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- [00:07]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the uncensored cmo. And one of my favorite times of the year is Christmas when Mark Ritson reveals the top 10 stories of the year. Mark always hits the nail on the head and in this episode he's going to be talking to me about what made the news and why he's picked the 10 story he has and what every marketer can learn from it. As always, Mark doesn't just bring the facts, but it also brings the emotion and the humor to it. So this is a great episode. Enjoy. I love this, mate. It's, it's always fun to see what you pick out.
- [00:36]
B
It's funny in it, John. We're becoming, first of all, we're becoming very old.
- [00:39]
A
We are.
- [00:40]
B
And second, things that started out as a sort of one off have become sort of institutional events. Like this is the 16th year of doing this. I can't, you know, those numbers just seem strange, you know what I mean? But yeah, we've been, well, nothing but.
- [00:53]
A
Consistent then what's true?
- [00:56]
B
Nothing other than lazy and short of other ideas, you know, I mean, let's do it again this year. So, yeah, no, it's, it's, I enjoy it. It gets me back to UK and it's a nice way to look back on the year, do you know what I mean? Like a lot of it is stuff I've covered in columns, but some of it is just stuff that happened and it's always nice watching it all sort of rack up at the end, you know.
- [01:15]
A
And you're going full multimedia as well this year, aren't you?
- [01:17]
B
Full Omnimedia, mate. So we've got, we sold out the IMAX cinema in London with the Marketing Academy. So I'll do that live tomor tomorrow. My horrendous slides on a gigantic screen, nothing worse. And then we'll be out in the Drum. There's a video version in the Drum and we have an American version without any swearing and different spelling coming out in ad week as well tomorrow. So there's a lot. Yeah, it's, you know, it's the same content but we're leveraging as you do well here, you know, we're leveraging the content as many ways as we can.
- [01:47]
A
Indeed. Well, why not? Why not? Well, let's get into it then. So top 10 stories. Yeah, we start, let's count down from 10 to one. I think we'll do it in the time honoured tradition. Big year for mergers. Omnicom and ipg.
- [01:59]
B
Yeah, I mean that's the big what's.
- [02:01]
A
Your take on that one?
- [02:01]
B
That's the big one, right? Well, I made it number 10 because I think in advertising land it was number one. But I, you know, obviously in the rest of the world, even the client world, it's a bit of navel gazing. I think it's huge though. I think, you know, the unwritten story of the last few years is publicists. Publicis have pretty much been winning everything, right. And all Arthur Sadoun has been proven to be an absolute genius. Right. And that centralization model that they've really got working for them has really knocked everybody out. So now we've got Omnicom trying to do the same thing. And it's only when you put up the org brand charts for IPG and Omnicom that you, that really you realize first of all, holy shit, that's, you know, there's a lot of mess there. But second, there's some of the great brands of the history of marketing and advertising tucked away there too. So I think it was a huge move. My take on it is it's essential. I think it will really turn it into an Omnicom vs Publicis tryst next year with WPP very much the third wheel. I also think though, when you look at it, it's got a long way to go. I'm surprised how many brands have been left standing at the end of it. I think it's a relatively light, gentle consolidation. So I assume there'll be more later.
- [03:21]
A
Yeah, I think the thing with M and A as well is like you always tend to lose in the short term. You end up seeing the benefits of these things because they're going to be so operationally focused on. I mean there's loads of job cuts apart from anything else. They're going to lose those talent. There's going to be back office integration, there's going to be working out new org structures, what they stand for, their positioning. There's a lot of work to do, isn't there? Because the deal was quite quick. The deal was quick, went through fast as well.
- [03:44]
B
The process as you say, will take a long time. And meanwhile, again publicists have got it all worked out and are grinding away. So I do think that's interesting. The other bit, as you just mentioned, there is there's now thousands of independent, very talented 30 something advertising people who've either taken the redundancy or been pushed, who all over the world are going to set up these very tight little creative shops and media shops. So I think we are going to see if I'm allowed a $20 word. The bifurcation of the industry properly now. Right? Two giant super groups and then thousands of small independent shops. And if you think about it, there's a lot of brands that don't want Omnicom. You know what I mean? The giant beast working for them. They want something smaller. So I think that's an interesting implication, too.
- [04:34]
A
Yeah, definitely is. All right, so let's move into number nine. I love this one. My favorite headlines from you. The painkiller versus the President. I mean, this story is a bit wild, but there's an interesting twist in sometimes saying nothing.
- [04:48]
B
Yes.
- [04:48]
A
It's the best thing you can say.
- [04:49]
B
Yes, I've come up with this. I mean, I've stolen it from military strategy. So it wasn't as covered in the UK as it was in the US where it was huge in the middle of the year. Basically, RFK Jr. Who runs is essentially their health secretary, basically out of the blue and, you know, announced that, you know, women should not. Pregnant women should not be taking Tylenol because it has a link with spectrum disorders and autism. There is, to be fair to him for a second, there is some minor evidence of a potential link. Right? That's the best you could say. But it's certainly not been proven, not to the degree that he outlined. And then President Trump jumped in with, you know, women should. This is the actual quote, fight like hell not to take Tylenol. So it all went a bit mental, as it tends to do in the US and then what we saw then was essentially, how will Tylenol respond to what was a giant, sudden, enormous crisis? And it's got form this one, because, of course, Tylenol is the original Crisis brand. In 1982, a poisoner replaced Tylenol capsules with cyanide, killed five or six people in Chicago. And what Tylenol did, and their response is the textbook response. They got out in front of the scandal, they communicated early, they took control, they responded. And we often call it the Tylenol 180 because it's a legendary bit of crisis management. They came out of that crisis a stronger brand within 12 months than when they went in. And so the modern crisis playbook is basically built on that. But what makes it fascinating is it's the opposite of what Tylenol did this time, as you mentioned, they didn't really do anything. And I call it the Fabian strategy, after Emperor Fabian, who famously, 200 years before Christ, faced off against Hannibal, who was an absolute monster, and he was killing, you know, Thousands of Roman soldiers and defeating armies everywhere. And it invaded most of, you know, Roman Europe. And then basically Emperor, Emperor Fabian was, was tasked with defeating him and said, yeah, I'll defeat him by not engaging him. He's in a foreign land with his army, with a mission to, to destroy me. I'll just leave him there. And gradually, sure enough, it nullified the threat and it disappeared. And it's known as the Fabian strategy, military strategy. And what it basically says is always consider one of your options to be do nothing. And I think in the world of marketing, where we do everything at lightning speed, especially in crisis, it's a very interesting move by Telmo. They didn't engage a short press release and then they just assumed, I think correctly, President Trump will move on, people will forget and we'll just move forward. And I think it's worked. But they lost a bit of market share, but not that much. And to the point where Ken View, the company that owns them has now been acquired by Kimberly Clark. That wouldn't have happened if this crisis had blown up.
