies have been climbing for years and the narrative everyone's repeating is that retail is in trouble. David Lui has a different read. Retail isn't dying. The operating model is. And the brands going under aren't the ones customers stopped loving, they're the ones whose people, product, and place stopped working. As CEO of Kit & Ace and co-founder of Unity Brands, David is doing almost the exact opposite of what you'd expect. He's buying beloved Canadian brands that almost didn't make it, and he's opening stores. In this episode, Marc and V sit down with David, a former colleague from their Canadian Tire days, to unpack what changes when a marketer crosses over to the P&L seat. We get into why every store opening is a bigger marketing spend than any ad campaign, the P's most marketers consistently underrate, what David learned scaling Korite into China through live-streaming when North America wasn't ready for it, why he calls his stores billboards, and the metric he ignored as a CMO that he refuses to take his eyes off as a CEO. If you've ever defended a budget, sat through a quarterly review, or wondered why a brand you loved quietly disappeared, this one's for you. Timestamps 00:00 Cold open and intro: the Canadian retail paradox 03:34 David's origin: Hong Kong factories and a counselor who got it wrong 10:25 Canadian Tire days and the move to Mark's 15:11 Selling Korite in China: live-streaming before North America was ready 19:51 Kit & Ace's origin story and the DNA Unity Brands kept 22:32 Building the Unity Brands portfolio: Tilley, Mastermind, and operational synergy 28:02 From marketer to operator: the P&L reframe 30:23 Why every store opening is the single largest marketing spend 33:08 The P's marketers underrate: people and place 35:06 The metric David ignored as a CMO and refuses to lose as a CEO 40:34 Premium positioning and why fast fashion is fading 43:36 What the next Canadian challenger brand has to get right 46:24 Where Canadian retail is headed About David
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| SBP 201: The Sharp Cut - A Tale of Two Frequencies | 20 May 2026 | 00:23:33 | |
For decades, marketers have debated one question: How much frequency is enough? But what if the industry has been arguing about two completely different things the entire time? In Part 2 of this Sharp Cut series, Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros revisit the reach vs frequency debate after a wave of listener feedback challenged, refined, and strengthened the original episode. What emerges is a far more nuanced framework built around one critical distinction: burst frequency vs drip frequency. Drawing on work from Byron Sharp, Les Binet, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Stu Carr, Dale Harrison, Paul Hindle, and real-world incrementality testing from industry practitioners, this episode breaks down:
This episode reframes one of marketing’s oldest debates through the lens of memory, incrementality, and effectiveness. Because the real question was never reach versus frequency. It was burst versus drip. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction to Comfort Blankets in Advertising 03:40 - Understanding Memory in Advertising 08:05 - Building and Refreshing Memory Structures 10:08 - The Impact of Streaming on Frequency 13:50 - The Three Jobs of Advertising 20:38 - Measurement Challenges in Advertising Original LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7453434962604691457/ Special thanks to all those who inspired this follow-up episode: Stu Carr, Dale Harrison, Paul Hindle and Dennis A. Resources Binet, L. (2024, January 17). How advertising REALLY works [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9EDJs3evCI Binet, L., & Davis, W. (2025, October). Go big or go home [Conference presentation]. IPA Effectiveness Conference, London, UK. https://ipa.co.uk/news/go-big-or-go-home Binkley, M. (2025, August 7). 4Ps - Promotion: Why your customers say ads don't work on me. WARC. https://www.warc.com/en/article/4ps---promotion Carr, S. (2026, February 2). Why a frequency of 1 works, and why it isn't nearly enough. Mi3. https://www.mi-3.com.au/02-02-2026/why-frequency-1-works-and-why-it-isnt-nearly-enough Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Uber das Gedachtnis: Untersuchungen zur experimentellen Psychologie. Duncker & Humblot. Gordon, B. R., Moakler, R., & Zettelmeyer, F. (2026). Predictive incrementality by experimentation (PIE) for ad measurement (NBER Working Paper). National Bureau of Economic Research. Harrison, D. W. (2022, November). Ad reach and frequency are not independent variables [LinkedIn post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dale-w-harrison Klepek, M. (2025). Duplication of purchase and double jeopardy in social media markets [Working paper]. Silesian University of Technology. Krugman, H. E. (1972). Why three exposures may be enough. Journal of Advertising Research, 12(6), 11-14. Ritson, M. (2023, October 16). Consumers don't get tired of ads, only marketers do. Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/consumers-tired-ads-marketers/ Sharp, B. (2010, September 4). Frequency and frequency: Something to watch out for [Blog post]. Marketing Science. https://byronsharp.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/frequency-and-frequency-something-to-watch-out-for/ Sharp, B., Romaniuk, J., & Kennedy, E. (Eds.). (2021). Marketing: Theory, evidence, practice (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Taylor, J., Kennedy, R., & Sharp, B. (2009). Is once really enough? Making generalizations about advertising's convex sales response function. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(2), 198-200. Thomaz, F. (2024, October 15). Reach sufficiency and the missing dimension [Conference presentation]. SXSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Reported in Mi3. https://www.mi-3.com.au/15-10-2024/really-mediocre-outcomes | |||
| SBP 200: The Barber's Brief - This is Two Hundred! | 19 May 2026 | 00:33:53 | |
Most podcasts never make it past three episodes. This is episode 200. In this special 200th episode of The Barber’s Brief, Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros reflect on five years of The Sleeping Barber Podcast while diving into some of the biggest marketing conversations shaping the industry right now. The episode explores why the laws of growth apply even to blood donation behaviour, how brands like McLaren Formula 1 Team are turning nostalgia into a competitive advantage, and why Chinese EV giants like BYD are shifting from performance marketing into long-term brand building. Marc and V also unpack:
To close the episode, Marc revisits one of his favourite ads of all time: a classic Adidas campaign featuring rugby legend Jonah Lomu — a reminder that surprise, storytelling, and emotional distinctiveness still matter. And finally, Marc and V take a moment to reflect on five years, 200 episodes, and the community that’s kept The Sleeping Barber Podcast growing along the way. Chapters 00:00 Celebrating 200 Episodes: A Milestone in Podcasting 02:01 Insights from Blood Donation Data: Understanding Donor Behaviour 07:58 McLaren's Heritage Storytelling: Leveraging the Past for Growth 13:54 Chinese EVs and Brand Building: A Shift in Strategy 19:46 The Future of Search and SEO Fundamentals 24:02 Celebrating Jonah Lomu: A Tribute to a Rugby Legend 31:04 Upcoming Episodes and Community Engagement Resources: Heavy Donors Behave Like Heavy Bleach Buyers - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenni-romaniuk-2746884/recent-activity/all/ McLaren’s Fastest Asset Isn’t Technology. It’s Memory - https://www.thedrum.com/news/how-mclaren-s-60-year-archive-powers-its-marketing-machine Chinese EVs Discover Brand-Building - https://www.thecurrent.com/marketing-strategy-chinese-ev-brands-brand-building-tesla Google publishes guide on optimizing for generative AI features - https://searchengineland.com/google-publishes-guide-on-optimizing-for-generative-ai-features-477671 Title: Adidas Makes you better - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKaqoq5NVVs | |||
| SBP 199: The PostPod - Lessons From Terry O'Reilly: The Ads That Shouldn't Have Worked. | 16 May 2026 | 00:25:24 | |
What if modern marketing’s biggest problem isn’t bad targeting… but safe creativity? In this PostPod episode of The Sleeping Barber Podcast, Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros unpack their conversation with advertising legend Terry O'Reilly, and explore what today’s marketers may have lost in the pursuit of optimization, dashboards, and defensible decisions. From pink flamingos and whistling beer campaigns to distinctive brand assets and the death of creative risk-taking, this conversation dives into why some of the most memorable advertising ideas in history would likely never survive a modern approval process. The discussion explores:
Marc and V also reflect on Terry’s thoughts around agency relationships, creativity as a business multiplier, and the importance of giving agencies enough room to create work that actually gets remembered. Because maybe the future advantage in marketing won’t belong to the brands with the best targeting… Maybe it’ll belong to the brands brave enough to still be interesting. Takeaways
Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Podcast Production Insights 03:00 - Creative Strategy and Agency Collaboration 06:01 - The Importance of Breakthrough Ideas 08:52 - Risk in Modern Marketing 11:59 - The Role of Digital Platforms in Creativity 15:13 - The Language of Creative Feedback 17:56 Distinctive Brand Assets and Their Decline 20:47 The Balance of Data and Creativity 24:00 Conclusion and Reflections on the Conversation | |||
| SBP 198: The Ads That Shouldn't Have Worked. With Terry O'Reilly | 12 May 2026 | 00:52:16 | |
There is a commercial in this episode that the president of Fibreglass tried to kill on a Thursday. By Sunday he had changed his mind, when his minister grabbed his arm and told him the pink panther ads were the funniest thing in advertising. That campaign went on to capture 70 percent of the Canadian insulation market. Every story Terry O'Reilly tells in this conversation is a campaign like that. A group of nuns who lost their habits and got an ad on the ceiling of a Sault Ste. Marie city bus. A Maine brewery that launched by promising never to mention its own name again, and trained a city to order beer by whistling. None of them would have survived a focus group. All of them built businesses. That's the spine of the episode: the work we remember almost never comes from the data. It comes from the moment a marketer trusts a calculated risk. Terry has hosted CBC's Under the Influence for two decades and directed roughly 14,000 commercials before that. He argues that the marketing industry has quietly traded its instincts for dashboards, and that the cost is most of the advertising we now scroll past without noticing. The episode lands on a single ask for any CMO listening: sit down with your agency tomorrow and tell them you want work that makes your palms sweat. Chapters 00:00 - The Art of Advertising: Creativity vs. Data 09:59 - Learning from Early Failures: A Journey in Advertising 19:51 - Creative Campaigns: Success Stories and Lessons Learned 29:58 - The Power of Distinctive Brand Assets 40:04 - The Evolution of Advertising: From Jingles to Modern Mnemonics 33:03 - Navigating Bureaucracy in Big Brands 35:16 - The Importance of Effective Presentations 41:15 - Creativity vs. Conventional Wisdom 47:38 - Encouraging High Creativity in Marketing References • Under the Influence (CBC): https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/203-under-the-influence • Apostrophe Podcast Network: https://www.apostrophepodcasts.ca • Pirate Group: https://www.piratetoronto.com • Terry's books (Against the Grain, My Best Mistake, This I Know, The Age of Persuasion) • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/terry-o-reilly • Website: terryoreilly.ca • Under the Influence: Available on CBC Listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are found | |||
| SBP 197: The Sharp Cut - Purpose is a promise most brands can't keep | 07 May 2026 | 00:24:16 | |
Most marketers believe brand purpose drives growth. The data says otherwise. In this episode of The Sharp Cut, we take on one of marketing’s most widely accepted ideas and put it under a microscope. Drawing on research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Peter Field’s IPA databank analysis, and perspectives from Mark Ritson and Roger Martin, we unpack a simple but uncomfortable truth: Brand purpose works… rarely. We explore why purpose has become so dominant despite weak commercial evidence, how industry incentives have turned it into a “comfort blanket,” and why the outliers like Patagonia and Dove don’t translate to most brands. Along the way, we break down:
This is not a takedown for the sake of it. It’s a reframing. Because the real question isn’t whether purpose is good or bad. It’s whether your organization has earned the right to use it. If not, you may be trading growth for a story that simply sounds good. Enjoy the show! Takeaways
Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:29 - The Evolution of Purpose in Marketing 06:31 - Research Findings on Brand Purpose 10:51 - The Complexity of Purpose Campaigns 14:40 - The Outlier Problem: Patagonia and Dove 20:00 - Understanding the Value of Purpose 23:16 - Conclusion: The Reality of Brand Purpose References Tait, V., Beal, V., Dawes, J., & Sharp, B. (2025). Brand purpose awareness: Evidence from 14 leading purpose brands. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. Dawes, J., Tait, V., Beal, V., & Sharp, B. (2026, March 31). Does having a brand purpose actually lead to growth? Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/purpose-brands-actually-grown/ Ritson, M. (2022, January 19). Good purpose, bad purpose: Marketers shouldn’t oversimplify the arguments. Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/mark-ritson-good-purpose-bad-purpose/ Ritson, M. (2019). Brand purpose doesn’t require a commercial excuse. Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/ritson-brand-purpose-commercial-excuse/ Ritson, M. (2019). A true brand purpose doesn’t boost profit, it sacrifices it. Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/mark-ritson-true-brand-purpose-doesnt-boost-profit-sacrifices/ Field, P. (2021, October). The effectiveness of brand purpose [Conference presentation]. IPA EffWorks Global 2021. https://ipa.co.uk/news/power-of-brand-purpose Shotton, R. (2021). Critique of IPA purpose methodology. Twitter/LinkedIn commentary, October 2021. As reported in The Drum, 14 October 2021. Field, P. (2019). The crisis in creative effectiveness. IPA / WARC. https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/publications-reports/the-crisis-in-creative-effectiveness Sharp, B. (2010). How brands grow. Oxford University Press. Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why. Portfolio/Penguin. | |||
| SBP 196: The Barber's Brief - The Missing Layer In Performance Marketing? | 05 May 2026 | 00:29:36 | |
In this episode, we cover everything from the growing trust gap in performance marketing to the evolving role of attribution, AI, and search, and what it all means for how marketers prove impact. What we unpack: 1. Performance marketing’s missing layer: proof Are clicks, conversions, and ROAS actually telling the truth — or just telling a story? We explore the growing need for verification, transparency, and accountability in a system built to optimize results… not validate them. 2. Is last-click attribution… not completely broken? A new study suggests last-click might be more useful than we thought — but only in very specific scenarios. The catch? Most marketers are using it in the exact wrong places. 3. The future of search: from clicks to answers With YouTube testing conversational search (“Ask YouTube”), we discuss the shift from search engines to answer engines — and what happens when platforms control not just discovery, but interpretation. 4. The New York Times turnaround How a legacy publisher is redefining its ad model through games, cooking, and lifestyle content — and why “brand safety” might be the wrong lens entirely. 5. Ad of the Week: Pinterest’s bold move Pinterest tells users to get off social media. A platform rejecting the attention economy? We break down why this might be one of the smartest positioning plays in years. Themes you’ll hear throughout:
Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:19 - The Missing Layer in Performance Marketing 08:05 - Last Click Attribution: A Double-Edged Sword 14:26 - YouTube's Shift to Answer Engine 18:56 - The New York Times: Reinventing Advertising 23:04 - Pinterest's Bold Campaign Against Social Media 28:22 - Upcoming Conversations and Closing Thoughts Links: Title: The Missing Layer In Performance Marketing: Verifiable Proof Link: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/05/01/the-missing-layer-in-performance-marketing-verifiable-proof/ Title: By Way of Nico Neumann Predicted Incrementality by Experimentation (PIE) for Ad Measurement Link: https://www.nber.org/papers/w35044 Title: YouTube Testing New Search Experience - “Ask YouTube” Link: https://searchengineland.com/youtube-testing-new-search-experience-ask-youtube-475786 Title: How The New York Times is using Games and Cooking to win over ‘never news’ advertisers Link: https://www.thedrum.com/news/how-the-new-york-times-is-using-games-and-cooking-to-win-over-never-news-advertisers Ad of the Week: New Pinterest campaign urges Gen Z to get off social mediaLink: https://youtu.be/qr8bNBuptpU?si=ArB2JWyeVGmMYW-f | |||
| SBP 195: The PostPod - Lessons from Dr. Nicole Hartnett: Loyalty is everywhere. Growth isn’t. | 30 Apr 2026 | 00:26:24 | |
In this episode, Marc and Vassilis revisit their conversation with Dr. Nicole Hartnett, reflecting on the enduring principles of marketing effectiveness. They discuss the importance of market penetration over customer loyalty, the significance of mental and physical availability for growth, and the need for marketers to understand their customer profiles better. The conversation emphasizes the simplicity of marketing laws and the necessity of consistency in branding. Enjoy the show! Takeaways
Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Context 04:02 - Revisiting the Laws of Marketing 08:00 - The Importance of Market Penetration 11:58 - Mental and Physical Availability for Growth 15:52 - The Role of Customer Profiles 19:57 - Simplicity in Marketing Principles | |||
