From the Archive: The Battle for Effectiveness with Mark Ritson

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Marketing Architects – From the Archive: The Battle for Effectiveness with Mark Ritson

Release Date: June 24, 2025

Host/Author: Marketing Architects

---

Introduction and Background

In this archived episode of The Marketing Architects, hosts Alaina Jasper, Angela Voss, and Rob DeMars are joined by the esteemed marketing professor and consultant, Dr. Mark Ritson. Mark brings a wealth of experience from his academic tenure at institutions like London Business School, MIT Sloan, and the University of Minnesota, as well as his practical insights from the marketing industry.

Notable Quote:

Mark Ritson [00:14]: "Consumers are different. They're not. They're not. You know, the tactics are different, but the nature of what we're trying to do and the general operation of consumers remains fundamentally the same. The unchanging man or woman is at the center of it."

---

Defining Marketing Effectiveness

The conversation delves into the nuanced definition of marketing effectiveness. Mark emphasizes the distinction between advertising effectiveness and broader marketing effectiveness, highlighting the importance of strategy, integrated communications, and a continuous learning loop.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Ritson [04:20]: "There's advertising effectiveness, which is about communications, and broader marketing effectiveness, which includes market orientation and strategic development. When we talk about effectiveness, we're usually referring to advertising effectiveness."

Alaina Jasper [03:31]: "Sometimes I feel like I'm taking crazy pills seeing different definitions of marketing effectiveness."

---

Mark Ritson's Academic Journey and Transition to Consulting

Mark shares his unique path from academia to the marketing consultancy world. He critiques the traditional academic approach to marketing education, advocating for practitioners who actively engage in marketing alongside teaching. This perspective led to the creation of his widely acclaimed Marketing Week Mini MBA.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Ritson [07:05]: "I think that's the model that we, somewhere, 40, 50 years ago forgot. In marketing and in business school, you cannot teach marketing if you're not doing it."

Mark Ritson [12:46]: "Mini MBA was interesting... the lessons and the impact from the online training done properly were way better than sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day."

---

The Future of Agencies and the Impact of AI

Mark provides insightful analysis on the future of advertising agencies in the age of artificial intelligence. He predicts that performance-driven digital communications will become automated, while creative, long-term brand building will remain the domain of full-service creative agencies.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Ritson [14:38]: "Digital short of it performance, communication, the stuff that we do, lots of it's targeted, it's test and learn, it's product based. That looks to me like it's going to disappear quickly and become automated."

Mark Ritson [15:20]: "The long brand building, creative work, big idea stuff is still the province of great full service creative agencies."

---

Advertising Channels: TV vs Digital vs Radio

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the effectiveness of various advertising channels. Mark defends television advertising, citing its proven impact despite the rise of digital platforms. He also highlights radio as an underrated medium that can enhance overall marketing effectiveness when integrated properly.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Ritson [17:05]: "TV advertising is still a superior medium for communication... never in the history of marketing has it been more clear or proven that TV advertising is effective."

Mark Ritson [28:45]: "Radio. Even TV does better than radio. If you put about 10% of your budget in radio... the sidekick effect is just phenomenal on everything else."

---

Marketing Science and Effectiveness

Mark expresses his reservations about the term "marketing science," arguing that marketing inherently involves creative and social elements that don't align with traditional scientific paradigms. He advocates for a pragmatic approach to marketing effectiveness over seeking rigid scientific precision.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Ritson [20:49]: "Marketing isn't a science. Science is marketing. The cultural and persuasive nuances involved mean it will never fit into a traditional scientific paradigm."

Mark Ritson [22:28]: "Market research is often standing in an environment where consumers are thinking about or buying your products and talking to them about it."

---

Rapid Fire Segment

Towards the end of the episode, Mark engages in a rapid-fire Q&A, providing concise insights on various topics:

1. Most Underrated Marketing Channel: Radio

   Mark Ritson [28:45]: "Radio is the most abused of all the mediums. It plays with everyone else really well, and it doesn't have that kind of bigger budget requirement for TV to get going."

2. Most Common Marketing Myth:

   Mark Ritson [29:26]: "The idea that we're living in different times. Consumers remain fundamentally the same; tactics may differ, but the core remains unchanged."

3. One Book Every Marketer Should Read: The Old Man and the Sea

   Mark Ritson [30:27]: "It can teach you how to write and make choices, which is probably more important than what you'll learn from marketing books."

4. Future of Marketing Effectiveness:

   Mark Ritson [33:33]: "The future looks much like the present... there's no money in saying the future is the same, but AI will have a significant impact, especially on younger marketers."

---

Closing Remarks

In a candid and humorous conclusion, Mark encourages American marketers to embrace authentic language, highlighting the cultural richness of their expressive capabilities.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Ritson [38:19]: "I'd like to say motherfucker, because Americans invented these fantastic swear words and I think motherfucker is right at the top."

Mark Ritson [39:08]: "There you go, Marketing Architects."

---

Key Takeaways

• Marketing Effectiveness: Distinguishing between advertising effectiveness and broader marketing strategies is crucial for impactful campaigns.