- [07:43]
A
Yeah, I can't remember who said this, but it's a behavioral science thing that things are never as important as they are at the time you're thinking about them sort of thing.
- [07:52]
B
Very good.
- [07:54]
A
And that's a bit like that with crisis. It feels like existential when it's happening and then with a day or two later, this too shall pop. Perspective. And you think, yeah, exactly, yeah, very much.
- [08:03]
B
Well, I mean, in business school when I used to teach, I was a case teacher, you know, so at MIT you'd give the MBA students a 10 page case study and then we'd then essentially crunch it and in the room, and it's always a glorious way to teach. We put it on the board, what's the problem now? What should we do? And that was great. But there was a tendency, then again, to list all the different things you're going to do. And it was only the brightest MBA student who would suggest maybe we shouldn't do anything. And if they didn't, I would suggest it at the end of the case and say the other option we need to have on the board is what if we don't do anything? You know, So I think it's a brilliant example of something we don't think about enough, which it should be in your, as a marketer on your list. What if I do nothing here? There's a lot to be said for nothing, especially when, you know, you and I both deal with lovely. Well meaning. I can say Younger marketers who do like to sort of, you know, decisions at the speed of light and, you know, test and learn and response and all that, that's great. But I think as we get older and fatter, the power of sitting on your ass and letting it sit becomes more evident.
- [09:10]
A
Sophie Devonshire in her book calls it strategic laziness.
- [09:13]
B
Yeah.
- [09:14]
A
Which is true.
- [09:15]
B
Yeah, yeah. I like it. I like it. It all points to the same thing. Right. And again, we're not saying always do nothing, but if it's not on your list of options, you've missed one, you know, And Michael Porter's famous quote is, you know, the, you know, the art of strategy is deciding what you're not going to do. Well, maybe sometimes decide not to do anything. It's the ultimate strategic move.
- [09:33]
A
Now, what I love about your top 10, we're going to come back to a couple more crises as well, so. Crises, yeah, it comes up a bit, actually. And what's. What I love about this is they all responded differently. So we can compare and contrast as we go through. All right, number eight, one of your favorite brands to talk about, I know, is Elon's Tesla, and they've launched a budget range.
- [09:50]
B
You know, it's an interesting one. If you look at Tesla share price, all is good. If you look at their market share, especially in Europe, they're totally fucked. So there's an interesting moment coming next year where obviously Tesla's more than just cars, but there is a sort of conflict there. If you look at their European numbers, they're horrendous. So in places like Germany and Spain and France, we're talking -65% year on year. So they're just not selling the cars anymore. We can say that's partly because of Elon and his, you know, his slight change in political positioning. There's a bit of truth in that, but most of it is down to the fact that the Chinese automotive electric vehicles are now getting very good, they're getting very cheap, and Tesla's range is getting pretty old. So, you know, BYD in particular is producing these spectacular vehicles. Very advanced, very good value for €10,000 less than the Model 3. So what Tesla just recently done in Germany, and I think several more European countries next year, is produce essentially a Model 3 economy version. They've stripped out the leather seats, the subwoofer, even the glass roof. You can't see it anymore. They've kind of bricked it up. And they've done that to cut costs, but also legitimize a Cheaper Model three and that's an example of what we call a fighter brand. So fighter brands are very special in marketing strategy. They're a brand, the only brand that's invented not for a customer but for a competitor. So you're creating low priced variant to take on and ideally take out the low price competitor that's, that's challenging you. So they want to keep their Model 3 Premium model, but they also want to offer basically a €10,000 cheaper model that will take on the Chinese car. In theory, it's a brilliant move. You know, when Qantas launched Jetstar to take on Virgin, it worked brilliantly because it really knocked Virgin back and suddenly Qantas has a second market. But 9 times out of 10 it doesn't do that. And what happens is the company creates a low price model which is much more like their own model. So they cannibalize at a much lower price, often with very little profitability. And strategically they're now juggling two balls rather than one. At the very time they should have been focused on broader things. And I'm almost certain that's what happens with Tesla here. So this car can't be very profitable, if at all. I don't think it's going to have any impact on the Chinese models and I think it's going to distract Tesla. And if you think about Tesla's brand positioning, it's very forward thinking, very modern already. The Model 3 is a seven, eight, year old car and now they stripped it back and they're promoting a vehicle that's very basic, it doesn't fit. So, yeah, I don't think this is going to do anything. And this is a fighter brand that will, as is usually the case, punch themselves in the face rather than the Chinese. What's your take on it?
- [12:49]
A
I was going to say I was going to ask you if, if Elon's listening in on this. Not that he will, but although he does appear in like, he does appear on a lot more podcasts now than he. Than he used to.
- [12:57]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [12:58]
A
What would your one bit of advice to him be?
- [13:00]
B
I think it's pay attention to marketing theory. Marketing theory has a bad reputation, right? Oh, theory. You know, you, you know, I've suffered 10 years of Elon's fanboys whenever I've pointed out that what they're doing is stupid, you know, not advertising, you know, et cetera, et cetera. These fanboys will get on LinkedIn and send me literally hundreds of messages saying, yeah, yeah, this theory stuff, it doesn't Work, you know what I mean? Elon is breaking the rules and, you know, you don't need advertising when you've got Elon and all of that. And I think what I've been trying to politely say to them all these years is, yeah, for a while, maybe if they just have read a little bit about fighter brands, they would have seen all of this, you know, but they're not reading anything because they're inventing a playbook, not reading the one that we've had for 100 years. Right. It's a huge mistake that Tesla didn't advertise. It's a huge mistake to build brand around a single person, as we've now learned. And this was all very clear from the start. So, yeah, Elon has to develop a newfound respect for marketing, which if he doesn't, as brilliant as he is, I do think problems are afoot.
