Uncensored CMO

Pip Murray is the founder of Pip & Nut, which she launched in 2015 and it's now stocked in over 3,000 stores around the UK. It's the fastest growing nut butter brand around, and it's clear to see why. Pip is full of stories and insights in journey building the company, from humble beginnings in her kitchen and at craft fairs to becoming a staple brand on the shelves of all major supermarkets.What we covered in this episode:Why Pip started a nut butter businessFrom kitchen table to full scale productionThe constant trial and error to find the perfect recipeThe confidence that comes from being close to your customerThe importance of the right manufacturing partner and selling them the dreamThe challenge of minimum production run when you get startedPip&Nut’s first customer and the importance of focussing on itWhat to do when you have no marketing budgetBootstrapping and crowdfunding to cover the first couple of yearsThe pro’s and con’s of starting a business when you are youngHow easy it is to convince yourself our of an idea and the power of intelligent naivetyHow the biggest doubts come in as you scale and stakes get biggerThe opportunity cost of doing too muchBetting big on brand identity from the startInspiration from the B&B studios portfolio and finding the right chemistryThe 3 things every Private Equity company does when they acquire a brandFinding the right design and why Pip used her name in the brand identityThe challenge and opportunity of a national retailer listingThe trade off between focussed distribution and full scale distributionWhy keeping it tight is so importantWhat we can learn from the best soft drink launchesThe advantage of playing in the niche to begin withCash flow challenges of a scale upSources of funding for growth and finding the right people to investThe messy nature of startups and the power of empathy from an experienced investorWhat the hardest moment of Pip’s journey taught herDivesting yourself and learning to delegate to the teamThe nerve wracking moment of going on TV for the first timeThe importance of B-Corp status and making a sustainable brandHow Pip would define successThe energy you gain from a crisisWhy the best way to learn is doingPip’s advice for her 24 year old self

Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo are the heads of research and development at the B2B Institute, a think tank at LinkedIn that studies the laws of growth in B2B. You can follow Peter and Jon on LinkedIn. What we covered in this episode:Introducing the youngest B2B marketers on the planetJon & Peters favourite Super Bowl adsThe very low hurdle of writing a B2B articleHow half the economy is in fact B2BIs B2B really different to B2CSales vs Product led B2B companiesThe Product Delusion and why it damages marketingHow B2B ads compare to B2C on long term brand buildingWhat everyone can learn from SalesforceHow brand advertising is good for sales and talentThe power of cuddly furry animalsPublicity vs Persuasion in AdvertisingPlug for ‘Why does the Pedlar Sing’ by Paul FeldwickIntroducing the 95:5 ruleThe best search engine is the one in your headThe importance of aligning marketing with financeSponsoring the first ever B2B Cannes LionAdvertising is the tax for having a bad productTheir least successful Marketing Week articleLiberty Mutual and the power of soundWhat we can learn from Boston beers Super Bowl winning AdHow emotion regulates what we pay attention toWhy characters are the most underused tactic in advertisingWear in vs Wear out and why incentives for agency and client aren’t alignedThe Originality Delusion and the power of old ideasBitcoin maximalism and the power of blending something old and new

Andrew Robertson has been President and Chief Executive Officer of BBDO Worldwide since June 2004, and has worked with major clients including AT&T, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Ford, GE, Mars Inc, PepsiCo, SAP and Visa. It has been named Network of the Year at Cannes a record-setting seven times and the world's most awarded agency network according to The Gunn Report/World Advertising Research Center for thirteen years in a row. Since 2005, BBDO has been honoured as Global Agency of the Year in Ad Age, Adweek (three times) and Campaign (five times). BBDO Worldwide was also recognized as the Most Effective Network in the world by the Global Effies in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2017.Andrew first came to BBDO in the UK in 1995, joining Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO where he subsequently served as Chief Executive. In 2001, he moved to BBDO North America to serve as President and CEO. He began his advertising career at Ogilvy & Mather, London as a Media Planner. He switched to Account Management and was appointed to the Board of Ogilvy & Mather in 1986. In 1989, he joined J. Walter Thompson and in November 1990, was appointed Chief Executive of WCRS.Andrew has a degree in Economics from City of London University. He currently serves on the Boards of Autism Speaks and Hope Funds for Cancer Research. He is a past Chairman of The Advertising Council.What we covered in this episode:Falling into advertising after starting out in civil engineeringWhy Andrew learnt selling insurance and gambling through the nightThe late night conversation that led Andrew to advertising18 years at the helm of a global adverting businessWhy getting the people right is the most important task of any CEOThe importance of time spent with customersLearning to love problems and embrace them as opportunitiesLoving what your business createsWhere the trophies of ‘The most awarded network agency in the world’ are keptWhy ‘meaning it’ is the secret to staying on top of your creative gameBuilding a strong network bottom up with strong local creative agenciesAttracting a limited pool of truly exceptional peopleWhy emotion is the most effective thing you can doThe power of platform ideasDon’t understand the value of craftCalculating the downside risk to help you take the leaps that lead to upsideThe pursuit of certainty leads to the normHow the snickers creative idea was ‘caught’ in a line of copyWhy all great ideas are obvious after their inventionThe power of a new way of seeing an old ideaWhy Andrew’s favourite ad was one that delivered bad newsThe benefits of sleeping with a homeless guyIt’s hard not to buy from someone who makes you smileHow confidence in the team beats the silver bullet when it comes to pitchingThe expectation of agencies to deliver effortlessly seamless and connected communication at every tough pointHalf my advertising is wasted but it’s gets a lot worse in digital

