The Marketing Week Podcast

From ghosting and indecision to recruitment being a buyer's market and marketers facing an uphill battle to land roles, marketing recruitment is facing a breadth of acute challenges.Last month, more than a fifth (22.4%) of marketers said they expected marketing job cuts at their brands in the following quarter, according to exclusive IPA Bellwether data for Marketing Week.  Senior reporter Molly Innes is joined by former Asahi chief marketing officer Grant McKenzie, Lauren Spearman, marketing consultant, careers content creator and Marketing Week 2024 Changemaker, and Suz Bannister and Lamees Butt, cofounders of Riser, an AI-powered recruitment startup to explore how AI is impacting marketing recruitment, from screening bias to contributing to more applications for roles, as well as the broader challenges in marketers' job searches today, such as ghosting, long processes and indecision.The episode also looks at how companies can rethink recruitment to be fairer, more transparent and more effective, and asks how AI could be used thoughtfully to improve hiring rather than making it harder.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In partnership with Google: Google's managing director of retail and consumer goods, Sophie Neary, joins Marketing Week's Russell Parsons, to explore how marketers can harness the latest consumer trends and technological evolutions to fight for greater share of shoppers' online baskets.They examine how brand and retail marketers can use AI, Search and data to unlock growth opportunities, and to face down growing competitive threats from online rivals, large and small. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, we’re discussing why short-termism is becoming a even bigger issue for brands and what marketers can do to mitigate it. Marketing Week’s 2025 Language of Effectiveness survey, in partnership with Kantar and Google, reveals 63.1% of marketers say their business has increased its focus on short-term activity over the past 12 months. Just 17.3% strongly agree their business invests sufficiently in long-term brand health, while more than half (52.9%) believe their campaigns are too focused on performance or sales. The barriers to investing in brand range from a lack of data and budget, to scepticism from leadership and a lack of agreed metrics. As a result, just 11.1% of marketers claim to be able to comprehensively demonstrate the effect of brand marketing and its overall business contribution. To dig into these stats, host Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor and head of insight at Marketing Week, is joined by senior reporter Niamh Carroll, Rhea Fox, marketing director for gift experiences at Moonpig Group, and Pete Markey, former Boots CMO and Marketing Week Marketer of the Year 2023.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In partnership with Campaign Monitor by Marigold: Email isn’t dead - it has just been misunderstood and possibly undervalued. This Special Episode unpacks how today’s smartest brands are turning email into a high-ROI channel that powers both long-term brand equity and short-term performance. With Campaign Monitor's senior product marketing manager Michelle Slifcak Villa, we explore the challenge marketers face today to prove effectiveness, how the latest in AI technology is shaping the larger marketing landscape, and how brands who treat email as a strategic channel will outperform in 2025 and beyond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elf Beauty recently marked its 25th consecutive quarter of growth. With sales up 28% year-on-year, it’s a business charging forward while many others struggle with stagnation.  Laurie Lam, chief brand officer at Elf Beauty, joins The Marketing Week Podcast to shed light on how the business is achieving its success.  “It doesn’t happen by mistake,” she tells Molly Innes, senior reporter at Marketing Week. “It really happens by design, and that design is with our CEO, who has built a board of directors that is 67% women and 44% diverse.”  Lam also asks what would happen if other brands had boards and teams that reflect their communities.  “We can see that for us, it equals profit. Your purpose is driving performance, and it’s driving incredible results.” Ahead of the next episode in Marketing Week’s regular series, find The Marketing Week Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast.      Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recent data from Marketing Week's 2025 Career & Salary Survey revealed marketing effectiveness is the major core marketing skills gap. Three in five (60.5%) of the more than 3,500 respondents identified knowledge of marketing effectiveness as a skills gap within their business. In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, deputy managing editor Charlotte Rogers, senior reporter Molly Innes and senior reporter Niamh Carroll discuss why effectiveness is such a pronounced skills gap, as well diving into the other skills gaps marketers identified, including social media. We are joined by Rachel Moss, head of marketing strategy as National Lottery licensee Allywn, who expresses her surprise at marketing effectiveness being the biggest perceived skills gap and questions the industry's understanding of effectiveness beyond advertising. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest episode, we explore why mothers are being pushed out of the workforce in increasing numbers, from the rollback of flexible policies to poor company culture. We are joined by Jess Heagren, founder and CEO of parenting organisation Careers After Babies, and Sophie Maunder, former VCCP CEO turned founder of maternity coaching business Matri. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest episode, we explore the rate of marketing team restructures, debate what's next for WHSmith as the chain prepares to disappear from UK high streets and explore the value of personalisation following the return of Coca-Cola's 'Share a Coke'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing has a big pay gap problem and for many people it's getting worse.Exclusive new data from Marketing Week’s 2025 Career & Salary Survey shows the marketing profession has an ethnicity pay gap for full-time workers of 13.3%, up sharply from 8.5% in 2024 – based on a sample 82.9% of whom identify as white.Marketing's gender pay gap has also widened. Female marketers are paid on average 17.8% less than their male peers. This figure is based on a sample of more than 3,500 marketers – 59.9% of whom are female – and is up on the 16% pay gap revealed in 2024.Analysis of the data also finds a socio-economic pay gap for full-time workers of 15.3%, flat compared to last year’s figure at 15.9%. Furthermore, 74% of the sample identify as middle-class, up on the 70.1% figure reported in 2024.On this week's podcast, deputy managing editor and head of insight Charlotte Rogers, managing editor Lucy Tesseras and senior reporter Molly Innes dig into what is causing these pay gaps to be so persistent.Meanwhile, marketing's recruitment challenges continue. From drawn out interview processes to ghosting and mental health pressures, the jobs wheel isn't turning as it used to and is having a detrimental impact on many. Listen to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on The Marketing Week Podcast we’re tackling marketing’s early talent problem.With fewer routes into the industry and a lack of support for apprenticeships, are aspiring marketers being shut out before they even get started?Marketing Week's 2025 Career & Salary Survey revealed just 15.9% of companies operate a marketing apprenticeship, citing the level of resource required and a lack of senior buy-in as key barriers.In this episode, deputy managing editor and head of insight Charlotte Rogers and senior reporter Molly Innes are joined by editor-in-chief Russell Parsons to dig into what is holding the industry back from opening up different ways of entering the industry and its problem with representation.The episode features an interview with Cerys Gardiner, former apprentice and marketing manager at Medichecks, who details the benefits to businesses of hiring marketing apprentices.We also speak to Brixton Finishing School's head of adventure Jo Royce and Simone Johnson, head of new business and strategic partnerships, who discuss the work they're doing to support early talent pathways. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.