Why discounting damages brands

Is modern marketing broken, and are you missing the fundamental frameworks that are relevant today?

In this episode of World's Greatest Business Thinkers, host Nick Hague welcomes back Mark Ritson, founder of the Mini MBA, to unpack why marketing has regressed despite unprecedented access to data, tools, and talent. Mark breaks down the misconceptions and differences behind "strategies with long and short impact," why the 95/5 rule should guide budget allocation, and how most CMOs are dangerously undertrained. He exposes the pitfalls of discounting, the power of friction in brand positioning, and the realities of growth that many leaders overlook. Packed with frameworks, brutal truths, and practical direction, this conversation equips marketers to build sustainable, profitable brands in a noisy landscape.

What You Will Learn:

• Why advertising effectiveness has declined 10% over three decades despite AI and data abundance

• The critical difference between "Long and Short impact" and what brands actually need

• How the 95/5 Rule reshapes budget allocation

• The profitability vs. revenue trap that derails most businesses

• Why price discounting is almost always a losing move, and how to reframe pricing

• How to build distinctiveness into brand positioning through productive friction

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Mark Ritson Bio:

Mark Ritson is a PhD marketer, celebrated professor, and founder of the Mini MBA. Over 25 years he taught at London Business School, MIT, Melbourne Business School, and Minnesota, earning multiple top-teaching awards. A former in-house consultant to LVMH, he has advised brands from Subaru to Sephora. His pricing research was cited during a Nobel Prize speech, and his prolific journalism has earned seven PPA Columnist of the Year awards. Now based in Tasmania, he focuses on the Mini MBA, writes for major publications, and continues skewering marketing nonsense with trademark wit.

Quotes:

1. "I think it's slightly worse than it was thirty years ago; we're certainly not improving. For all the talk of data and AI and everything else, when you see the occasional longitudinal data point, advertising is less effective than it used to be. We've slipped a little, not too much, but we certainly haven't made a lot of progress."

2. "Retailers are selling the same stuff to the same people at the same time in the same place. Their obsession with price is because over the road, there's a competitor with 80% the same stock in the same places, going after the same customers. Price becomes this golden lever, and it's just something I never thought of before until I actually went in and started seeing it from the retail point of view."

3. "All of the campaigns which are extraordinarily good at long-term brand building are also, with almost without exception, really good at immediately selling product. Long delivers short. You run a great TV campaign, it's gonna instantly start shifting product the next day as well as creating long-term changes in memory structures that might last for years."

4. "There are 19 times more consumers outside the market than inside it. You want to spend 60-70% of your budget on the 95% so you're ready for when they come in later. The key lesson is it's usually too late to go after the 5% when they come into market, you need salience established beforehand."

Episode Resources:

• Mark Ritson on LinkedIn

• MiniMBA Website

• Nick Hague on LinkedIn

• World's Greatest Business Thinkers on Apple Podcasts

• World's Greatest Business Thinkers on Spotify

• World's Greatest Business Thinkers on YouTube