- [14:06]
A
Yeah, I agree. I think the thing I notice, well, I mostly take Teslas in Ubers now. Right. That's my main.
- [14:13]
B
That's where they appear.
- [14:14]
A
Yeah. Right. So. And it feels like a cheap, a cheap phone by comparison to an iPhone.
- [14:20]
B
Totally. Right. And an old one too. An old model. Right.
- [14:23]
A
Yeah. You feel the kind of creaking and you know, the, the cheap materials. Yeah, it's.
- [14:28]
B
Well. And the other dimension in Europe is Volkswagen is getting its shit together with electric cars now. Right. There's been a sort of. They're really starting to pick up now. So I think he's in a terrible place. He's in the middle. Right. So you're going to find that the better European automotive companies, Volvo doing an amazing job, now have these spectacular premium priced electric vehicles. I have an electric Mini, it's fantastic. And then beneath them they've got BYD and everyone coming in €10,12,000 cheaper with a superior product. It's a no man's land if he's not careful. Now I know he's got space rockets and batteries and charges and everything else. Right. But at the end of the day, Tesla and Musk are most heavily associated with vehicles. Right.
- [15:10]
A
Yeah.
- [15:11]
B
So, yeah, a very interesting time.
- [15:13]
A
Definitely is. Right. Sticking with America and a very popular American in at number seven, Sydney Sweeney and her jeans ad. That was a surprise.
- [15:23]
B
Yeah. So we talked about this when everyone didn't we. And you talked to the cmo. You had a brilliant interview with him, which I strongly recommend. You know, American Eagle's been a dusty brand for a while. They get a new cmo. I think he was ex Calvin Klein, wasn't he? Yeah. Knows his stuff clearly and isn't afraid to take a few risks. So he gets a decent ad budget, he develops a good creative and he gets Sydney Sweeney, who is the hottest female celebrity in the world right now. So, you know, kudos. My only criticism, and it's something you and I talked about, was it isn't a particularly good ad. It's not a bad ad. You know, let's put a bit of nuance in there. It's not a shit ad. It's also not a good, great ad. And, you know, you'd probably speak to it with more data than me. My take on it was when me and Andrew Tindall did that session in Cannes over the summer. Tyndall's got this great data on, you know, lots of data. When I looked at that data, what I pulled out with, you know, what are the things that give you really good creative? Famously, we've got all this data saying Creative is a 12 times multiplier of your work. So what do you, what do you have to do with your creative to get that big multiple? And the answer from Tyndall's data, which is huge, was three things, basically. The first was you need emotion. The second was you need to heavily codify it or make it fluent in System One's language. And then the third is you've got to bake it and get it out there and let it run either as a campaign or an ad for two or three years. If you look at the Sweeney ad, it's none of those things. It's peculiarly unemotional, cold almost. It's a, it's a jeans ad, literally a jeans ad, not an American Eagle ad. It doesn't have enough distinctive assets. You know, lots of people were talking about it as Sydney Sweeney's made an ad for jeans. It's not a good sign. And it was there and gone again. Right. It's not a long running brand campaign. It was a, it was a summer product, back to school campaign. So for those reasons, I think it was average. Obviously it's done some good work, but it's done good work because of the, the response that it generated. And that's a big area for me. So, yeah, I got caught up in it. I thought it was a pretty average ad. I wrote about it for Ad Week. I said, look, it's okay, you know, and because I didn't say it was, you know, eugenics and, you know, and various things, I was accused by a lot of people who wrote to me in very offensive terms of being a racist And a white supremacist. And I'm like, you're bonkers. You are. It's crazy. It's crazy. So. Well, no, before I go further, your take on it with data, John.
- [17:48]
A
Yeah, the data backs exactly what you set up. So it was a very, very typical gene ad. Right. Scored in line with the category genes average on the day. It's pretty average, yeah. And if you think about it, it was an ad for jeans with a celebrity, which is fairly common. Right. As you say, Sydney Sweeney helps. All the outrage and response was purely down to the joke or the little. The twist about jeans and jeans. Right.
- [18:12]
B
And my jeans are blue. Which for some reason really got people going.
- [18:15]
A
Yeah, exactly. But I think the interesting thing about it was actually the response to the response. That's. That I think is the story. So the response was, you know, a bit crazy. As we, as we talked about and. And just everyone was talking about the response. That's right. That's actually what the story was. But then the response, the response from American Eagle was hold the line. And that I thought was a walk.
- [18:38]
B
And Sweeney too, right, she also.
- [18:39]
A
Yeah, exactly. In fact, you know, in interviews, they tried to draw into, you know, apologizing and that kind of thing. And she refused to do that, which I think was very credit credit to her. And I think that was a watershed moment because I think in most crises before, there'd be corporate statements, we'll pull the ad, we apologize to everybody. And instead, it's really interesting when I interview Craig because I use the word crisis. And he corrected me a few times, said, what crisis? Don't you mean opportunity? Now, I know that's a bit of positioning from him, but equally.
- [19:09]
B
But he did, he did walk the walk.
- [19:10]
A
He did follow through with it. And he actually said after two days, he switched off social media altogether. And he said, I went back to the strategy, I went back to the data, I went back to the decisions we made as a team, and I stuck with that. I listened to the customer, which is the person, you know, the person buying Tom Brief.
- [19:25]
B
I'm confident we've got it right.
- [19:26]
A
She's a big celebrity. It drove the kind of fame building we know. And look, the other thing is the results, right? So they recorded 1 million new customers in the following quarter. Record growth in new customers. It absolutely works.
