Uncensored CMO — “How Not to Plan in 2026 with Les and Sarah”

Host: Jon Evans
Guests: Les Binet (C), Sarah Carter (B)
Date: January 7, 2026

Overview

This episode reunites Jon Evans with recurring guests Les Binet and Sarah Carter to dissect the state of marketing and advertising heading into 2026. They debate the resurgence of consistency, the evolving language of campaigns, spend versus efficiency, the changing perception of purpose, and the crucial but overlooked role of craft—especially in an era increasingly dominated by AI. Throughout, the conversation is grounded in evidence, lively anecdotes, and the trio’s trademark wit.

Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. The Resurgence of Consistency in Advertising

Discussion:

• The enduring power of running familiar campaigns (Kevin the Carrot, Coke, Ferrero Rocher, Amazon reusing its “sledging grannies” ad).
• The emergence of “compound creativity” as a more appealing branding for consistency.
• Brands are discovering that repetition—when done right—compounds memorability and emotional impact.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “We’ve been wanging on about [consistency] for about 15 years, haven’t we? Consistently ignored. But yeah, I think people have read. Yeah, have. I don’t know why it is this year that it’s suddenly everybody’s sort of understanding it a bit more.” — Sarah Carter, [01:02]
• “What evidence we have about wear out is that ads mostly don’t wear out. If they do wear out, it’s very slow. They very rarely run for long enough to wear out.” — Les Binet, [03:17]

Timestamps:

• [00:38] – Christmas ad charts and the comfort of familiar campaigns
• [03:07] – Amazon rerunning a hit ad with no drop in effectiveness

2. Disguised/Imaginative Repetition: Keeping Consistency Fresh

Discussion:

• Strategies like “disguised repetition” and “imaginative repetition” keep campaigns feeling fresh while leveraging memory structures.
• Examples include Marmite’s decades-long campaign, Kevin the Carrot’s evolving narratives, and Specsavers’ consistent punchlines.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “It is the highest orders of creativity to be able to effectively disguise repetition.” — Sarah Carter, [06:50]
• “You don’t realize you’re watching the same thing. It does feel kind of fresh each time.” — Sarah Carter, [10:29]

Timestamps:

• [05:46] – Hazards of over-relying on pure repetition
• [10:53] – Specsavers and the difference between a series of ads and a campaign

3. The Evolution of Campaign Language: From ‘Campaigns’ to ‘Platforms’

Discussion:

• The change in industry vernacular, where “campaign” now often refers to a single ad, pushing leaders like AB InBev’s Marcel Marcondes to use “platforms” instead.
• Longevity and unity across channels (“joining it all up”) are becoming central again.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “Younger people in the business… talk about campaigns as a word for an ad. It’s like, ‘Oh, the new campaign, it’s 30 seconds long.’… A campaign is a complete sort of working system that stretches over years and builds up. Everything adds up to something else.” — Les Binet, [10:53]
• “Platform is just a new word for what we used to call a campaign. But because campaign isn’t now the ad, he’s come up with this term platform ideas. But actually platforms are campaigns.” — Jon Evans, [11:39]

Timestamps:

• [11:39] – From campaigns to “platforms”

4. The Critical Role of Spend in Effectiveness

Discussion:

• Les Binet’s research reveals CMOs dramatically underweight the impact of absolute spend on campaign effectiveness; the real ratio is about 90% spend, 10% efficiency.
• The marketing “arms race”: effectiveness is as much about outspending the competition as it is about creative or media strategy.
• The persistence of “small brand envy”—big brands want startup agility; small brands want big brand advantages.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “The biggest single marketing decision… is actually how much you spend and everything else… is important. But the really, really big decision is about budget.” — Les Binet, [15:09]
• “If you market like a small brand, you become a small brand.” — Les Binet referencing James Hermans, [17:20]

Timestamps:

• [12:27] – Spend vs. creativity discussion begins
• [15:09] – Binet outlines “creative commitment” & three drivers of effectiveness
• [16:08] – Ad spend as an “arms race” in every category

5. The Illusion of Doing ‘More With Less’ and Persuading Investment

Discussion:

• The “do more with less” mantra rarely manifests in real results; less spending leads to less brand growth.
• Advocates for budget-setting as a joint financial/marketing exercise, with proper modeling, experimentation, and triangulation of evidence.
• Pushback against over-optimizing mix and under-valuing the size of the budget itself.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “Mostly ‘doing more with less’ never happens. It’s usually doing less with less.” — Les Binet, [23:34]
• “In an ideal company, finance, marketing and sales sit together with a proper financial model that’s informed by what we know about how marketing and media works and they sit and do it as a financial planning decision together.” — Les Binet, [24:11]

Timestamps:

• [23:17] – The real effect of lower budgets
• [24:11] – The case for integrated budget planning

6. Measurement, Tenure & the Short-Termism Challenge

Discussion:

• Marketers often focus on short-term metrics, missing long-term value creation.
• Discussion of agency and client tenure: longer tenures (for both marketers and their agencies) lead to stronger creative platforms and business growth, but there’s debate over whether tenure has actually shortened.
• Wide misunderstanding of the difference between brand vs. activation, and product vs. purpose advertising.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “If brands are built in years, why are they measured in quarters?” — Carl Mellor (quoted by Jon), [26:41]
• “I think all the big expansion in metrics is in short term metrics.” — Les Binet, [37:01]

Timestamps:

• [26:41] – Measuring for the long versus the short term
• [32:52] – Tenure, effectiveness, and the myth of declining CMO tenure