• Agencies and AI: Automation will likely replace performance-driven digital tasks, but creative brand-building remains irreplaceable by machines.

• Advertising Channels: Television remains a highly effective medium, while radio is significantly undervalued and can enhance overall marketing efforts.

• Academic Insights: Practical marketing experience should inform teaching methodologies to bridge the gap between theory and real-world application.

• Future Outlook: While AI will transform certain aspects of marketing, foundational principles and consumer behaviors remain consistent over time.

---

Conclusion

This episode offers a blend of academic rigor and practical insights, reinforcing the importance of understanding marketing effectiveness through both established principles and adaptive strategies. Mark Ritson's candid perspectives provide valuable guidance for marketers navigating the evolving landscape of advertising and consumer engagement.

Transcript

[Elena Jasper]

Hey, everyone. Elena here. We're out of town this week for our annual on site, so instead of a new episode, we're revisiting one of our most popular interviews from the archives. Our conversation with Mark Ritson still just as relevant and hilarious as when we first aired it. Enjoy.

[Mark Ritson]

Consumers are different. They're not. They're not. You know, the tactics are different, but the nature of what we're trying to do and the general operation of consumers remains fundamentally the same. The unchanging man or woman is. Is the center of it.

[Elena Jasper]

Marketing Architects. Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Alaina Jasper, and I'm joined by my co hosts Angela Voss and Rob DeMars. And today we're joined by Dr. Mark Ritson, a renowned marketing professor, consultant, and thought leader. Mark has taught at universities like London Business School, mit, Sloan, and even spent some chilly years teaching in our home state at the University of Minnesota. He is also the creator of the Marketing Week mini MBA and has received numerous awards, including the PPA Business Columnist of the Year award not once, but four times. We love his work and his wit, and we're thrilled to have him on the show. Welcome, Mark.

[Mark Ritson]

Hey, team. I'm honored to be here. I was just saying before we started, I do use and listen to your podcast. So, you know, sometimes you go on these podcasts and you've literally no idea, like, what the going on. But in your case, I do know the format, so I'm. I'm prepped and ready.

[Angela Voss]

Well, and we are Minnesotans, and you did a tour of duty in Minnesota.

[Mark Ritson]

Five years in the Twin Cities, baby. Five years. I got my gold medal.

[Angela Voss]

I actually attended the University of Minnesota when you were teaching there, so there's a good chance we were probably, you.

[Mark Ritson]

Know, doing a keg stand together, doing shots at grandmas. Probably. Right?

[Angela Voss]

You got it. Absolutely.

[Mark Ritson]

That's when I got there. I was a really young professor, and as you guys know, Twin Cities are great, but everyone gets married when they're like, 16. They're usually divorced around 26, 27. So by the time I got there, it was like, everybody was, like, married, except for a bunch of really bitter, divorced Minnesotans who I hung out with who I love dearly. And then when I left and got back to London, I was only 30, and I felt like I was the oldest dude in the world. And I got back to London, I'm like, it took me about three days to go. Hang on a minute, hang on, hang On a minute, man, I'm only 30. I was. And that whole summer, I was like, wow, wait, now Europe is different.

[Angela Voss]

Well, Mark, give us your best Minnesota accent.

[Mark Ritson]

Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. No, I mean, it's been stoned for 10 years now. What would I say? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Where's my pod roast? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, it's a long time ago.

[Angela Voss]

Let's go to the Home Depot and buy some hard.

[Mark Ritson]

Home Depot. Oh, yeah. That's pretty good.

[Rob DeMars]

That's pretty good.

[Mark Ritson]

Five years is a long time. And I look, I mean, I had a season ticket for the twins. That was painful.

[Elena Jasper]

Yeah, we're sorry about that.

[Mark Ritson]

It was just after, like, Kirby Puckett and all that had finished, and we were just, like, getting killed. Killed every time. But, yeah, I loved. I lived downtown in the warehouse district. If I'd have met the right girl, I'd have stayed happily down there. I thought it was terrific.

[Elena Jasper]

Well, what a loss. Minnesota almost had Mark Ritzon. All right, we're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news. Always trying to root our opinions in data research and what drives business results. Now, before we get into our interviews, I like to tee things up with an article or piece of research, which is not easy to do for Mark Ritson, because it's Mark Ritson. So I thought I'd go with an oldie, but a goodie. Something a little spicy. One of your many articles for Marketing Week titled, Effectiveness Ignorance has Left American Marketing Lagging behind the Rest of the world.

[Mark Ritson]

Oh, you want to go that? Okay.

[Rob DeMars]

If you would have stayed, America would have been fine.

[Elena Jasper]

And as you know, in this article, you acknowledge that there is marketing greatness in the US But. But there's not nearly enough leading marketing coming from the US Partly due to a lack of marketing effectiveness knowledge. And you end the article with this lovely call to action. Stop making excuses, America. Get better at marketing again. We miss you. And today you are surrounded by three American marketers who have been dying to speak with you since we read that article, because we actually felt like it really tracked with our own experience learning and sharing marketing effectiveness here. And even after consuming a ton of content, I personally feel like we, being marketers, aren't even always aligned on what we mean when we say marketing effectiveness. So I wanted to start the interview there. How do you define marketing effectiveness?

