Episode #142. Connecting with your Consumer is the focus of today’s episode, an evolving technical and soft/human skill for marketers to develop as our human understanding continues to deepen and evolve through societal and technological advancements.

Abby’s guest to discuss is Toby Horry, Global Brand and Content Director at Tui, responsible to Tui’s re-brand and the recently much talked about first Tui Christmas ad. Prior to Tui, Toby worked at Tesco as Digital Marketing Director, part of the Brand Turnaround team, tasked with rebuilding trust in the Tesco brand and in the agency world as planner for AMV BBDO and MD of Dare.

In this episode, Toby shares his definition of what it means to connect with your consumer, the challenges of mass targeting, skills and behaviours marketers need to connect with audiences, marketing to global audiences, and lots of examples of connecting from brands such as Tui, Nicorette, Tesco and Fiat.

Plus Toby’s career highs and lows and advice for marketers.

00:00:00 Welcome and Introduction to ‘Connecting with consumers’

00:02:23 The Importance of Understanding Customers

00:03:40 Changes in Marketing Communication

00:05:56 Consumer Expectations

00:07:25 Skills Marketers Need in Order to Connect

00:09:59 Insights from Nicorette Campaign

00:11:46 The Role of Concise Marketing Briefs

00:14:09 Global Marketing Considerations

00:20:03 Customer-Centric Ideas

00:23:23 Insights from TUI

00:27:32 Creativity and Agility

00:29:10 Toby’s Career Highs and Lows

00:31:29 Advice for Future Marketers

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Toby Horry | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com

Welcome to “In My Humble Opinion”, a podcast collaboration between The Marketing Society and Publicis Groupe UK agencies that creates a space for marketing leaders to discuss their opinions on topics affecting our industry which they think about but may not always say out loud.

You will hear industry leaders and experts talk about their views and opinions on deliberately provocative subjects such as the impact of technology on brands and consumers, the future of our industry, the generational divides, diversity and inclusion and more.

Episode 2 - ‘In My Humble Opinion...more brand experiences should be buyable.’ where we discuss why brand experiences should be shoppable in today's digital landscape.

They explore how the traditional marketing funnel is transforming, why brand equity and commercial performance go hand in hand, and how companies can create seamless shopping experiences across multiple touchpoints.

Amanda Farmer, Chief Executive Officer of LeSHOP, sits down with Kate Narbrough, Global Brand Director at Nomad Foods

Follow Amanda Farmer on LinkedIn here

Follow Kate Narbrough on LinkedIn here

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Our industry is filled with many brilliant minds with thought provoking views, we can’t wait to bring them to you, our next episode of “In my humble opinion” will be coming soon and find our series of content of the same name over at The Marketing Society website.

Episode #141. Today’s personal understanding topic is about owning your marketing career so that it is fulfilling to you, and the steps you can take to be proactive and intentional to move towards your ideal role.

Abby’s guest to discuss this is David Brewerton, Growth Marketing Director of Monzo. Initially starting his marketing career in digital marketing, David broadened his marketing roles to have more strategic impact and has worked with brands such as Tesco Mobile, Metro Bank and now Monzo.

In this episode, David shares his definition of owning your marketing career, perception as reality, the art of giving and receiving feedback, his story of finding an ideal role after redundancy and the value of building your profile and making connections.

Plus David’s career highs and lows and advice for marketers of tomorrow.



00:00:00 Welcome and Introduction to ‘Owning your Career’

00:02:12 Defining Career Ownership

00:03:55 Perception as Reality

00:06:11 Why Personal Branding is Valuable

00:08:52 The Importance of Authenticity

00:14:27 Feedback as a Tool for Growth

00:17:52 David's Approach to Securing a New Role Following Redundancy

00:22:35 Building a Profile Online

00:27:24 Proactive Career Ownership

00:37:13 Mapping Career Goals and Vision

00:39:15 Finding Your Tribe

00:41:27 Learning from Experience

00:41:40 Advice for Marketers of Tomorrow

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: David Brewerton | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com

THINK EQUAL is our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion initiative led by The Marketing Society. THINK EQUAL aims to drive diversity and inclusion across the marcomms industry in the MENA region. Through training, events, mentoring, policy changes, content and more. We aim to provide tangible activity that will make an impact and a difference now.