- [19:39]
B
So I think your point about it being a watershed is super important, Right? I said exactly the same thing in the talk. Brands are getting braver and they're not now being held to ransom so much. We have to be sensitive to this. Right. So there's a thing, I did my PhD on this. There's a thing called polysemy. Multiple meanings. And anything can have polysemy because you interpret a text, you know, the Bible or a Tarantino movie, two different people will make two different readings. Advertising is particularly polysemic because it's short, it's briefly watched, and it doesn't have a strong narrative or character. So advertising is enormously polysemic. And what you were seeing with the Sydney Sweeney campaign is people really did think that this was a dog whistle for eugenics and white supremacy because their interpretation gave it that meaning. And that's a legitimate reading. Most people didn't have that reading. And the answer to polysemy is what was the authorial intent? Was Craig and his team really trying to send a dog whistle of a racism? The answer was clearly no. And I think for the. So we respect other people's interpretations, but they have to respect everyone else's, particularly if it's the majority and particularly if it wasn't intended. Right. And I think you're now seeing brands going, you know what, this will die down. We're not going to be held ransom anymore. I think it's a watershed.
- [20:55]
A
You're absolutely right, it is. And the other thing is when Nick Asprey did a deep dive into the crisis and where it came from, and I think I'm quoting correctly here, but there was something like 10 million views before you got any negative comments at all. That's right, 48 hours, you know, until you got the next one. And there were only a small handful of. Of accounts, mostly kind of ideologically driven that were looking for something to complain about. And actually what created the crisis were, I think it was kind of right wing comedy. I think it was like libs a tick tock or something, taking the mickey out of the response. So that's what blew it up. It was this very, very kind of micro community kind of reacting to each other that became the headline. This is why you have to do testing, right? Because if you want to know how your audience actually feels and rather than kind of, you know, what's being argued over on Twitter.
- [21:41]
B
I think that's right. And the contrast of Bud Light's kind of interesting as well. I mean, we live in this world now where, you know, we used to say when we were young men, you know, it takes decades to build a brand and a reputation and in seconds to destroy it. And we were very risk averse the last couple of years in the Cardassian Trump era. We talk about, you know, all publicity is good publicity and so on. And there's a sort of a real paradox as to what's going on. I think the short answer that we can summarize is usually all publicity is good publicity, provided there are a couple of special conditions that are met. One of them is if you're a small brand, not well known, then generating any kind of crisis is always good for you because essentially, even if it's very negative, you're generating awareness and salience that you didn't have before. The other one, though, I think, which is crucial, is the crisis coming from within or is it coming from others outside? Are you responsible for it or not? Which I think is also key. And then the last one is, does it counter your brand position? In Bud Light's case, I think it did. In this case it didn't. American Eagle isn't, you know, first of all, wasn't doing any dog whistling. But also isn't a brand that has a political agenda either way. So I think this was a perfect example of, yeah, the publicity was all good publicity and without it, I don't think it would have been as strong.
- [22:58]
A
Hundred percent agree. Right. I'm glad you brought up your Cannes talk with Andrew. And you're taking the cakes out to early comment because in at number six is Amazon, who brought back the sledging grannies. Brilliant maneuver, which I described, interviewed Joe, their chief creative officer on stage. And I just said, joe, I think you've done the bravest thing any market has done this year.
- [23:19]
B
Agree. Totally agree. And maybe repeat the same ad, maybe the smartest. Yeah, it's funny. So Andrew and I did that talk during the summer in Cannes. And what's interesting, and it happens all the time, you've had this experience too, is, you know, you really try and do a good job at cannes because fucking 8,000 people in the audience and, you know, you know, so I really, for me, I really worked hard at my talk, but that line about we don't bake our cakes for long enough was just completely pulled out of my ass on the stage at the time. And it became the thing everyone talked about. And so it's interesting, isn't it? You can't, you know, you can't prep everything. But yeah, I think the metabolism of advertising, we're beginning to realize, is slower. And every company, every brand manager is producing too many ads and they're not running them for long enough. Marketers get bored with ads because they work at them for four or Five months in great detail for hundreds and thousands of hours. So once it's done, they're like, God, I'm sick of this. We need something new. And of course, market orientation tells you in the consumer world, that's not true. They're not even looking at the thing most of the time. So I think Amazon, yeah, this is a very bold move. What impressed me about it was, yeah, you're absolutely right. They're scholars of marketing effective. So they've seen all this data and gone, well, why don't we? They were in the audience at Cannes, for example, so that started them thinking. So they know the theory, right, which is good. But when you talk to them practically about what it did for them, it's really a remarkable set of advantages. They've got a surefire thing, right? You guys tested that ad two years ago, it was almost off the charts, right? So we know that it's going to be off the charts again. If anything from Coca Cola, we know that it'll get even stronger if such a thing is possible. These ads get better over time. Yeah. So they've got a guaranteed hit, which is essential at Christmas, and it's getting heavy play here in the UK. Right. Second, 20, 25% of that budget that would have been spent on creative has been moved right across the table to the working capital of media. That's a huge injection of share of voice. And then the third bit is internal. That team would have had to spend months developing, devising, filming, producing a big ad. They will, you know, they. They've got plenty of other things to do so they could focus on that. So I think it's a brilliant maneuver and it really speaks to the power. Now, you've tested it this year?
- [25:36]
A
We have, yeah. And it scores the maximum possible score of 5.9. If I was interesting, actually, about the Christmas rankings is the top four are all in some form of repetition. So you either got Aldi with Kevin the Carrot, who are doing another version of the same kind of, you know, same kind of series. You got Coke trucks with a little twist, because it's AI, but it's the same thing. You got the Sledge and Grannies and then M and S, which is a new bit of creative, but it's carrying on the theme with Dawn, French and the fairies. So it's like another edition of a system.
- [26:04]
B
Can you speak that, John? Because I get this question all the time from clients, which is. Because I say I'm going around talking about this, right? And I say, you know, old ads, keep your Cakes in. I'm quite general about it from a system one point of view, what we're saying is either the same ad, literally or a long running campaign with a new piece of creative but very much off the same block. And they're the same thing in terms of testing.
- [26:27]
A
Yeah. The key thing is familiarity. So what we find is familiarity breeds contentment in the survey. So basically what you find is if you do another version of a similarity. Yorkshire tea is a good example. Right?
- [26:37]
B
Yeah.
- [26:38]
A
The idea of doing it proper, it's Yorkshire, it's Yorkshire.
- [26:40]
B
Backsavers is my favorite.