| SBP 194: Loyalty Is Everywhere, Growth Isn't. With Dr. Nicole Hartnett. | 28 Apr 2026 | 01:03:51 | |
Description Picture a marketing world flipped upside down: Where heavy buyers aren't your golden goose, where loyalty programs might be missing the point, and where the brands you think are exceptional actually follow surprisingly predictable patterns. Dr. Nicole Hartnett, senior marketing scientist at the world-renowned Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, joins Marc and V to demolish some of marketing's most sacred assumptions with cold, hard data. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is the world's largest centre for research into marketing and Dr. Nicole Hartnett has won the Market Research Society (MRS) Award for the best paper published by the International Journal of Market Research in 2022. Her groundbreaking research "When Brands Go Dark" analyzed 365 US brands from 22 consumer goods categories that stopped advertising for at least one year, revealing that brands experienced average sales declines of 16% after the first year, 25% after two years, and 36% after three years. In this episode, you'll hear Nicole explain why most customer bases are dominated by light buyers who contribute roughly 40-50% of sales, how the Double Jeopardy law proves that big brands don't just have more customers but also slightly more loyal ones, and why mental and physical availability matter more than differentiation. She breaks down the difference between repertoire and subscription markets, reveals why advertising effects are "spread out really thinly over time" like "hitting them with a feather," and shares the surprising patterns that hold true across everything from coffee purchases to B2B software. This isn't theoretical—it's the kind of evidence-based marketing science that's transformed how the world's biggest brands actually grow, backed by decades of empirical research that challenges everything you thought you knew about customer loyalty and brand building. Timestamps 00:00: Welcome and introducing Dr. Nicole Hartnett from Ehrenberg-Bass Institute 03:04: Defining repertoire vs subscription markets and loyalty patterns 08:40: The Double Jeopardy law explained - why smaller brands suffer twice 16:16: Light vs heavy buyers - who really drives brand growth? 26:50: Mental and physical availability as growth drivers 29:30: Reach vs frequency - the advertising convex response function 36:45: "When Brands Go Dark" research findings on advertising cessation 46:00: What makes great advertising - Old Spice campaign breakdown 54:12: Distinctive assets and brand identity management systems References Primary Source Hartnett, N., Gelzinis, A., Beal, V., Kennedy, R., & Sharp, B. (2021). When brands go dark: Examining sales trends when brands stop broad-reach advertising for long periods. Journal of Advertising Research, 61(3), 247-259. Referenced Frameworks / Research Sharp, B. (2010). How Brands Grow: What marketers don't know. Oxford University Press. Sharp, B., & Romaniuk, J. (2021). How Brands Grow Part 2. Oxford University Press. Romaniuk, J. Building Distinctive Brand Assets. Oxford University Press. Sharp, B. (2018). Marketing: Theory, Evidence, Practice (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Referenced in Discussion Phua, P., Hartnett, N., Beal, V., Trinh, G., & Kennedy, R. (2023). When Brands Go Dark: A Replication and Extension: Examining Market Share of Brands That Stop Advertising for a Year or Longer. Journal of Advertising Research, 63(2), 172-184. Nicole on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-hartnett/ | |||
| SBP 193: The Sharp Cut - Reach Don’t Teach: The Truth About Reach and Frequency | 23 Apr 2026 | 00:32:31 | |
Welcome back to our latest 'Sharp Cut.' A segment where Marc and Vassilis challenge marketing's comfort blankets. In this episode, Marc and Vassilis discuss the traditional marketing beliefs about reach and frequency, exploring the origins of the 'rule of three' and what current research reveals about effective media strategies. Learn how to optimize your media plans by focusing on broad reach and impactful creative, backed by real-world data. Enjoy the show! Key Takeaways
Key Topics
Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:49 - The Origins of the Three Frequency Rule 06:02 - The Impact of Cognitive Theory on Advertising 09:00 - Understanding Reach vs. Frequency 12:01 - The Mathematics of Ad Distribution 15:01 - Challenges in Measuring Effective Reach 17:54 - Creative Fatigue vs. Audience Saturation 20:59 - The Importance of Broad Reach and Quality Creative 23:52 - Practical Shifts for Effective Marketing 30:07 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways References: Harrison, D. W. (2022). Ad reach and frequency are not independent variables [LinkedIn post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dale-w-harrison Harrison, D. W. (2022). Ad reach vs. frequency for multi-channel campaigns [LinkedIn post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dale-w-harrison Krugman, H. E. (1972). Why three exposures may be enough. Journal of Advertising Research, 12(6), 11-14. Taylor, C. R., Kennedy, E., & Sharp, B. (2009). Is once really enough? Making generalizations about advertising's convex sales response function. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(2), 198-200. Sharp, B., Romaniuk, J., & Kennedy, E. (Eds.). (2021). Marketing: Theory, evidence, practice (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Ritson, M. (2023, October 16). Consumers don't get tired of ads, only marketers do. Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/consumers-tired-ads-marketers/ Analytics at Meta. (2023). Creative fatigue: How advertisers can improve performance by managing repeated exposures. Medium. https://medium.com/@AnalyticsAtMeta Morgan, A., Nelson-Field, K., & Field, P. (2024). The extraordinary cost of dull. System1 Group. https://system1group.com/the-extraordinary-cost-of-dull Tindall, A. (2024). The creative dividend. System1 Group. Analytic Partners. (2022). ROI genome report. Analytic Partners. Dawes, J. (2021). The 95/5 rule: Why B2B growth starts long before the purchase. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. https://marketingscience.info/the-955-rule-why-b2b-growth-starts-long-before-the-purchase/ Sandys, M. (2020). Even at the home of the black stuff, we dream of a white one [LinkedIn article]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/even-home-black-stuff-we-dream-white-one-mark-sandys O'Sullivan, C. (Host). (2023, December 23). Making the Guinness Christmas ad [Audio podcast episode]. In That's What I Call Marketing. Acast. https://shows.acast.com/thats-what-i-call-marketing/episodes/s2-ep39-making-the-guinness-christmas-ad | |||
| SBP 192: The Barber's Brief - Is a sandwich without bread still a sandwich? | 21 Apr 2026 | 00:32:15 | |
In this episode of the Sleeping Barber Podcast, Marc and Vassilis discuss the news that caught their attention over the past couple of weeks, including the implications of consumer data collection, the ongoing debate between reach and frequency in advertising, Unilever's recent marketing strategy shift, Patagonia's innovative approach to integrating marketing with impact, and a creative campaign by Baducco. Enjoy the show. Key Takeaways
Chapters 00:00 - Introduction to the Sleeping Barber Podcast 02:00 - The Future of Online Advertising and Consumer Data 07:00 - Reach vs. Frequency in Advertising 14:06 - Unilever's Marketing Shift and Its Implications 18:02 - Patagonia's New Marketing and Impact Role 23:03 - Creative Campaigns: The Case of Baduco 30:00 - Upcoming Interviews Links: The FTC, Consumer Data Collection, and the Future of Online Advertising - https://ide.mit.edu/insights/the-ftc-consumer-data-collection-and-the-future-of-online-advertising/ Reach vs Frequency: We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/double-down-reach-frequency-prof-dr-koen-pauwels-wj0oe/ Unilever CEO has a new marketing doctrine, and it is completely wrong - https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/the-unilever-ceo-has-a-new-marketing-doctrine-and-it-is-completely-wrong/ Patagonia appoints first marketing and impact director - https://www.marketingweek.com/patagonia-purpose-marketing/ Ad of the Week - Is a sandwich without bread still a sandwich? https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/a-sandwich-without-bread-is-it-still-a-sandwich | |||
| SBP 191: The PostPod - Lessons from Andrew Tindall: The Confidence Crisis in Marketing | 16 Apr 2026 | 00:30:34 | |
In this episode of the Sleeping Barber Podcast, Marc and Vassilis reflect on their conversation with Andrew Tindall about the complexities of advertising, creativity, and the current state of the industry. They explore the Advertising Planning Matrix, discuss the confidence problem within the industry, and emphasize the importance of creativity as a growth lever. The conversation also highlights the evolving role of creators in marketing and the need for a strategic approach to leverage their influence effectively. Enjoy the show! Key Takeaways
Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 02:00 - Exploring the Advertising Planning Matrix 12:58 - The Confidence Problem in the Industry 14:53 - Creativity as a Growth Lever 25:52 - The Role of Creators in Modern Marketing | |||