Our regular THINK EQUAL podcast shines a light on an inspiring female leader who is dedicated to levelling the marcomms playing field.

Kicking off the new year, THINK EQUAL Project Director, Leanne Foy met Peter Jacob, Managing Director MENAT, Current Global.

The communications industry thrives on diverse perspectives, yet achieving gender equality requires more than good intentions. Male allies play a crucial role in fostering an inclusive workplace where women can excel. In this episode, we explore how male leaders can champion equality through listening, action, and accountability.

Discover the power of self-education, the impact of micro-actions, and the importance of transparent promotion practices. Learn how cross-generational allyship sustains progress and why calling out bias is essential to change workplace dynamics for the better.

Highlights include:

• Calling out bias: The critical role male leaders play in challenging workplace inequalities.
• Micro-actions that matter: Supporting female leadership and advocating for diverse lifestyles.
• Building trust through transparency: Clear promotion criteria and succession planning.

Tune in to explore actionable strategies for male allies and their impact on advancing gender equality.

A note from THINK EQUAL

We are stronger together, than we are alone. And that’s why we want the marcomms industry to come together to make a difference. Every single person who makes up our brilliant industry can make an impact. Want to get involved? We’d love to hear from you. Whether that’s through donating your time on our working committee, or putting your hand up to run an event or training session, you may have some suggestions of speakers to add to our speaker library, or have a venue you want to provide for free. Contact us at Thinkequal@marketingsociety.com

Episode #140. We’re starting the new year with a technical topic on Marketing Excellence, to inspire and empower high performance for all marketing leaders and those in their care who are growing the brands and businesses of tomorrow.

Joining Abby is her guest Sue Warren, Head of Marketing Capability at Sky. Sue worked on brands such as Unilever, Telewest and Virgin Media before joining Sky and after a decade in various marketing, strategy and planning roles, is now developing structured marketing excellence programmes to upskill and energise the entire marketing function in Sky.

In this episode, Sue shares her definition of marketing excellence, the development and implementation of Sky’s marketing excellence programme, it’s impact on the output and creativity of the marketing function and the importance of embedding marketing excellence long-term, not just delivering training.

Plus Sue’s career highs and lows and advice for marketers of tomorrow.

00:00:00 Welcome and introduction to Marketing Excellence

00:03:25 What is Marketing Excellence?

00:05:36 Benefits of a Structured Marketing Excellence Programme

00:06:35 Beyond Marketing Training – Empowerment and Investment

00:10:08 Creation and Drivers Behind Sky's Marketing Excellence Programme

00:17:26 Methods, Processes and Behaviours of Marketing Excellence

00:23:35 Leadership and Accountability

00:25:42 Impact on Marketing Performance and Engagement

00:28:55 Lessons from the Journey

00:32:09 Sue’s Personal Career Highs and Lows (00:32:09)

00:38:21 Advice for Future Marketers

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Sue Warren | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com

“We need to get back to classic marketing – what matters to our audience is a must. Even those people who don’t ‘buy into’ sustainability – up to 70% of them are actually engaged in sustainable behaviours – they just don’t label it as sustainable….”

In this episode were joined by Denise Hicks, Global Climate Lead at strategy and insights consultancy, C-Space. We were particularly interested in a very soon to be published piece of research titled, ‘The S Word’.

Denise shares insights from the research findings, highlighting the ‘dysfunctional love triangle’ that exists between brands, their stakeholders and regulations and the tensions and frictions which are causing trust issues.

We explore some of the key highlights from the research (due out January 2025), Denise reveals, “consumers are frustrated, the problem is stuff – there is too much stuff and brands / manufacturers need to start taking responsibility”. She also talks about, “the increasing amount of skepticism at all level at the ways the S word is used for commercial gain”.