[Mark Ritson]

So, first of all, I'm glad you guys aligned with it. I was very careful about writing it, so it didn't sound like I hate Americans, which I clearly don't. You know, I love America and it is the home of marketing and it always will be. I think I have two definitions here, and it's interesting how often we. We don't get this right. So there's advertising effectiveness, which is what we're really talking about when we talk about field and Benett long and short. For the most part, we're talking about comms. Yeah. There's a broader topic which is marketing effectiveness, which takes us into a much bigger field in terms of market orientation, strategic development, blah, blah, blah. But when we talk about effectiveness, 99 times out of a hundred, we're really talking about advertising effectiveness. So the 8% of marketing, that's about communications. And for me, you said this on one of your podcasts not that long ago. It really comes down to, I think, the correct balance of long and short, and within that, the right tactical array and mixing and integrating marketing comms properly. And then the final piece is having a strategy underpinning it which has been briefed in properly. So in sequence, I would say clear strategy, good brief, long and short, correctly handled and a good integrated mix. A learning loop coming back into strategy and redevelopment. That for me is practically what you look for. And a shout out to Don Schultz the great, unfortunately not with us anymore, marketing professor who came up with that whole idea of integrated marketing. We don't talk about it enough.

[Elena Jasper]

I'm glad that we have a similar definition because sometimes I feel like I'm taking crazy pills seeing different definitions of marketing effectiveness. But we actually first got into it reading the long and the short of it. So I think that's why that kind of aligns with how we feel.

[Mark Ritson]

You know what was interesting though, when. When I wrote that article about Americans being subpar at advertising effectiveness, the comments I got from the States were like, you don't even define effectiveness. And I'm like, I know because I don't have to for anyone. That's not in America. Everyone knows what we're talking about. Literally, though, if you read, if you look at the LinkedIn original, there's 20 people going, you don't even say what effectiveness is. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. We're beyond that. Outside of America, you have to right for your audience and not being patronizing, but we have a corpus. What makes it sad for me is we, we are in a golden age of advertising effectiveness. We've never known more about it than we know right now. And it's weird that America is so far behind when they're used to be so Far ahead.

[Elena Jasper]

Yeah. People are kind of making your point in the comments by saying you didn't.

[Mark Ritson]

Really define what does it mean? What do you mean by effectiveness? I'm like, it's not my definition, you know?

[Elena Jasper]

Yeah, you're like, exactly. Well, Mark, one thing I wanted to talk to you about was your time in academia because I think that kind of relates to marketing effectiveness and your approach. You earned your PhD in marketing. You were a full time professor, but now you're a consultant, a founder, a thought leader. Why did you decide to make that transition?

[Mark Ritson]

There's a couple of things going on there. So I'm unusual in the sense that I wanted to be a marketing professor because I really liked marketing, not because I wanted to be a professor. And if you look at most of the marketing professors I've taught with lovely people, most of them wanted to be a professor and marketing was the thing that got them there. That's a very different situation. I basically discovered, I think along the way that I spent my whole academic career untenured and then tenured, battling with the idea that consulting was central to marketing academia. You know, you're not meant to consult until you're tenured. And even then you're not meant to do too much of it because you have to publish all of these relatively pointless academic papers. And I just didn't think that was true. I went with the Indiana Jones model, which is, you know, if you remember Raiders of the Lost Ark, he was like in a temple stealing a gold statue, and then the next week he's teaching kids about stealing the gold statue and stuff. Right. I think that's the model that we, somewhere, 40, 50 years ago forgot. In marketing and in business school, you cannot teach marketing if you're not doing it. The end. And even at the very best schools, I think the absence of knowledge of marketing is a scandal. I don't think it's cool. So, yeah, I was always kind of on that parameter where I was winning teaching awards. I mean, I won the teaching prize at MIT six weeks after I got there. Right. And as I said to the dean when I got the award, this is great news for me, but it's also really bad news for you. Right. Because I'm a good teacher, but I'm not that good. Right. It was more that I came in with, literally photographs of stuff I was doing. And we talk about it in class and in every other classroom. It was just algebra. I was smelling the beginning of the end of, I think, MBA education as we know it. It'll still Survive. But you can't get away with taking really Lovely people with PhDs, usually not in marketing, giving them absolutely no experience of marketing at all, and then asking them to teach MBAs about marketing. And I'll give you a final example, my dad, who's not an academic by any sense, right? My dad was always obsessed with this. My dad would say, well, when you. I used to work a lot with medical companies. He said, when you work with Baxter, for example, you work with like, you know, medical professor surgeons and they all do surgery and then they also teach surgery at university, medical universities. But when you go back to business school, none of them do any practical marketing, they just teach it. And he's absolutely right, right? If you're a professor of surgery, you do surgery, right? If you're a professor of marketing, the one thing you don't do is do any fucking marketing at all. It's not good enough. And I'll tell you the number of times I've given talks at universities and all the professors come and take notes because they want, you know, material.

