Embracing Marketing Mistakes

Episoder

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  EP 128: Why CFOs Keep Killing Influencer Budgets 15.09.2026 49min

  Influencer spend hit $32.55 billion in 2025, and most brands still can't prove it works. In this Prohibition PR webinar, Chris Norton and Will Ockenden break down why influencer marketing keeps losing boardroom arguments, the mistake that turned a Brit Awards influencer activation into a creator revolt, and the six-part framework that turns influencer spend into a revenue channel instead of an awareness line item. Chris covers the boardroom case for influencer marketing, the Mastercard Brit A...
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  One Tweet About Sleeping Beauty Ended in Death Threats 10.09.2026 15min

  Back in episode 99 with Sarah Waddington, we dive into the story of a well-intentioned tweet about a Biff and Chip book image, posted during the height of the Me-Too era. What was meant to be a harmless comment, shared in the midst of the chaos of parenting, quickly spiraled into misreporting by UK tabloids, global backlash, online abuse, and even death threats. As her career and personal life were thrust into the public eye, the turning point came when credible voices stepped in to offer sup...
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  EP 127: Professor Jim Macnamara Says Most Of The PR Industry Is Still Measuring The Wrong Thing 08.09.2026 43min

  A professor who built his entire career on communication measurement almost couldn't answer the question that started it all. Professor Jim Macnamara joins Embracing Marketing Mistakes to explain why so much of PR and marketing still confuses outputs with outcomes, and what changed after a client rejected his activity report and demanded results instead. Jim walks through the framework behind AMEC and the Barcelona Principles, a real Volkswagen case study that shifted marketing budget from 5%...
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  He Asked for Honest Feedback. Then Never Spoke to Me 03.09.2026 7min

  If you have ever watched a brilliant marketing strategy die in a sign‑off meeting, this episode is for you. We unpack the real reasons ideas fail in the boardroom and what senior marketers can do to read the room, create emotional buy in and keep stakeholders focused on what matters. Faris Aranki, founder of Shear Ghetto Consulting and former top‑tier strategy advisor, explains his IQ x EQ x FQ model for success back in episode 96. IQ is the quality of your idea, EQ is your emotional in...
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  EP 126: The Emotion Behind Every B2B Purchase Nobody Markets To - Talia Wolf 01.09.2026 48min

  Most B2B brands are interchangeable, and Talia Wolf built a career proving it. In this episode, Talia Wolf, founder of GetUplift and creator of the emotional targeting framework, explains why most products test identical on every measurable feature, and the two emotional clusters, self-image and social image, that drive buying decisions. She tells the story of the book cover mistake she caught before print, when beta readers including Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds told her the professional, g...
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  EP 125: The PR Launch That Cleared The Building 25.08.2026 54min

  A CIPR fellow with nearly six decades in PR says the industry still protects itself from its own scandals. In this episode, Robert Minton-Taylor, a CIPR fellow recognised at the institute's 70th anniversary and a 24-year PR lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, argues that no PR professional has ever been sanctioned for their industry's complicity in Grenfell, the Post Office Horizon scandal, the infected blood scandal, or the NHS maternity scandal. He tells the story of the former intern who...
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  EP 124: He Built His Own AI Company Then Shut It Down 18.08.2026 1t 1min

  A toxic hire nearly cost him his agency. Then he made a similar mistake again, this time trying to build his own AI instead of renting one. In this episode, Roger Hurni, founder and Chief Brand Strategist of Off Madison Ave, whose client roster includes Nike, Wells Fargo, PetSmart, and P.F. Chang's, breaks down the culture-first hiring lesson he learned the hard way, why his team abandoned an in-house AI build for an off-the-shelf tool, and the AI philosophy he wrote for his own staff: expand...
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  EP 123: Why I Recommended the Man Who Fired Me - John O'Keeffe 11.08.2026 56min

  He ran creative for the world's biggest advertising group. Then his own recommendation to the board cost him the job, and he sold every share he owned the same week. In this episode, John O'Keeffe explains how he took WPP from a "creative desert" to seven straight years as Creative Holding Company of the Decade, why recommending Mark Read to succeed Martin Sorrell as CEO turned out to be his biggest mistake, and what happened when Read undercut him in front of the entire company. He also make...
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  EP 122: The Sales Funnel Is a Hundred Years Old and Wrong 04.08.2026 57min

  KFC and Weetabix both threw away the most famous slogans in their category, and had to fight their way back to them. In this episode, Tom Roach explains how "Finger Lickin' Good" and "Have You Had Your Weetabix" both got dropped while each brand chased fresher creative, and the research and internal persuasion it took to bring them back. He also breaks down why the standard marketing sales funnel misreads how people actually buy, why the von Restorff effect explains why distinctive brands get...
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  EP 121: I Invented a Category, Sold to Diageo, and Almost Lost It All 28.07.2026 55min

  Ben Branson invented an entirely new drinks category from his kitchen. Then a £1 million hole nearly took it all away. In this episode, Ben explains how Seedlip, the world's first non-alcoholic spirit, grew twice as fast as the industry standard, and how that growth hid a working capital gap that surfaced mid-flight to Australia. He breaks down how the team traded their way out of the crisis in six months through relationships rather than financial engineering, why he launched straight into S...
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  EP 120: We Fired 30 People and Nothing Changed 21.07.2026 39min