Jon chats with CMO of Boston Beer, Lesya Lysyj, who has nearly 30 years of marketing experience in the food and beverage industry. Prior to joining Boston Beer, she served as President U.S. (Sales and Marketing) for Welch’s Foods.Watch the ad here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9GUnNAL9yYWhat we covered in this episodeCounting down the Top 10 Super Bowl ads of 2022The power of humour and nostalgia for LaysWhy babies are the stars of many Super Bowl adsThe reason car ads are so predictableRobo puppy and why Kia made the best car adThe winning Super ad of 2022 and no it wasn’t a set upInventing ‘Your cousin from Boston’ and why it worksThe power of sticking to the same creative ideaWhy we get bored of our own ads before our customer doesThe case for releasing a Super Bowl ad earlyCreating 2 billion PR impressions from the campaignThe power of Your Cousin From Boston lock upTaking a big swing with the company dollarsWhy a CMO can’t enjoy the Super Bowl when they are advertisingThe actual robot dogs that protect Boston DynamicsHow Boston Beer approach testing advertisingWhy the idea you like is not always the best ideaFounder Jim and his famous post it notesHow to get payback from a Super Bowl adLesya’s top 3 tips for making a winning Super Bowl adWhy the CFO is such a fan of System1How do you top a winning Super Bowl ad

Byron Sharp is a Professor of Marketing Science and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute – the world’s largest centre for research into marketing. His first book How Brands Grow: what marketers don’t know has been called one of the most influential marketing books of the past decade (Warc, 2015) and was voted marketing book of the year by AdAge readers. In 2015 he published the follow-up How Brands Grow Part 2 with Professor Jenni Romaniuk. He has also written a textbook Marketing: Theory, Evidence, Practice which reflects modern knowledge about marketing and evidence-based thinking. The revised 2nd editionof the textbook was published in 2017.Byron has co-hosted, with Professor Jerry Wind, two conferences at the Wharton Business School on the laws of advertising, and is on the editorial board of five journals. What we covered in this episode:Being turned down for a publishing deal for How Brands GrowWhy experts are terrible at predicting the futureMarketers getting distracted by Purpose with little empirical support for itThe ethical reason we should be focussed on the best return on marketingByron responds to Peter Field’s Purpose researchThe top marketing myths exposed by How Brands GrowThe No.1 surprise in How Brands GrowWhy your customers are mostly the same as your competitorsThe law of Double Jeopardy and why we are over exposed to our own brands heavy buyersThe paradox of very small brands having a larger customer base than expectedPhysical and Mental availability overlapHow similar the top brands look vs ten years agoLucozade sugar tax backlash and how that proved the laws of marketingThe surprising importance of light and very light buyersWhy a lot of your sales come from people who haven’t bought you for at least a yearThe importance of not changing your designWhether the laws vary depending on categoryWhy market research is designed to highlight difference rather than similarityThe importance of distinctiveness and being rememberedWhat Levitt, Kotler and Akker got wrong about differentiationWhy even bankers can’t tell their banks apartThe power of pink concrete mixersAsking an 8 year old to tell you what’s different about your brandThe real role of advertising for your brandHow search works just like point of sale to catch people as they fallHow the laws remain the same in B2BWhy Apple isn’t your typical brand when it comes to selling product differentiationWhy Ehrenberg Bass has just own distinctive assetWhy fruit doesn’t need packagingThe biggest unanswered question in marketingPlans for Ehrenberg Bass to make training available to marketersWhat Byron missed out in How Brands GrowThe importance of marketing the research and highlighting the implicationsDescribing Mark Ritson as the best business journalist in the worldWhat Byron thinks about the environment and the role of marketing in it