[Elena Jasper]

Well, there's clearly this gap in kind of professors keeping up with the latest marketing trends and changes. But I've heard that another challenge is what you mentioned, I'm guessing your opinion about research. I've heard that it's just incredibly hard to get research published. The peer review process is a mess. So even like the research that we're trying to use to teach students become so out of date.

[Mark Ritson]

Here's how it works, Elena. You've got peer review, takes three to four years to publish, right? First of all, what you're tending to be publishing about in the top tier journals is so arcane and micro that it has no place. To give you a good example, I want to give a talk at Oxford University. When I was still a professor and I'd supervised a PhD student who'd published a really rather famous academic paper, peer reviewed, and I was the co author. And I remember sitting on the train going to present this paper and having to read the paper and not be able to understand large portions of it because it was written so ridiculously and with such a horseshit title. The whole thing's nonsense, frankly, it's nonsense. And so what's happened is that. And you've noticed this, right? What's happened is a small guerrilla army of professor level thinkers, from Peterfield and Lesbinette to Byron himself, is not really an academic at all. By the traditional measures, we've all sort of sprung up and filled the gap and it's Much to the benefit of marketers. Because rather than a four year publishing cycle and rather than journals that you cannot access without paying like 80 bucks to read the column, even though it's publicly funded research, you can go on LinkedIn. And there's. I truly believe the reason we're in a golden age of advertising effectiveness is because the business schools have been subsumed by a bunch of people that go straight to the market and share the knowledge and then other marketers take it and use it. And I think that's a great thing.

[Elena Jasper]

I've gotten really into this marketing research stuff and a few months ago I thought I should get my PhD. I love school, I love learning. I talked to a couple marketing professors and they told me, don't do it. They explained to me the process. It was just a nightmare. I couldn't believe it. You've created a different option for people like me that still want to learn about marketing, have an education, which is online training.

[Mark Ritson]

I did the hard yards in Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania. I would never want anyone to go through those years. It was just mind bogglingly boring, right? But a few of us have done those hard yards and we're now filtering it back out to you guys.

[Elena Jasper]

So I'm guessing that's what inspired you to create the Mini mba.

[Mark Ritson]

It's my daughter, so you can always pretend you were being driven by the market and later on you are right by market orientation. But I was making a million bucks a year as a marketing consultant and 90,000 bucks a year as an academic. But my daughter came on, we've been married a long time, didn't have kids until late in the day because I was on the road, I'd be working. And my wife correctly said, right, you know, we've had a baby, now you can't go anywhere. So I had to work out how to make a million bucks a year without consulting. And that's really how it began, right? That's the origin. But Mini MBA was interesting, right? I knew it would make me the money. I knew it was scalable. I knew there'd be a market for it. The thing that I didn't know that properly surprised me was it, it's better than going into the classroom. That was the one thing that if you'd have asked me at the start eight years ago, I'd have said, no, it won't be as good as the classroom, but it'll be cheaper and it will be more accessible. Now it's better. And there was still two or three years where I was still teaching at business school and running mini mba. It was me, the same guy, pretty much the same syllabus. But you could just see that the lessons and the impact from the online training done properly were way better than sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day. And that was the thing that blew me away.

[Rob DeMars]

That's so cool when you think about how people learn, just the reimagination of traditional education, I think we can get excited by. And obviously you've done that with the mba. So as a well known consultant and figure in marketing, you're also familiar with the conventional agency model, I would assume. And super curious your thoughts on just the future of agencies in general. There's so much going on. Obviously the effectiveness is a portion of this. Maybe it's different in the US versus overseas. You've got AI in front of everyone. Just curious your thoughts, what are we stepping into here?

[Mark Ritson]

I mean, first of all, nobody cares, right? So I think that's an important addendum to the conversation. Agency people wring their hands with what's happening to advertising and listen, the clients will decide what they want and the agencies will follow. That's the first point, right? It's not a discussion that matters, frankly in the scheme of things within advertising. Obviously it does. I saw this post by Neil Patel, right? He's like whatever it is, it's sort of like a junior level Gary Vee kind of thing going on, right? And he posted this thing where he'd analyzed 150,000 posts on Instagram and he had a formula for what you need to do in order to like have a presence either personally or as a brand on Instagram. And it was kind of like you had to post like 7 times a week, reply 40 replies a week, 2 like carousels a week, 10 videos and it was just like bonkers, right? What occurred to me then is that's obviously where AI is going to take up the job of communications and ad agencies, right? So the digital short of it performance, communication, the stuff that we do, lots of it's targeted, it's test and learn, it's product based. That looks to me like it's going to disappear quickly and become automated. The stuff that I think agencies will continue to do is the big long, emotional brand building stuff. I don't think machines will ever do that better than humans because we need it to be more creative, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the long brand building, creative work, big idea stuff is still the province of great full service creative agencies. I just think the digital media diaspora is going to be automated pretty quickly. If you look at a Wyden and Kennedy, I don't think they're going to be threatened by AI. But if you look at a performance digital comms local agency, I think they are.