- [26:42]
A
Spec Savers is another perfect example. Right. These are brands that the audience is so familiar with. The construct, the joke, the, the distinctive assets that when they see it, it's immediately recognizable and it evokes emotion because they've already built up that kind of, that kind of idea.
- [26:57]
B
Yeah, I get it, I get it. It's interesting to me because when I've talked to big clients about this, it's apparent that you can't create a campaign with legs deliberately. You know, that sort of Spec Savers, Kevin the carrot thing, you can have a go but sometimes it does, it doesn't translate into multi year action. So you've kind of got to trust a little bit in fate that you build a good one and then, oh, by the way, it looks like it's got legs. You know the famous example I use is Cadbury Gorilla. Brilliant, amazing, you know, incredibly effective ad. But then Cadbury lost themselves for a few years trying to give it legs and replicate it and it never worked. So I think there's also, you know, I think our marketers should look for a campaign that's going to stretch across the years and also look for ads they can just replay but be conscious that sometimes you just can't squeeze it.
- [27:45]
A
Yeah, I mean my default is always Audi with Kevin the carrot that has won crazy numbers of fees. And what I love about it is actually if you look at the case study, Audi store footprint has remained roughly the same. Their price advantage versus other retailers is roughly the same. So if you, and if you look over the course of last 10 years, something about it's around 70% of their increase in store traffic and buyers is down to the campaign. Holy smoke. Period. So it's one of those rare moments where you can isolate advertising, you know, that's worth billions. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean you look at the numbers, it's just insane.
- [28:20]
B
The other thing with Aldi is because they were the low price, borderline commodity player. When you add that brand meaning on top, which they've never really had until 10 years, seven years ago. What that generates is the perfect combo. Do you know what I mean?
- [28:34]
A
Exactly, exactly. I mean the brief was do it be better than John Lewis. I mean that was the brief way back in the day.
- [28:40]
B
But that brings up a good question for me. Right. I love the John Lewis team. Right. My favorite Christmas ad is the Elton John John Lewis ad. I still think they should be challenged to not only produce a wonderful Christmas ad every year, but also bring out their library of other ads from the past. Because we know thanks to Amazon and the data, many of those old ads would perform better than their current one. So why not play them?
- [29:02]
A
You are spot on, by the way. I mean literally, we've got 15 years of system one data on this and it is hit miss, hit miss, hit miss. It literally is, it varies every year. They also stopped doing something that works incredibly well, which is kind of creating the toy for Christmas. You know, they had excitable Edgar the Dragon that became a merchandising success and that's what Audi have learned from. So they've got Kevin the Carrot, they've got new characters coming out. So they're also making money from their advertising as well in terms of in store merchandise. So it's just that joining up kind of like the idea above the line with in store experience.
- [29:32]
B
Well, it makes you realize again why Amazon was so smart. Right. They're not going to have a miss, they're going to have a hit. And we should mention Orlando's point, which is still the best point, which I'm absolutely stealing for the new year for a column which is every brand should do this all the time, you know, not just for Christmas. Let's use emotion, let's use long form video, let's be distinctive, let's create an emotional response, but not just for the four weeks and then run up to Christmas.
- [29:56]
A
Oh, mate, you're spawn. If you look at the data, by far the best work happens at Christmas and it's by far the shortest duration of campaigns. Right.
- [30:04]
B
Tragic.
- [30:04]
A
So yeah, it's mad. So if there's one thing to do next year, work out what works and keep playing it.
- [30:10]
B
Christmas every day.
- [30:11]
A
Exactly, exactly. Right. One fun thing every year. You always call out the bullshit in marketing, right? Yes. I thought I would just look at, look up, I think some of the big buzzwords from this year and get you to react to it. So the first. Now we're not going to talk about AI, by the way, because that comes Obviously, and that's so obvious, so we're going to ignore that one. But hyper personalization, personalization was already bad enough, right?
- [30:33]
B
There's a couple of problems with personalization. One, it's usually not possible without first party data. And two, it's not necessary. It doesn't work that much better, right? Apart from that, it's great, right? You can't do it and there's no point. But then someone doubled down and said, you know, not just personalization, but hyper personalization. Really a mega, mega, hyper, mega hyper personalization.
- [30:56]
A
All right, here's another popular one. Omnichannel Marketing. Yeah, we love a bit of omnichannel, don't we?
- [31:02]
B
So I tell you what, what's interesting about this one is no one knows what the fuck they're talking about there, right? So Omnichannel's been around for 20 odd years since that BCG guy invented it. And it's, it actually is a very cool concept. It relates to the ability of online firms to go offline and offline firms to develop their online presence. And there's a really nice BCG based, Bain based bit of insight into it. A lot of people have heard the word without ever understanding what it means, are now applying it to communications, thinking the channels in question are, you know, Facebook and Instagram. And it's sort of embarrassing because people go, yeah, I love Omnichannel. Look at, you know, I love Facebook and I love using, you know, LinkedIn. And it's like, no, no, that, that's not what. It's literally not what it means.
- [31:47]
A
I love that. That's brilliant. All right, one more to round us off then. This is another popular phrase, growth hacking.
- [31:52]
B
Yeah, man, that one doesn't help me at all. Yeah, so growth hacking and the whole, just the whole concept of growth, it's part. So what happened is quite sad really. There's a whole industry now and a whole cohort of, I would call them market, as they call themselves product marketers or product managers who've never read any marketing, invented their own kind of weird, childish theory of stuff which centers around growth hacking and have built this sort of small, pathetic parallel universe where they're doing marketing badly with little understanding, but they're building their own world, you know, and growth, you know, anyone who presents growth hacking anywhere in their material, you're like, oh, please come, come over here and have a look at the proper stuff and we'll help you. You know? You know, this is all very, you know, pathetic, you know.
- [32:40]
A
Totally. All right, let's go back to top 10. And we're back to the US and we're back in crisis mode now. Now, not everyone will know outside the US they may not know this brand, but Cracker Barrel, I didn't know this, but. And I travel in the US a lot. Right. I didn't.
- [32:54]
B
Not in the right places, but I.
- [32:55]
A
Now, yeah, maybe that's what it is.