7. The Decline of ‘Purpose’ and the Renaissance of Product

Discussion:

• The “purpose era” is waning. There’s a refreshed focus on celebrating the product and its use, supported by social listening and tapping into user passion/quirks (e.g., Heinz, Vaseline, McDonald’s “fan truths”).
• The best brand advertising is often product-led but delivered emotionally, not rationally.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “We’ve climbed back down that benefit ladder, haven’t we? … we’re now rather nicely at the bottom again, celebrating products and why people love them and how they use them in all sorts of brilliant ways.” — Sarah Carter, [38:19]
• “You can have great brand advertising which is focused on the product. … the best brand advertising is in some way firmly linked to product.” — Les Binet, [39:50]

Timestamps:

• [37:01] – The renaissance of product-led campaigns
• [40:45] – Mixing emotion and product in brand advertising

8. AI, Human “Craft” and the Importance of Details

Discussion:

• The use of AI in creativity is controversial—familiar, emotionally resonant craft is especially valued at moments like Christmas.
• AI does not inherently dilute craft, but carelessly used can. The best work still depends on “thumbiness”—the human touch in all the small choices.
• Generational differences in responding to AI-generated content (older: impressed, younger: more skeptical and desirous of authenticity).

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “Nick Park is obsessed with thumbiness, which is the word… the kind of literal and metaphorical thumbprints in the sort of Plasticine figures that they make… there’s a sort of sixth sense that we have of things that are created by humans. And I think that’s just a really good example of how that craft has created a kind of connection through a sort of humanity, really.” — Sarah Carter, [49:57]
• “I think we will be craving more of that kind of humanity. And I think craft will be particularly important for that.” — Sarah Carter, [50:53]
• “People don’t view the whole thing as a message. They remember, have the episodic memory, little details that they remember and sometimes those come from the product.” — Les Binet, [56:37]

Timestamps:

• [45:02] – McDonald’s Netherlands ad pulled over AI/craft disconnect
• [49:33] – “Thumbiness” at Aardman Animations
• [52:10] – Younger vs. older people’s reaction to AI in ads

9. The Overlooked Power of Music in Advertising

Discussion:

• Music’s power to drive effectiveness is heavily undervalued—sometimes as much as 30% of selling power derives from music choice.
• Industry’s habit is to leave music as an afterthought, when it should be central to the creative process.

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps:

• “Advertising is mostly not a communications medium. It’s a training mechanism for training people’s associations and feelings with the brand. Because if adverts were primarily there to get a message across, it wouldn’t really matter what the music track was, was it? … We had a scientist in residence at Adam and Eve … and then you put a bit of music on it. You know, it was like absolutely the last thought. But the research we did suggested that it was really important.” — Les Binet, [57:01], [58:47]

Timestamps:

• [56:37] – Music as key to memory/brand association
• [57:53] – Music’s effect proven in IPA data and agency research

Notable and Fun Moments

• “We crop up more regularly than Kevin the Carrot, don’t we?” (Sarah Carter, [00:31])
• The recurring “agency tenure” versus “brand manager tenure” debate and their respective effects on institutional knowledge and campaign continuity ([33:08], [33:47]).
• Laughter at “the operation was successful but unfortunately the patient died” after the Optrex/British Southwest experiment with going dark ([28:45]).
• Debate and eye-rolling at contemporary marketing buzzwords (“platforms” vs. “campaigns”), and generational language shifts ([11:59]).
• A collective sigh of relief—and mock celebration—at the decline of purpose-washing, and the freedom to make fun, product-centric ads regardless of “higher order values" ([37:27]).

Episode Timeline Highlights

| Timestamp | Subject | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:38 | Consistency and comfort in Christmas advertising | | 03:07 | Amazon’s unchanged effectiveness running old ad | | 06:50 | The art of “disguised repetition” | | 10:53 | Campaigns versus one-off ads; “platform” language emerges | | 12:27 | The primacy of ad spend in driving effectiveness | | 15:09 | Binet’s research on where marketing value comes from | | 16:08 | The “arms race” nature of most categories | | 23:34 | The futility of doing “more with less” | | 26:41 | Why marketers should push for longer measurement windows | | 32:52 | Marketing and agency tenure’s impact on long-term growth and brand memory | | 37:01 | The comeback of product-centric, emotionally driven advertising | | 45:02 | The hazards of AI-crafted Christmas ads | | 49:33 | “Thumbiness” and the enduring magic of hand-crafted work | | 52:10 | Young vs. old responses to AI in Coke’s “Holidays Are Coming” | | 56:37 | Episodic memory, product details, and the crucial role of music | | 57:53 | Music’s measurable impact and neglected budget share in ad production |

Conclusion & Takeaways

For Marketers and Agencies:

• Don’t shy away from consistent long-running campaigns. The compound effects build memory and brand equity.
• Repetition needs craft: The most creative work is often imaginatively repetitive, not just novel.
• Spend matters: Budgets should be set higher up, collaboratively, and justified empirically.
• Test, experiment, and present results to sustainably reconnect marketing with finance.
• Product-centered, emotionally delivered advertising is thriving again—with social insights and user quirks closer to the heart of creative than ever.
• Don’t overlook the details: Music and craft amplify effectiveness, even more so as AI becomes commonplace.
• Purpose is no longer the “must-have”; relevance and desire start with what makes your product great.

Final Word:
“Pay more attention to music, for sure.”
— Jon Evans, [59:49]