[Rob DeMars]

I know we have found even internally that using AI can definitely help spur new creative thoughts. And where does that lead to? It'll be super interesting, obviously. So we already mentioned Peter Field. You recently wrote a passionate intro to his reports. TV is at the heart of effectiveness. We're a TV agency and we repeatedly see the immense power that TV has for brands, but it still feels like it's an underleveraged channel. So how do you think about advising brands to think about TV advertising? It's not for everyone, but like, how do you go about that?

[Mark Ritson]

It's a lost challenge. Right. There was two charts floating around last month that you guys will have seen. One from the profitability study, which is the one that the Think Box guys did in the UK, showing indisputably from $1.8bn worth of spend, that TV advertising is still, I don't say the best, because no such thing exists, but a superior medium for communication. Right. And at the same time, we had the other chart showing that Facebook or Meta was now basically doing more advertising dollars than linear TV advertising. So never in the history of marketing, I think, has it been more clear or proven that TV advertising is effective, nor has it ever been in more rapid decline. Right. So there's a good reason for that. I mean, let's be honest, reach is a problem now for tv. And we talk about younger consumers. By that we mean under 40s. Right? So it's not really younger anymore. Right. I think that's the problem. TV's rate cut isn't going down yet. Reach is definitely an issue. But with those caveats, it remains this phenomenally impactful, effective medium if you've got the right budget and approach for it. And that's how I still think about TV. It's just remarkable. I've spent my 15 years defending it as a medium and no one believes me. I do a lot of work for YouTube. I think YouTube is a great filler for where the reach of traditional TV falls down. But still, TV has that incredible impact. I just think it's not a message that will get across to most marketers. And I'll tell you then, it's not even that they question whether TV advertising is a good medium. They literally look at you like you're on drugs. You've seen it, right? Particularly American younger marketers. Right? Sub 30 year old American marketers. You say them, look, TV remains the great effective advertising medium. They look at you like you're on crack. It doesn't even work anymore. Do you know the impact of the Gary Vees of the world has been phenomenal in, in its overall effect. So yeah, a brilliant medium, there's no such thing as the best medium, it always depends. But a brilliant medium, that is remarkably rejected. The only thing I'd say to you is it's very clear now that all of us got this wrong. Fifteen years ago we talked about TV versus digital and all of that. Clearly now with connected TVs, et cetera, the thing is just merging into one anyway, right? That's what we're now talking about. It doesn't really matter. I mean people talk about linear tv, doesn't matter. You know what I mean? From a consumer point of view, it's whatever's appearing on the wall at any one time.

[Rob DeMars]

I think it's tricky though, we're finding the merging of the worlds because you've got those marketers that have that digital mindset now have better accessibility or it feels more comfortable to them to step into that CTV space. But then they start applying those short term mentalities in terms of measurement, right? Versus really looking for those longer term impacts that are more meaningful to brands.

[Mark Ritson]

At least we have found my time with YouTube. The challenge we have is it does long and short, but not with the same kind of approach. Right? So that you can use it as a very useful targeted performance video medium and use short term metrics, but it's arguably a stronger medium in many cases when it's used as a TV equivalent for sub 40 year old demos that aren't watching linear TV as much. In which case the approach, the metrics, the creative is totally different, right?

[Angela Voss]

Both ism. Speaking of both ism, Mark, you've been critical in the past or you've had some critique on the term marketing science. You speak into marketing effectiveness, but a little more wary of the term science. Why is that?

[Mark Ritson]

I think we've already had this debate 35, 40 years ago and come to the correct conclusion that marketing isn't a science. Science is marketing. And what I mean by that is if you look at marketing's social, reflective, creative dimensions, it's never going to fall into the same approach and parameters as a traditional scientific paradigm. Cultural and persuasive nuances involved. I like the rigor of what the Ehrenberg Bass Institute and Others have brought into marketing. That's great. I just think the side effect of it, unfortunately, is when we hear about marketing science, we scare the shit out of marketers and we stop them from just doing marketing. They look for too much precision, which doesn't really exist in our field. I find a lot of marketers don't commit to research because they're worried it might not be scientific or rigorous or representative enough. And my attitude is, yeah, but you're sitting here with no data. Get amongst it. Get out there. You're not wearing a white coat. What you're doing is the best. Market research is often standing in an environment where consumers are thinking about or buying your products and talking to them about it. Oh, but I might influence them. Sure you might, but we're not doing chemistry here. Do you know what I mean? That's the downside. The upside is definitely Riga. I love that. The downside is don't panic. There's no precision here. There never was. Where's the freaking precision in any of this? It doesn't exist. So I think there's two sides to it. Right? But, yeah, I'm not a scientist, and I think anyone that claims to be has a different agenda.

[Angela Voss]

I know you've debated Byron in the past. Are you guys still chummy? Do you still share a pint?