Abba is the CMO at the FinTech start up Habito, the fastest growing online mortgage broker in the UK. Prior to Habito, Abba worked as director of strategy at News UK, pioneering the moves towards digital content and as a planner at agencies UM and Carat.What we covered in this episode:Begging Dan the founder for a new jobHow Habito are disrupting the Mortgage marketThe power of anger and frustration to fuel businessConvincing Uncommon to be a founding clientTaking inspiration from Skateboard art and Santa CruzHow to make mortgages ‘gnarly’Switching off advertising due to too much demandHow to measure the impact of your campaignWhy Habito went straight to TV as a channelHow mortgages can ruin your sex lifeProducing the mortgage Karma SutraWriting an erotic novel about mortgagesWhy Habito sponsored the gnarly world of Skateboarding UKWhat it takes to train for an IronmanBusiness lessons from IronmanThe generosity of the UK Fintech sceneAbba’s top advice for getting into TechHow to create ‘strategic serendipity’Where to go for a 7 x salary mortgage

Kev Chesters is the co-founder of Harbour Collective and co-author of "The Creative Nudge: Simple Steps to Help You Think Differently". Previously Kev has been Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy UK, Head of Planning at W+K and Planning Director at S&S.What we covered in this episode:How Kev got sued by Dr DreBumping into famous people in urinalsWhy creativity in business really mattersThe power of advertising to sell jeansWhy creative is not the same as making adsThe creative power of business constraintsHow dancing horses can sell mobile tariffsThe feel good power of internet memesWhy creativity is the underdog’s most competitive advantageHow short deadlines actual reduce creativityWhy nothing good ever came out of a workshopThe importance of never giving upJon’s most creative achievement with no budgetWhat would you do if your budget was your Dad’s moneyThe power of discontent to drive creativityHow being scared signals real creativityThe tyranny of average that holds us back from being braveWhy creative is the only key to progressHow to create the conditions for creativity to thriveWhy anybody can be creative in the broadest senseThe twin conspiracy of biology and societal conditioningThe power of positive dissent and why consensus should be killedWhy ‘the meeting’ is never the actual meetingWhat you can learn from the Devil’s advocateThe importance of failure to our successGetting used to the feeling of fearCreative nudges that will help you become more creativeHow algorithms are great for efficiency but terrible for explorationThe importance of being unreasonableWhat we can all learn from Lady GaGa

Tony's Chocolonely is on a mission to make chocolate free of child-labour and slavery worldwide. I catch up with Lord Chocolonely III, or Ben Greensmith who runs Tony's in the UK about what it's like to run a mission-focused challenger brand in 2021.About BenBen started his career in food and drink over 20 years ago at IRI and then working for Unilever in a mixture of sales and category management roles. He joined innocent drinks in 2007 and was there for 8 years, holding a number of senior commercial roles and helping build the UK business that was eventually sold to Coca-Cola in 2013 for £0.5 billion. He left in 2015 to join Proper Snacks, most recently holding the position of Chief Operating Officer. Ben has been working for Tony’s Chocolonely since September 2018 as employee number 1 in the UK and is responsible for leading the business in the UK and Ireland. His official job title is Lord Chocolonely iii.About Tony'sAt Tony’s Chocolonely our mission is to make chocolate free of child-labour and slavery; not just our chocolate but all chocolate worldwide. Tony’s has been around for 15 years in our home country, the Netherlands, where we’re now the number 1 brand with a 20% market share. Tony’s launched in the UK in January 2019 and already the 6th biggest chocolate bar brand and the fastest growing.What we covered in this episodeBeing named Lord Chocolonely iiiHow the packaging was invented in 15minsThe truth about inequality in the cocoa supply chainThe food unwrapped programme that inspired Tony’sHow Tony prosecuted himself for crimes against chocolateThe lonely battle to end child labour that created ChocolonelyThe principles that ensure Tony’s helps make production slave freeWhy Tony’s wants the competition to copy themChallenging the removal of an endorsement by Slave Free OrgThe different ways Tony’s are making an impact on living wagesWhy Tony’s bars are created with unequal chunksHow Ben convinced Tony’s to let him launch the brand in the UKCreating a £30m chocolate business in just 3 yearsChallenger brand lessons from Tony’sHow Tony’s rate of sale compares to the Chocolate giantsThe price per gram of Tony’s and how it comparesCreating headline news with an Advent calendarSPOILER ALERT: some days may contain extra chocolateCelebrity endorsement for the calendarCustomer reaction to the missing chocolate on Day 8Getting on Have I Got News For YouWhat should be making the newsResults of Uncensored CMO poll asking whether it was a good moveWhy Tony’ back a sugar tax and High Sugar, Fat & Salt (HFSS) legislationAnswering the challenge of being responsible for making people fatHow to protect your culture as your business growsCrazy about chocolate and serious about peopleThe power of healthy dissatisfactionHow to be more outspoken in 2022The importance of fitness to create energy for the demands of the job

