In this episode I'm joined by Allison Ellsworth, founder of the fastest growing beverage brand in the US, Poppi.

Poppi was started as Mother Beverage in 2018 (a nod to the raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar used in the drink) but was rebranded after featuring on Shark Tank in the same year. Now, it's one of the biggest soda brands in the US, outselling Coke and Pepsi on Amazon. I speak to Allison about the journey of creating the brand, how influential TikTok was for their growth, their merch strategy and how they ended up buying a Super Bowl ad. This is a fascinating account of how a challenger brand can disrupt an industry in such a small period of time.

Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
02:08 - Allison’s experience on Shark Tank
05:56 - Funding and rebrand of Poppi
10:36 - Launching the brand during COVID
11:06 - Outselling Coke and Pepsi on Amazon
12:33 - How big is the impact of Shark Tank
13:45 - Growing the brand on social media
17:02 - The influencer and social first marketing strategy
19:45 - How Poppi’s marketing popup worked
22:05 - Why Poppi invested in merch and launching in Target
24:36 - Chosing which flavours to launch with Poppi
28:04 - Approach to retail and growth
29:27 - Breaking into a competitive market
30:29 - Poppi’s Super Bowl campaign
35:30 - The journey from 2 to 200 employees
40:18 - How Allison hires at Poppi
42:05 - The hardest part of the journey at Poppi
44:07 - How Allison would start a new startup today

Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a the most watched drama on ITV of all time. It's the extraordinary story of the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system. I speak to the producer of the show, Patrick Spence, to get a behind the scenes look at the drama, how it was discovered, how it was made and why the country rallied around Mr Bates.

Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
01:09 - The story of Mr Bates
05:33 - Having the film commissioned by ITV
08:59 - How true was the drama
12:04 - How big was the cover up at the Post Office
14:12 - How did this scandal happen
17:21 - Why some people pleaded guilty
19:36 - How has the show impacted real people
22:08 - Why no one has received compensation yet
24:46 - What awards has the show won
26:24 - The reaction from Fujitsu and the Post Office
31:53 - How has the drama translated globally?

Mark Abraham leads Boston Consulting Group’s Marketing, Sales & Pricing practice in North America. He also launched and leads the firm’s personalization capability. He has built some of the firm’s largest ventures and AI platforms, including Fabriq Personalization AI by BCG X, a personalization platform that accelerates personalization.

Mark coauthored the book Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, which helps executives learn how to put personalization at the center of their strategy, accelerate growth, and capture their share of the $2 trillion personalization prize.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:49 - Why 2025 is the year of personalisation at scale
01:38 - When personalisation goes wrong
06:04 - Consumer data on our openness to personalisation
07:48 - The $2 trillion opportunity
10:08 - Who is doing personalisation well
14:27 - The competitive advantage of speed and scale
15:50 - How AI is driving personalisation forward
24:15 - The 5 areas to build the framework for personalisation
26:49 - How do you get information about your customer
31:53 - What is the most useful intelligence to gather
37:43 - How to make mass campaigns more targeted
42:36 - Some of the barriers to personalisation
50:19 - Why companies need to embrace AI
53:25 - Parting advice to people on implementing personalisation

It's our annual tradition to bring Sarah Carter and Les Binet, authors of How Not To Plan, onto the podcast to discuss the hot topics of the year and what marketers need to know in 2025. We've broken this episode into 8 key discussion points, including why consistent advertising is so effective, why the era of purpose is over and another year of the advertising industry needing to remember they are not the customer.

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:55 - Reflecting on the agency’s year
00:05:25 - Point 1: You are not the customer
00:19:51 - Point 2: Ignore Price at your peril
00:26:13 - Point 3: Consistency but not a lack of creativity
00:42:08 - Point 4: Never forget the eyeballs
00:50:48 - Point 5: Emotions aren’t just about making people cry
00:55:08 - Point 6: Is the era of purpose over?
01:00:38 - Point 7: Don’t just be in culture, stay in culture
01:03:48 - Point 8: Don’t forget the power of Out of Home

Ed Smith leads the Amazon mass marketing team in Europe. In this episode we talk about how Amazon create such emotional advertising, how they make such huge decisions in their marketing and what Ed thinks about consistency within the Amazon brand.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:48 - The top selling Amazon products at Christmas
02:53 - Ed’s career journey to Amazon
09:08 - Amazon’s sledging grannies campaign (age representation)
14:49 - Why is Amazon’s advertising emotional
21:10 - Being consistent with your brand
24:39 - How Amazon make big decisions
28:27 - Managing the demand side of Amazon
29:30 - Amazon’s sustainability pledge
35:12 - The role of influencers at Amazon
38:56 - Culture at Amazon
46:42 - Ed’s marketing predictions for 2025

Uncensored CMO Reloaded. This episode was first published in May 2021.