  A growth lead at a fast-scaling startup admits the truth: his old company cut a 30-person marketing and sales team, and sales didn't change at all. In this episode, Hector Hughes explains why a year of growth work, SEO, conversion rate optimization, and endless website testing achieved almost nothing, and how that failure led him to build Unplugged, a digital detox retreat business now serving thousands of guests across the UK and Spain. He breaks down why "tracking everything results in trac...
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  EP 119: Moz Founder: 'I Was Making $50M a Year and Miserable' 14.07.2026 1t

  Rand Fishkin built Moz into the biggest name in SEO. Then he raised $30 million in venture capital and watched it nearly break him. In this episode, Rand explains why raising venture capital was his biggest mistake, how it led to a battle with depression and his resignation as CEO, and why he is happier, healthier, and making more money today running SparkToro, a company a twentieth the size of Moz. He also breaks down why traffic has always been a vanity metric, how to build a new analytics ...
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  EP 118: This One Habit Cost Me 100 Million YouTube Views 07.07.2026 1t 5min

  A top YouTube strategist just revealed the single habit that cost him over 100 million views and then live-critiqued our own channel's titles on air. Leroy te Braak works with creators and brands doing hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. In this episode, he breaks down why most businesses get YouTube wrong, reveals his IDEAL framework (Idea, Data, Execution, Analysis, Longevity), and explains exactly how a 70-year-old soil-products founder grew from 30,000 to 100,000 subscribers with re...
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  From Petrified Wood to Pints Social Proof Gone Wrong 02.07.2026 4min

  Behavioural science meets marketing mishaps back in episode 46 with Phill Agnew. As a specialist in testing what really works in ads, Phill exposes how well intentioned campaigns often push audiences in exactly the wrong direction. He unpacks the idea of negative social proof, where highlighting how many people binge drink, steal from parks or ignore donation prompts can actually signal that this behaviour is normal and acceptable. Phill shares stories from university alcohol campaigns,...
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  EP 117: 70% of Teams Are Using AI With Zero Oversight. Here’s What Happened 30.06.2026 44min

  Most companies have bought AI. Hardly any are actually using it properly inside their teams. In this episode, recorded live at the AI for PR conference in London, we break down the real reason AI adoption fails in marketing and communications, and what it takes to make tools like Microsoft Copilot genuinely valuable. Chris Norton is with two experienced voices from the PR and SEO world who share practical use cases, honest frustrations and proven ways to close the gap between AI ambition and ...
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  How a Transparency Slip Sparked a PR Firestorm 25.06.2026 7min

  In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Chris Pharo CEO from 72 Point talks through the controversy that erupted after critics on social media challenged the term guaranteed coverage. What began as a few confused comments quickly grew into a public discussion about ethics, transparency and how PR teams work behind the scenes. Chris explains how two members of his team were unexpectedly named online, why the situation became so stressful for everyone involved, and how a lack of ...
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  EP 116: "SEO Is Dead. It's an $85 Billion Market and It's Over" 23.06.2026 51min

  Everyone is talking about AI transformation. Almost no one is thinking about whether their brand shows up when customers ask AI what to buy. This episode breaks down the biggest mistake in modern marketing and why PR is quietly becoming the most powerful driver of visibility inside generative search. Recorded live at the AI for PR conference in London, this episode features Andrew Bruce Smith, Johnny Bentwood, and James Crawford. Each brings a different lens, from strategic AI adoption to dat...
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  The Hangover That Landed Us A Major Client 18.06.2026 6min

  Our guest, Guy Utley CEO of Tall Agency, shares a candid story about winning a major pitch despite being severely hungover from celebrating a "Best Creative Agency" award the night before. This unexpected success led to a complete transformation in his approach to business presentations, moving away from over-preparation toward more authentic communication. • Celebrating winning "Best Creative Agency" award led to drinking too much the night before a 9 AM pitch • Despite being hungove...
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  EP 115: The Moment Claude Co-Work Replaced 4 Days of Work in 30 Minutes 16.06.2026 1t 1min

  He handed AI a full marketing project… and it came back finished in 30 minutes. What used to take 4 days of analysis, reporting, and presentation building was done in a single sitting with better insights included. In this episode, Andrew Bruce Smith breaks down how tools like Claude Co‑Work are changing the way marketers actually work. This is not about faster copy or better prompts. It is about delegating entire workflows to AI and shifting your role from execution to management. You will h...
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  EP 114: We Deepfaked a CEO in 2 Minutes. Here’s What Happened 09.06.2026 56min

  A finance worker joins a Zoom call with their CFO and colleagues. Everything looks and sounds real. They transfer $25 million. Every person on that call was fake. AI misinformation has moved from theory to real-world crisis, and brands are already losing control. From deepfake CEOs and fake giveaways to hijacked campaigns and cloned influencer accounts, the speed and scale of risk has changed completely. In this episode, Will and I break down how AI is reshaping crisis management in 2026 and...