- [32:57]
B
You need to be on a freeway. You need to be on a freeway in Missouri to really get the full.
- [33:01]
A
So what happened to Cracker Barrel?
- [33:02]
B
So Cracker Barrel is a bizarre brand. I've eaten pancakes and Cracker Barrel and you never forget the experience. So it was invented, I want to say, 30, 40 years ago, but as a kind of retro heritage brand, as a throwback to the better days, right? And so you go in there and there's just a collection of what can only be described as American tat, like old banjos. And, you know, you can buy, you know, old in this sort of curiosity shop and then they serve traditional American fare, you know, with 9 billion calories in it, you know what I mean? And it's quite, you know, it's quite a big brand. It's quite well known, particularly through the Midwest. They got a new, quite progressive CEO. She became convinced it was time to, you know, modernize. So she did two things. She completely revamped the interiors. So if you look at the photos, it is a peculiar looking place. But she modernized it to make it look like, you know, a really bad Hilton, like somewhere on the M6. It looks like a really shit Hilton, right? One that hasn't been properly done, you know, so the interiors lost all flavor of anything. And then the ultimate sin, she rebranded it and certainly at least redeveloped the logo. So they have this weird look of some old looking guy sitting next to a barrel. He has a name like, you know, Scary Jim or something much beloved and very strange. And she took all that out and again sort of gave it a kind of Marriott style, middle of the road logo. It took about four seconds. First of all, the founder, who's about 165, he was like, I don't like this. This is, you know, burner burn her. And then, you know, everyone over the age of 75 who basically eats at Cracker Barrel was, I hate it, I hate it. And they were all videoing, you know, I hate this, you know. So it went bananas, got in the mainstream press. And then again, the American political machine kicks in. Trump does one of his best tweets of the year, which is a Work of poetry, right? He basically says, look, I can't do the voice. Look. First of all, it's shit. Second of all, if you listen to customers and rebrand back. So rebrand the rebrand. You'll get a billion dollars of free publicity. And then in a brilliant twist, he says, that's what I did with America. America was like, you know, fucked. And I basically turned it into the best country in the world in one year. It's completely mad, right? So that comes out. But what makes it unique is. So that's the right. The American right is saying, we hate Cracker Barrel. A day later, the Democratic Party launches a tweet saying, by the way, we also hate the new Cracker Barrel.
- [35:37]
A
No, no, no, I didn't spot that, bro.
- [35:39]
B
It's a unification that we've never seen before.
- [35:41]
A
That's never happened in this.
- [35:42]
B
So the CEO basically goes, fuck this. Everyone's shouting at me here, right? So she gets onto CNN or somewhere and says, essentially, I hear you, America. You know, America has spoken. We've listened to. We're gonna go back to the old Cracker Barrel. Scary stuff, you know, we hear you. And initially there's this kind of like, oh, that's nice. You know, listen to the market giving the customers what they want. My point is. But now they're really fucked, right? They're double fucked. Because Cracker Barrel was in trouble, right? Same store sales dropping 6,7% every year. Share priced in the toilet. She's done a really bad job of rebranding and modernizing it, and now she's had to go back on that. She's got no play. So for me, it's a pretty. It's an example of what happens when you really do a bad rebrand job. And in my world, I always say to, you know, most companies, 95% of the time, when you're repositioning or rebranding, you should be just doing revitalization. Yeah, she sort of tried to do that more gentle, but it was so poorly done. You're not gonna win. So I think they're deeply fucked.
- [36:49]
A
Now, there are a couple of little nuances in the story as well, which caught my attention, because to be fair, brands do do this all the time and don't necessarily get a tweet from Donald Trump. Right, Very true. Do you happen to know what percentage of the Twitter reactions In the first 24 hours were from bot accounts? Out of interest?
- [37:08]
B
It's a very interesting question, and I think. What would be the proportion?
- [37:12]
A
45%. There's something weird going on here, isn't it?
- [37:16]
B
So who would have an agenda other than the Chinese?
- [37:18]
A
Within 24 hours, 45% of the negative sentiment on Twitter was bot. Was from bots.
- [37:25]
B
So who's got an agenda against Cracker barrel?
- [37:27]
A
It's weird.
- [37:27]
B
McDonald's.
- [37:28]
A
I know. So you just get these situations where that rebrand might have gone under the radar. You and I might be eating there none the wiser, but something happened in the first 24 hours, some agenda that made that blow up.
- [37:42]
B
And you're right to your earlier point. It's the reaction to the reaction. Right.
- [37:45]
A
And that's what CMOs have to deal with now. It's like they can go and do their plan, good or bad. In this case, probably bad. And then the other thing, of course, was they fired the agency, which I thought is an abdication responsibility, for sure.
- [37:57]
B
No, they fired the agency. I think their head of diversity also got the chop. Got nothing to do with him.
- [38:02]
A
No, nothing. Yeah, exactly.
- [38:03]
B
The poor guy is like, oh, you're fired.
- [38:05]
A
Fire someone to fire.
- [38:06]
B
It wasn't me. I don't care. You're out. You know? So, yeah, I think it's. Yeah. I mean, it's a subtle situation. The message is, yeah, go gentle with these things. And the other one which applies. Let's go back to Jaguar for a second. Why not? Which has nothing to say this year, because he's not making any cars and he's completely lost.
- [38:23]
A
Everyone missed that point, by the way.
- [38:24]
B
Yeah.
- [38:25]
A
Oh, look, sales are down 96%. They shut the factory.
- [38:29]
B
But then the other point is, all those guys say, oh, it's brilliant, it's wonderful. I'm like, you realize there's going to be nothing now for two years. Right? But, yeah, and you won't be able to afford it. You can't afford it anyway, we could get onto that. I think they might be changing their mind. Right. Anyway, but with Jaguar, the point was, when you do something new, an electric vehicle, for God's sake, use your distinctive brand assets in a traditional way on top of it. I learned that from my life working in fashion. Whenever you do something really new and different, play your assets strongly just to legitimize it. And that's where Cracker Barrel went wrong. Modernize the restaurants better just keep the weird, spooky logo, because that probably was the thing that tipped it over.
- [39:09]
A
Yeah. Now, sticking on the theme of famous American brands in at number four, Starbucks and their positioning, I have to say.
