

The Marketing Week Podcast
Marketing Week
Marketing Week is one of the UK’s most respected business titles and a trusted and authoritative voice on the marketing industry. Listen to our award-winning editorial team discuss key topics with leading industry voices. From exploring what's next in career development and leadership, to the future of B2B, Marketing Week takes listeners behind the scenes of the world's most effective marketing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 15, 2025 • 49min
Hugo Boss's James Foster on marketing's role in its brand transformation
In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, Hugo Boss's global marketing lead, James Foster, shares his vision for the fashion brand and the crucial role marketing is playing in its turnaround.Hugo Boss has been on a journey over the past five years, as the business looks to build relevance and top-line growth. Marketing is playing a critical role in this transformation, with CEO Daniel Grieder singling it out as a key growth driver as part of his Claim 5 strategy, which launched in 2021 and is concluding this year.Critical to helping deliver that vision is James Foster, who joined Hugo Boss at the start of the year to head up global marketing and communications.He joins managing editor Lucy Tesseras to discuss his first eight months in the role, how to strike the right balance when joining a brand midway through a turnaround, and why the 'why' is so important when rallying teams to drive change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sep 1, 2025 • 48min
How marketers can recalibrate going into the final quarter
Whether it’s a time to reset how you work or a moment to look for a new challenge, September can feel like a fresh start for many aspects of marketers’ careers. In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor, is joined by senior reporter Molly Innes and reporter Grace Gollasch to discuss how September and the year’s final quarter can be a period of recalibration. They discuss how marketers can access mentorship and the benefits of finding a mentor, as well as career development and why it may be a good time to review CVs and refine LinkedIn profiles. Grace also shares how marketers can reassess their agency relationships, unpacking how AI and data are reshaping dynamics, and following new guidance on intermediary fee structures that encourages marketers to ask more questions about the commercial relationships shaping agency selection. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aug 25, 2025 • 48min
The state of marketing recruitment - is AI making it worse for candidates?
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.

Aug 13, 2025 • 39min
Special Episode: Retail's sweet spot between AI, Search and data
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.

Jul 31, 2025 • 48min
How to address marketing's 'culture of short-termism'
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.

Jul 15, 2025 • 39min
Special Episode: Closing the email effectiveness gap
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.

Jul 11, 2025 • 16min
Elf Beauty’s chief brand officer Laurie Lam on making purpose a growth driver
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.

May 8, 2025 • 45min
How can marketing fix its effectiveness skills gap?
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.

Apr 22, 2025 • 1h 8min
The Marketing Week Podcast: Exploring the reality for working mums
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.

Apr 3, 2025 • 48min
WHSmith disappears, 'Share a Coke' returns and restructures
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.