[Mark Ritson]

We are the same age. We've been around for the same amount of time. I can remember Byron literally 30 years ago telling me my research on advertising was nonsense. So, yeah, Byron's been Byron for 30 years in my life. You know what I mean? So I know him well. I think he's wonderful. I think he's more dry and funny than many people realize. I mean, he's often just in a bad mood and he doesn't suffer fools, but sometimes he's just taking the piss but in such a dry kiwi way that people don't realize. I think what you realize as you get older is there are certain people, whatever you do, that you'll trundle through with until the end. And so obviously, Byron will be there for me and for marketers of my generation. I mean, I deliberately positioned against him 10 years ago to make myself more famous. That was an entirely strategic approach of mine, which I think worked quite well. But there's genuine respect and also antipathy there. And again, what I love about being an academic is, or a former academic is you can beat the shit out of each other intellectually and then be quite friendly about it. I mean, if you've ever been to a proper University research, talk. Someone presents a paper and people rip the shit out of it and then go for dinner afterwards. So, yeah, we can happily, you know, kick seven bells of shit out of each other's thinking, but still have genuine affection. Or at least on my side, genuine affection. I don't know how Byron feels at the moment, but probably, yeah, we've. Respect and affection and antipathy are all happy bedfellows.

[Elena Jasper]

You know, it sounds like the academic experience prepares you well for posting on LinkedIn.

[Mark Ritson]

Used to be better, right? LinkedIn's turned into a bit of a cesspool. It seems to be getting worse. And yeah, I used to say that LinkedIn didn't have any real competition, but it does now. Its main threat and competition comes from the people who run LinkedIn who have such a nonsensical view of business that they may well destroy their own network. Do you know what I mean? Like the AI questions and some of the stuff they do on that platform is so lightweight and fluffy that I worry for them a little bit.

[Elena Jasper]

Maybe someone will invent something as a competitor.

[Mark Ritson]

I'll give you a good example. Someone posted a model of marketing with a nice person, but with zero treasure in marketing. A model of marketing. And then they said, I've appreciate any feedback. And so I posted underneath, I said, this is terrifyingly bad. You really shouldn't post stuff like this until you've read more. And then I got like, you know, 20 people were like, oh, my God, that's so rude. And that's sober. I actually said in my comment, I love and respect you, but your model sucks ass, basically. Right? Please, please go and read more and stop doing this. You know what I mean? It's bad. All these, oh my God. Well, I don't like the way you've criticized him and all that. And I'm like, look, in the end, I said to them all, do you want a forum or do you want a forum? Right? If we're going to have a debate about stuff, you need to be able to say to someone. I have a PhD in the topic. I am an expert. Whatever you might think of my point of view, your model sucks. And you need. It's all kinds of wrong. That's my feedback. LinkedIn needs to be a place where you can do that. You know, not personal attacks, but professional differences of opinion. And it's like, guys, what the fuck has happened to you? Have a fucking debate and then have a beer. You know what I mean? Everyone's got the same interest, so there's a real problem with the LinkedIn kind of stuff now, everyone's got to be supportive. And yet at the same time, there's that weird passive aggressive yuckiness going on. Do you know what I mean? That I just find unpalatable.

[Angela Voss]

We're from Minnesota. We understand passive aggressive.

[Mark Ritson]

Well, but, you know, Minnesota is a good model, is it not? This will. This. Most people won't have a fucking clue. Talking about. But Minnesota's conservative, liberal, right? It's conservative liberal Minnesota. Nice. Which is this legendary thing, which is true, right? Is there's that sort of that three inches of pleasantness, but underneath it's not unpleasantness, it's just privacy and respect and stuff. Minnesota is a good model for the United States, but you're being led by the east coast, which, I mean, I don't know if you've been in Manhattan lately, and I'll go back next week, but this very un American thing where you can't say what you think in a meeting anymore, right? Because of the optics. You'll debrief it later with certain people and not other people. No way to run a business. In my class last week on the mini mba, I was telling the story about I'd been working for a large cosmetic brand in California, and they just broken a billion dollars revenue for the year. And I'd flown to Manhattan to work for Moet Hennessey, who I worked for at the time. And I was telling the guys in the room how this little makeup brand was now doing billion dollars. And unbeknownst to me, Gilles Hennessy, who's the H in LVMH and mh, was sitting on the other side of the room and come in and we're all drinking coffee, and I was just going on about this billion dollars of revenue, and Gilles Hennessy said to me, how much of it was profit? And I said, oh, I don't know, that it was just a revenue figure. And he said, maybe you should shut up then.

[Angela Voss]

Well, I'll write that.

[Mark Ritson]

But you know what? He's fucking right. He's right. See what I mean? I was using it as an example of revenue versus profit. But he's right. And that stuff doesn't happen anymore. That's the kind of thing you want to happen where Gilles, very smart and very tough, but he's right. Anyone can do a billion dollars of revenue. You might lose 400 million bucks off the back of it. Right? I think I miss that. And it's like, what? Let's just talk about the thing. But I feel sad for it. And I don't know if it gets fixed.

[Elena Jasper]

Well, Mark, you can comment on my LinkedIn post and give me feedback anytime. It only helps my reach.

[Mark Ritson]

So don't. It don't. Well, that's the other thing. You're right. Every time I jump on something, this is bullshit. They get 900,000. Like, you know, people go, oh, I wouldn't stand for that. I'll follow you. You know. Bloody hell. Yeah. All right, you, you, I'll come after you next week.