- [39:17]
B
And I'm going to sound like I'm getting old and Soft. I think Brian Niccol is the best CEO in America. So you remember Brian Niccol? So he was the guy at Chipotle. He's based, I think, in Florida or anyway, not in West Starbucks. He's based in the Pacific Northwest. And he took a massive, massive salary to become CEO of Starbucks, but refused to go into their offices and was commuting from thousands of miles away. So that's how he started his tenure. Everyone gave him a whole bunch of shit, right? And I think he was asking his team to work in the office, but he was based, you know, thousands of miles away. So he started off badly, right? So you think, well, here we go, another plonker. Overpaid plonker, right? No, he's awesome. He's worth every dollar of it already his first hundred days, right? He's got everyone in the organization behind him. He's got a back to Starbucks strategy, which is perfect. I think he's an absolute champion. The thing that I focused on in the top 10 is I've held Starbucks up as the worst example of positioning globally in the world, right? They've been smoking, metaphorically speaking, they've been smoking the position in crack now for about 10 years. So their original brand positioning back in the day was, you know, helping. Helping every community, you know, be better in a lovely, gorgeous way. And then they made it even, you know, one cup at a time. We're changing the world. And it was just utter nonsense. He's come in, done his work, realized it was all, you know, when you have a really weak, stupid positioning, it doesn't kill you straight away, but you don't have that clarity. And you can see it in Starbucks, right? They don't really know what they're selling. The products are all over the place. The service is weird, the environment's not very good. And so he's come in and he's sorted positioning out. So their new positioning is basically two things. Serving the world's best coffee in a nice place where you want to be, right? So it's very humble and I like it because that's, for me, is relative differentiation. What is positioning? All it basically is, is what are the one or two things we want to be seen to be better than anyone else at? And he's saying, it's the coffee and it's going to be the space. Yeah, we're going to be. They're the two things. So for the first time, they have a realistic, correct positioning. He's got three or four brand values for the team. That makes sense. The thing that's missing, and I hate to be critical, but they haven't done their distinctive brand assets. So I like positioning on a page. I like it never to change. I like it to be humble and not full of shit. I like two things Max, you know, don't have 25 things in there. And then I like to see the distinctive brand assets because, you know, we have to bow down to Professor Sharp for a second. Distinctiveness is more important than differentiation. I still think we should do relative differentiation. But what is your main job? To make sure the brand is coming to mind. So put the bloody distinctive brand assets on the page.
- [42:11]
A
Love it. Absolutely love it. Good advice. Okay, number three, keeping the theme on CEOs, of course. New CEOs chasing growth versus gimmicks.
- [42:20]
B
Yeah, two big ones. Right. So we've got Fernando Fernandez coming in at Unilever. It's a huge appointment. I thought he was disappointing because in his opening kind of communications, he made it all about all about advertising and specifically all about influencers. And again, he's right. I think we are in a new era for influencers, or creators, whatever we want to call them, I think we're learning now that it is a legitimate tactic. It's a strange place for a CEO to focus at the start. Not even a cmo, right? The CEO opens, his opening gambit is we need more influencers. It's like, well, that's I'm selling my Unilever stock, you know what I mean? And then we've got Philip Novratil turning up as the new CEO at Nestle in the exact opposite fashion. An absolute machine coming in. Right. He's laid off thousands of people, which is sad, but I think necessary. He's fixing the culture, he's operationalizing the whole Nestle approach and I suspect he's about to consolidate the Nestle brand portfolio. And if my guess is true, I think he's going to kill between a thousand and twelve hundred brands in the new year. And I think he's hit the ground running. I know some of the Nestle guys pretty well. I love the company and I think they've got a champion there. So two very big brands for marketing with two very big appointments. Let's see how it plays out.
- [43:42]
A
Be fascinating. Yeah, I love that. Right, we're getting near the top now. So in runner up place. We need to talk about deep fake Martin Lewis, don't we, for this one? If anyone doesn't know, if you're not in the uk, Martin Lewis is the money saving expert.
- [43:56]
B
The most trusted man in the uk.
- [43:58]
A
You don't get more trusted than Martin Lewis.
- [44:00]
B
He's the housewives favorite. He's the man that helps you save money. Everyone loves and trusts Martin Lewis. So we're in this postmodern place now where Martin Lewis has to go out on Instagram and warn people not to trust Martin Lewis because he's apparently part of about 40% of all fraudulent advertising on Instagram. And Facebook is a deep fake version of Martin Lewis, basically telling people to invest in a new crypto, right? And you know, working men and women, you know, quite bright, but obviously vulnerable sometimes to this, are giving away, you know, very large amounts of money and not getting it back. The reason they're doing that is because these ads are quite convincing. And Martin Lewis is very easy to deepfake because he's quite sort of a blank presence, you know. And in fact, when you look at the deep fake version and the real.
- [44:46]
A
Version can't see any difference.
- [44:47]
B
I actually think the deep fake one is slightly more convincing. But the problem, the reason it's convincing is it's, it's on Instagram using their algo being presented as a proper ad. So people are like, well, this is a real ad, obviously. So there was an article, a really good investigative article from Reuters last month that basically got hold of a bunch of Meta documents. And what it shows is essentially Meta are making Reuters estimated to be about $16 billion a year. 10% of their revenues comes from fraudulent advertising like this. Facebook are aware of it, Meta are aware of it, and they've limited the amount of action to less than 1% of their revenue activity, presumably because they want the revenues. Right? So Reuters have examples where a company has done 500 of these fraudulent ads and is still allowed to keep doing it because it's very good money. And when Meta suspect this fraudulent advertising on the platform, most of the time they don't ban the company, they just charge them more money for the ads. So the whole thing is, and there's a great quote at the end of the Reuters article, which is basically Facebook expect fines of around a billion dollars a year. But of course, if you and I were to rob a bank knowing that we'd be fined a billion dollars, but we get $16 billion from robbing the bank. We'd rob the bank unless morally we decided robbing a bank was wrong. So it's a really horrendous situation and I think it points to the fact there's some good men and women working at Meta, clearly. But there Is a. There is a moral conundrum here that they should respond to. The government should do more. They're not going to, I don't think. But it's also an interesting one for marketers. Right. We're full of our. Our own, you know, purposeful ethical standards, you know, and we're quick to jump on anyone for any small infraction. Here's one of the biggest marketing companies in the world making billions of dollars from taking working men and women's money fraudulently. And nobody said diddly shit. It hasn't appeared anywhere.