How do you run marketing for one of the best known insurance brands in the UK, Direct Line? That's exactly what I find out from their CMO, Mark Evans, who has been at the company for a decade. What we covered in this episode:Starting a podcast during lockdownWhere Mark gets his energy fromThe importance of being tuned into your purposeCareer lessons from Jimmy CarrWhy you should always coach from a position of strengthWhat you can learn from a World Cup winning Rugby squadLessons from being made redundant 4 timesWhy you should embrace your failure and learn from itHow Mark survived a decade as CMO at Direct LineWhy you should fire yourself every 18 monthsWhether it’s better to work for a Marketing or Finance CEOWhy marketing needs to be more than the ‘colouring in department’The importance of knowing your numbersWhy Direct Line decided to retire Winston WolfThe success trap - improving your game even when you are winningHow Direct Line positioned itself for successFlipping ‘last brand standing’ to becoming the ‘first brand standing’Discovering the importance of insurance the hard wayHow covid changed the new ‘We’re on it’ campaignTopping the charts on the System1 insurance categoryWhy it’s worth sticking with the same agencyWho is tipped to be the next SuperheroRecord profits in a tough yearHow Churchill make Insurance feels effortlessChurchill’s plans to Chill some more in 2022The power of music to change our the audience feelsMarks most popular podcast episode on ‘oh the places we go’The importance of being true to your audienceFollow me:Twitter | @uncensoredCMOLinkedInContact me:Website | www.uncensoredcmo.comEmail – jon@uncensoredcmo.com

Dom Dwight former editor & journalist who, just over a decade ago, discovered a passion for doing marketing properly, most notably through Yorkshire Tea but with a growing focus on coffee for Taylors of Harrogate. He's on a mission to prove that brands can connect with consumers in a way that benefits business, people, and (if it's not too ridiculous) the world. What we covered in this episode:What a Proper Yorkshire Tea business card would look likeFrom journalist to CMO of the UK’s best loved Tea brandStarting out on Twitter in 2008 to connect with ex pats who love teaGoing from No.3 Tea brand to No.1 in just a couple of yearsTransforming market share from 13% to 33%Yorkshire Tea for Yorkshire people using Yorkshire waterWhy communication was the strategy to unlock growthHow social media informed Yorkshire Tea’s tone of voiceThe serious case for more humourDiscovering the ‘where everything’s done proper’ idea with Lucky GeneralsWhy targeting new users was critical for brand growthHow well known Yorkshire celebrities helped the brand reach new usersGetting Sean Bean to run the company inductionUsing the Brownlee Brothers for deliveriesAsking Michael Parkinson to do your interviewsHiring Kaiser Chiefs to produce the hold musicFocussing on quality over quantity for Ad productionTurning the Advertising engines off during covid but gaining some useful tailwindsJon tests Dom on his ability to predict which Ad perform best on System1The power of movement to capture our attentionThe importance of creative instincts when making a great adWhy trust is so important when delegating to your teamHow Yorkshire Tea discovered a sense of humourIn house social on a budget vs agency high productionThe power of low ego at Lucky GeneralsInventing the social distancing teapot during lockdownQuietly going carbon neutral and painting the story on packThe importance of culture to the performance of the brandTime invested in genuinely asking ‘how people are; that supports during challengesThe Importance of a stable management team over the long termTurning loyal brand drinks into advocates to recruit new onesCustomer complaints about not screening the full version of the Sean Bean TV adDebating which Christmas ads work and which don’tPraising the power of M&S ‘this is no ordinary’ AdvertisingYorkshire Tea’s ambition take on the World