Rupert Howell is one of the founders of the iconic advertising agency HHCL & Partners. This is a bumper 2 hour episode, but I promise you it's worth it. We spend a lot of time actually talking about new business and the importance of winning pitches and growing customers. We also look at the campaigns that the HHCL created, where the ideas came from that inspired such iconic and effective work. And I think you'll find that quite revealing also how relationships are basically underpinned all of Rupert's success. Enjoy.

We covered so much ground in this bumper 2 hour episode, so here's the list of what we touched upon:

• How Rupert made HHCL the best agency of the 90’s
• Ruperts New Business Mantra – Honesty. Respect. Trust.
• Why saying ‘I don’t know’ and ‘we got it wrong’ is so important
• How the agency’s sole focus is Advertising but the Clients sole focus is the business
• Why new business should always be separate to the day to day account management
• How Rupert became ‘the finest new business director of all time’
• How to win a pitch even after you have lost it
• Why the pitch process begins with the phone call and only ends when its announced in Campaign
• The sole purpose of the pitch is to win and not to solve the clients business problem
• Why HHCL had a strike rate of 65% for new business
• What the company annual report can tell you for the pitch process
• Why you should try and get your customer promoted
• How Carling Black Label inspired the most successful Tango Advertising of all time
• How Tango destroyed Fanta and forced Coke to withdraw it from the market
• How a call from a Surgeon led to the Tango Slap commercial being withdraw from market
• Why the ‘4th Emergency Service’ transformed The AA and how the bold idea was sold in
• How spending time with an AA team out on a call led to the idea
• The importance of winning your internal teams and why they matter as much as your customers
• Interrogating the product until ‘it confesses its strength’
• Why the harder you practice the luckier you get is just as true for an agency
• The real hard yards of the start-up phase that meant not taking a day off in 3 years
• How tabloids create controversy and how to respond to it
• Why relationships are the secret to really succeeding in business
• Turning down offers to sell the agency including a £1million bribe
• Why HHCL accepted an offer from Chime with the support from Sir Martin Sorrell
• Why so few agencies ever succeed after being acquired by a network
• Why HHCL was never the same after Rupert left and why he would never go back
• The importance of timing for Founders handing over to the next generation
• Dealing with bullies, bribary and negotiating an exit from McCann with a boat & DB9 as consolation
• Which celebrities are still speaking to Rupert after he left ITV
• Why social media is driven by click bait and negative headlines
• Why you should give up the news, except perhaps local news
• The Pros and Cons of a British free press
• How to get a non-exec role

For a special Christmas edition of the Uncensored CMO, we've recorded a bonus episode of the Never Mind the Adverts podcast, featuring our good friend Orlando Wood. We talk about some breaking news, have some festive drinks and review some of the best Christmas Ads this year (yes, including that Coke ad). Enjoy.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
01:10 - The news
03:53 - Orlando’s Christmas Stocking Fillers
09:06 - Drinks trolley
12:38 - Review of the 2024 Christmas Ads
16:45 - A break from the ads
21:03 - Name that ad

Jess Myers CCO of The Very Group, returns to the podcast sharing the success of her role over the past year. We'll explore how Jess and her team navigates the crucial "Golden Quarter" leading up to Christmas, the importance of creative consistency, and the successes they've achieved by sticking with what works. Plus, we'll hear about the innovative launch of the Very Media Group and how their flamingo-themed campaigns resonate with customers.

Jess also sheds light on balancing commercial objectives with customer experience, fostering collaborative relationships, and the unique challenges of her executive role. Whether it's optimizing holiday ads or championing a vibrant company culture, Jess’s insights are sure to inspire.

Timestamps

00:00 - Start
01:07 - Jess’ custom merch for the podcast
02:07 - Jess’ review of the year at Very
04:28 - From Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Customer Officer - what’s changed
06:17 - How marketers can thrive in the boardroom
08:53 - Embracing “hun culture”
12:35 - How important the golden quarter is for retailers
15:46 - Why Very chose the run the same campaign at Christmas
21:05 - Why short term is important in the Golden Quarter
23:57 - Very's Flamazing Flamingos as a fluent device
28:40 - Launching the Very Media Group
31:03 - Launching House of Flamingo
34:18 - Jess’ learnings from the last year at Very
35:45 - Making the most out of your agencies
39:29 - Closing thoughts