- [46:51]
A
That, in a way, I think, is the story that. It's not a story.
- [46:55]
B
That's right. It's not been out there. Right. When I've presented this, a couple of things now have come up. Four or five people that have been convinced by it and have lost money have reached out to me and it's tragic. Yeah. And marketer's like, I didn't even know this was happening.
- [47:08]
A
Yeah.
- [47:09]
B
It's a stunner one.
- [47:10]
A
I mean, I think 97% of meta revenue is advertiser funding.
- [47:15]
B
Yeah.
- [47:16]
A
Like literally the entire business is.
- [47:18]
B
That's where it comes from. And about 10% of it is coming from fraudulent ads from companies that are selling scams. So, you know, what do we say in the face of that? I don't think anything's going to happen. I just think it calls to mind and I understand. Look, marketers are partly scared of Meta and also they realize we've had all these bans and, you know, all of these boycotts that have done precisely nothing in the past. So, I guess without government intervention, I mean, Martin Lewis has sued them and successfully sued him for three million quid. Again, didn't make much, much, much headlines. So Martin Lewis is in this horror, isn't. He's a nice bloke. You know, he's in this terrible position where, you know, he's been warning British people about scams for 25 years. The biggest scam is him.
- [48:00]
A
Yeah.
- [48:00]
B
So it's the straight. If you ever look at it online, it's the strangest stuff.
- [48:04]
A
I think Martin Lewis mistake. He should have taken a leaf out of Trump and just said $10 billion instead, you know, well, there you go. Three million is a very British response, isn't it?
- [48:13]
B
It's a great contrast though, John. Right. Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion for one slight edit of his speech. Right. The numbers, when you look at it, it's something like about 12 billion fraudulent ads a day. A day globally. Are Going out over matters platforms and no one's doing anything about it.
- [48:35]
A
Blimey. Right, Anyway, maybe we should get to the number one.
- [48:38]
B
Yes.
- [48:39]
A
And you've invented a new word for the number one, haven't you?
- [48:41]
B
Maximinflation. Right, let me explain.
- [48:45]
A
What's that?
- [48:45]
B
Maximiniflation. That came from AI. There were many options and they were all bad. So maximiniflation is what's happening in Germany, America, here in the uk. Let's do the German one. It's the best example. So Milka is a very popular chocolate brands. The purple Swiss one, It's actually from Mondelez. It's a very popular brand in Germany. And this year Mielka did two things at the same time. They reduced the size of their bar by 10 grams, so 100 grams down to 90 grams and they put the price up by 50 cents. So from €1 49 to €2 and didn't tell anyone. And the Germans don't like that shit. I have a lot of time for Germans. And one of the things the Germans don't like is fucking around and not telling. They like it to be straight and when it's not straight, they get unhappy. So the fact that this shrinkage had happened and the price increase at the same time and it hadn't been announced, they gave it all kinds of awards for lying. Sales are down about 20% in Germany because the Germans are pissed off with Milka and have banned it and are buying other chocolate bars. So it was a big story in and of itself. Why is that number one? It's happening everywhere. It's been happening in the UK with toothpaste. We've seen brands like Aquafresh have gone from 100ml to 70mil and almost doubled their price without saying anyone. So you've got this maxi effect on price and this mini effect on packaging. We saw it with McDonald's, with the recent new burgers getting smaller and more expensive. And so why is that so interesting? It's the response that fascinates me. We've had shrinkflation going on for the last 10 years. We've had companies very much profiteering from putting prices up surreptitiously and they've got away with it. What we're seeing this year again and again and again is consumers are no longer accepting it. And in fact, if you look at the McKinsey State of the Consumer survey which just came out, they list everything from immigration to health care across all the major countries. How much are you concerned by these things? There's only one major concern and that concern is price increases. Literally it beats everything else in every one of the 18 countries. So I think consumers are suddenly conscious of the fact. Hang on. Companies have been putting up prices and shrinking products and they're pushing back. And the American example is Dunkin Donuts where there's a huge saga exploded about when you don't ask for ice, Dunkin don't fill up your coffee for your iced coffee because they're trying to save money on ingredients. So it'll go more next year. You can see it playing out.
- [51:26]
A
I always ask my ice in a.
- [51:28]
B
Separate glass which is fine, but they.
- [51:30]
A
Want you drink a bit and then you put the ice.
- [51:32]
B
It's a good.
- [51:32]
A
Otherwise you lose. The more ice you get, the less coffee you get.
- [51:35]
B
But Dunkin will actually still give you a 2/3 full cup because they're not giving you any more ingredients to keep the cost down. Right. So what's happening I think is a big moment where we know companies have to somehow either charge more or cut costs next year. Inflation is continuing and I think that's how we've got growth over the last 10 years. Right. There isn't a lot of new market so we're getting it from clever cost cutting or clever price increases. I don't think that's going to happen next year. I think consumers are going to push back. So I think if marketing is about growth, we have a real challenge coming because I don't know where that growth is going to come from. I think consumers are against a wall now and I think companies are going to struggle and we'll see a lot more of this next year. It's just starting to go off. So for me a very big story and maxi miniflation, the attempt to do basically shrinkflation and price increases at the same time. Mark my words, there'll be a few of these next year and marketers will get into trouble.
- [52:35]
A
There you go. You heard it here first, mate. Thank you. That is a pretty amazing top 10 there.
- [52:40]
B
And lots of different stuff going on, right?
- [52:42]
A
Yeah, really varied actually. Lots of crises, lots of pricing in there as well. So we covered some non typical subjects as well, which is good. Love it, mate. Thank you very much. So, till next time.
- [52:52]
B
Well, mate, it's been my pleasure and happy Christmas both to the listener and to you. Here's to a very pleasant 2026 indeed.
- [53:01]
A
Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show, so please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do I'm over on X censoredCMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.