[Elena Jasper]

Yeah, have at it. I'm sure there's stuff to. To come after. Well, Mark, if you'll humor us, I'd like to do a couple rapid fire questions, because we had so many questions for you and we just couldn't fit them all in a short podcast.

[Mark Ritson]

You can do a longer podcast with me. Like, that's. It's often a good sign, right? People have, like, these things where they have, like, our podcast is 30 minutes. I'm like, we'll see, we'll see.

[Elena Jasper]

It's the attention span challenge. Okay, first question. In your opinion, what's the most underrated marketing channel?

[Mark Ritson]

Radio. Even TV does better than radio. You think it's hard in TV, try working in radio. If you put about 10% of your budget in radio, irrespective of what you're doing, the sidekick effect is just phenomenal on everything else. It plays with everyone else really well, and it doesn't have that kind of bigger budget requirement for TV to get going. So, yeah, radio for me is the most abused of all the mediums.

[Rob DeMars]

Our agency originated in radio. We only put it to bed when Covid just about killed it, adding radio back to the strategy list.

[Elena Jasper]

Mark Ritzon said so.

[Rob DeMars]

Mark Ritzen said so.

[Elena Jasper]

All right, next question. What marketing myth do you find yourself busting most often?

[Mark Ritson]

It's probably. It's probably this idea that we're living in different times. I saw it this morning on someone saying, now, with AI and digital and blah, blah, consumers are different. They're not. They're not. You know, the tactics are different, but the nature of what we're trying to do and the general operation of consumers remains fundamentally the same. The unchanging man or woman is. Is the center of it. I mean, look at the D to C myth, right? So, you know, when we went to that decade where D2C brands were completely changing the rules of marketing until none of them made any money, and then they just turned into little bags of piss, that myth grew because everyone in marketing was looking for something new and different that wasn't like it was before. That's the one that I go after. Like I was 100% cynical of D2C from the minute it emerged because I know things aren't that different. I know you can't invent a new model of marketing. It doesn't work that way. So yeah, that's the big trope that I go after.

[Elena Jasper]

What's one book every marketer should read?

[Mark Ritson]

Old man in the Sea. You know what a bunch of philistines we are with all these marketers. They read like Claude Hopkins, scientific advertising, right? 1923. People read that. No, they don't. People say they've read that. They take a photograph of it and put it on their LinkedIn. So I've just read Claude Hopkins. What a great book. Fuck off. You haven't read Claude Hopkins. No one's read Claude Hopkins in 50 years, right? So I think what marketers should do is read something a little bit more interesting. I had a lovely guy from Mumbai and he was like, someone had posted a photograph of all the marketing books they'd read. And I said like, why don't you try reading some non marketing books and having a life? And I recommended, I think it was the Old man in the Sea. And then this guy from Mumbai who hadn't quite got the point of it, I think said, oh, but I like reading finance. Corporate finance. I said, you need to read some Hemingway. He's really good on corporate finance. He's like, are you sure? I'm like, oh yeah, he's great. He's great. You know, so yeah, I think the Old man in the Sea can teach you how to write and how to make choices, which is probably more important than what you'll learn from. I, I tell you my favorite thing this year someone sent me a book called Digital Marketing. These people do this all the time. I've never met them, I don't know anything about them. They email me and say, could you read my manuscript, which is 600 pages long, and then write something for the back of the book? And I'm like, no, I'm not going to read your book. And they're like, well, just give me a quote. And I'm like, no, because I need to read the book to give you a quote. And then this guy had written the book, Digital Marketing. I said to him, by the way, have you read your book? And he said, I wrote the book. And I said, I know, but I wondered if you'd read it because it's about digital marketing and you're writing A book about it. That seems to me like you aren't following the actual principles of what you probably written inside the book. Like if people said to me, when are you going to write a book? I'm like, never. What are you talking about?

[Angela Voss]

I saw you knock Ogilvy on advertising as a high school kid. The naked pictures in that book did give me interest in advertising.

[Mark Ritson]

So there you go, Ogilvy on advertising. Like, it's not that good. It's not. Okay. There's two or three good quotes, right? It's not that good. Never write a book is one of the most important pieces of advice to give anyone. Like it takes a year of your life. Who's reading books anymore, you know, properly? No one.

[Rob DeMars]

We might be the exception. Like guilty is charged over here.

[Mark Ritson]

What are you reading?

[Rob DeMars]

There's so many. I mean, I gotta go outside of marketing too, but like there's just classic like Blue Ocean strategy and.

[Mark Ritson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

[Rob DeMars]

You know, so there, there's some good.

[Mark Ritson]

Ones there if you want one though that I have read that I do like. I still like Romel's Good strategy, bad strategy. That's.

[Rob DeMars]

Oh yeah, that's a great one.

[Mark Ritson]

You can read on the train. That's interesting and well written and teaches you stuff. Reading how brands grow is like punching yourself over and over again in the face. Right.

[Elena Jasper]

I seriously regret asking that as a rapid fire question.

[Angela Voss]

Not me.

[Mark Ritson]

That was a good one. It's all relative. It's all relative. That was.

[Elena Jasper]

I love that closing question mark. What do you think the future looks like for marketing effectiveness?