Denise shares some brilliant examples of brands who are showing up in this space and engaging with their customers however, whilst they have sustainability high up on their agendas, they aren’t leading with it – rather they are leading with good old fashion marketing tactics around what benefits their customers. The fact they are also sustainability focused is an added benefit.

Denise explains, “the need to get back to classic marketing – what matters to our audience is a must. Even those people who don’t ‘buy into’ sustainability – up to 70% of them are actually engaged in sustainable behaviours – they just don’t label it as sustainable.” Sustainability paralysis is very real, the need for strong listening, insights and learning about what truly matters to audiences has never been greater. This episode is a MUST LISTEN TO for all Marketers….packed with plenty of food for thought!

Tune in and listen as we talk to Denise about:

• The importance of research.
• Sustainability paralysis and why it is very real.
• Why it is so important to understand the views of everybody and where they are at.
• The need to drive mutual benefit and work together collectively.
• How regulation plays an important part - but we can’t just wait for it, all stakeholders need to keep moving forwards.
• Why brands / Marketers need to be asking - is sustainability a big part of our identity as a brand?
• The need to meet your audiences where they are at and focus on what matter to them – elements which aren’t necessarily sustainability related.
• What it means to behave more responsibly and asking what’s the role of responsible products and services in achieving a ‘better life’.

This really is a fantastic episode to wrap up all our 2024 conversations. Tune in, enjoy it, share it - and of course, share your comments.

Find out more information about C-Space and the work they do. Connect with Denise Hicks - and you can register to receive The S Word research once published.

We’ve got plenty more terrific conversations coming in 2025. Stay tuned… and here’s to more.

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We help Marketers save the planet. 🌍

Join the Marketers and organisations who have signed our manifesto, engage with our newsletter and training and, work with us to communicate sustainability more effectively. Sign our Sustainable Marketer Manifesto, work with us, and join us on our mission.

Episode #139. Today’s focus is on Personal Understanding, which is a fundamental pillar of the Whole Marketer philosophy and what we believe is the key to having a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole.

Abby’s guest to discuss the benefits of developing your personal understanding is Kirsten McPherson. As Marketing Director at Mondelez, Kirsten is responsible for heading up two of the UK's top brands, Philadelphia and Dairylea. Her previous experience includes Procter and Gamble, where she spent more than a decade working on an array of billion-dollar brands, driving global change initiatives such as Always ‘end period poverty’.

In this episode, Kirsten shares her definition of personal development and its importance for leadership development, her formula for personal energy, implementing ‘prison Fridays’ and the role of community and mentoring in developing your personal understanding.

Plus Kirsten shares her advice for career highs and learnings, and advice for marketers.

00:00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Personal Understanding

00:02:07 What is Personal Development?

00:05:03 Personal and Professional Growth and Leadership

00:07:56 Kirsten’s Formula for Personal Energy

00:08:19 Purpose, Motivation and Confronting Limiting Beliefs

00:13:17 The Importance of Coaching

00:15:33 3 Key Areas for Marketers

00:16:14 The Concept of "Prison Fridays"

00:21:59 The Role of Community in Personal Development

00:25:19 Creating Community Initiatives at Mondelez

00:29:23 Advice for Starting Community Initiatives

00:30:46 Kirsten’s Career Highs and Learnings

00:34:24 Advice for Future Marketers

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Kirsten McPherson | LinkedIn

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com

In a sports industry obsessed with data and measurement, brand is the great intangible asset, the bit of the balance sheet that remains largely opaque, which is why it’s so important.

But mention brand in the vicinity of fans or the football media and there's a row.

It’s no surprise that the kit launch genre has evolved during this period, growing in importance and sophistication (and cost).

Homeground is one of the hottest creative agencies working in sport today. The London based company has pioneered the kit launch video. Working with Adidas, they are the people behind some of the most outstanding recent work in this area, from Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa to name a few.

We talk with creative partner Rachid Ahouiyek, formerly of Iris, McCann and Wieden+Kennedy, and Polly Barnes, new business director also formerly Iris and is founder of the Women’s Rugby Association.

Click on the showreel to see the work referenced in the podcast

https://www.homeground.london/work