[Mark Ritson]

Pretty much the same as it looks like now. There's no money in this. Right. So I'm always, you know, everyone's trying. No, the future will be content or the future will be AI because they're selling content or AI or whatever. It's pretty much the same slight alterations, but not as different as we might think. I was talking to a guy last week and again it was unfortunate because I was telling him, I do think AI has a massive impact on our profession over the next, not yet in the 30s and 40s, I think it will change our profession quite a lot. And I was saying to him, one of the great things about being in your 50s is you don't really care as much. It's not like I'm going to stop working tomorrow, but AI won't have the same impact. Whereas I said to him, if I was like 29, I'd be shitting my pants right now. And he said, I've just turned 29. And I'm like, well, there you go. If you're in your 20s, I think you've got to look at how your career is going to change properly. That's the one exception. We are looking at an era of synthetic data AI strategy. And as I said to you, the short of it becomes completely programmed and devoid of human interaction. So I think that's the one area that I do find interesting. For the most part, we overstate change. We've been doing it now for a century, and we'll keep doing it. For the most part, the future looks a lot like the present, and that's very uncool, and there's no money in it. I'll tell you the great guy you want to get on this one, Martin Lindstrom. Get Martin Lindstrom on and ask him about his Covid stuff. Because I got on a Martin Lindstrom very early. He was in, like, Women's Wear Daily writing a column about COVID was going to change everything forever. And I'm like, I was waiting for Martin Lindstrom or someone to come along with this horseshit, right? So right at the beginning of COVID I'm like, yeah, here we go. I knew you got. I was expecting you, right? Covid's going to change marketing, change the consumer forever. And I got him right at the start, and I wrote a column about what an idiot he was because everything he was saying was nonsense and it would all snap back to normal, Right? And he doesn't. He didn't like it. He tried to sue me and he tried to complain a marketing week, but I was right. Yeah. You know, all that nonsense about, it'll change the consumer economy forever. But rather than do it after the fact, I did it right when Covid was starting because I'm old now and I know which way it was going to go. That's what you've got to work on, is those guys that are always obsessed with everything's going to change forever. And with Lindstrom, read my new book, Covid Marketing 2.0, to understand how it's going to change. They've all got a vested interest in the pornography of change. That's the problem, right? There's no money in me saying to you, yeah, the future looks a lot like the past, Right? I can't make money from anyone with that. But if I said to you, the future is totally going to change because of Dingus 9.6, read my book Dingus 9.6 to find out more. It's change has a Return on investment. That unfortunately motivates everyone to talk about it and it bedevils our industry. That was a quick fire answer for you. There you go.

[Elena Jasper]

No, that was great. That reminds me of when Meta says TV is dead and then they're advertising in like the Super Bowl. Similar grinds my gears.

[Mark Ritson]

Super important point, right? Go back and look at how Zuckerberg sold in advertising in 2007 on Facebook as being completely different from anything that had gone before. And now look where we are today, like YouTube and how they've done it. Right? You can sell change, but you end up at the end of the day doing it like everyone else because it's not changing that much. And when you say that to younger marketers, again, they're sort of amazed and they think, well, that can't be right. But you just need to stick around for 25 years and you'll see it. We're not changing as much as we think. And that has a big implication, which is you can learn from the past. The past is not a foreign country. Both brands, theories, marketing. There's a lot to be learned from our history of marketing. It's not all forward thinking. And again, that's not a cool point of view. But if you read Neil McElroy's stuff from P and G when he launched Brand I do it on my mini MBA in brand management. I read the McElroy memo where he invented brand management. 1931, May 15, right? He sits down on his typewriter and goes, we're not doing this right. He's working on soap brands. We need to split up the soap category and have a brand manager on both. And here's what they would do. It's as relevant now as it was 90 years ago.

[Elena Jasper]

I think we really appreciate your perspective. It's very refreshing. And we have an audience of mostly marketers in the US So hopefully getting on here and sharing your expertise helps. Just more marketers to know about effectiveness and you and your work. So again, thank you so much for joining us. We're big fans and grateful for your time. I'm worried to ask this, but any final words before we sign off?

[Mark Ritson]

So I'd like to say motherfucker, because Americans invented these fantastic swear words and I think motherfucker is right at the top and yet we never hear him anymore in America. We should encourage more Americans to say it more frequently. It's your birthright. And yet you're just not, you know, you're not utilizing enough. So that would be my last word.

[Rob DeMars]

Well, thank God we got something right.

[Elena Jasper]

That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Ayanna Clapocky for producing the show and Taylor Delos Reyes for editing. You can connect with us on LinkedIn and if you find the show valuable, please leave us a rating and review. And if you'd like to hear more from us, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter. It's built for marketers seeking research first analysis of the latest trends. You can go to marketingarchitects.com newsletter to subscribe now go forth and build Great marketing.

[Mark Ritson]

I do love the podcast, genuinely, so keep it coming. I think you are a bright shining light in a ocean of shitty turds.

[Angela Voss]

We will quote you on.

[Elena Jasper]

I'm gonna add that to the podcast page. Quote from Mark Gritson.

[Mark Ritson]

There you go, Marketing Architects.