The Marketing Week Podcast

It took 18 months for Ash Schofield to decide it was time to leave Giffgaff. The CMO turned CEO explains that while his team had “positively” disrupted the mobile and broadband market, one thing he hadn’t disrupted enough of late was himself.In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, Schofield retraces his steps back to 2013 when, attracted by the “whiff of revolution in the air”, he took on the top marketing role at Giffgaff just three years post-launch.In conversation with deputy managing editor and head of insight Charlotte Rogers, Schofield explains how he made the transition from punchy marketing director and “self-appointed champion of culture” to a CEO focused on co-creating a strong, ethical business with real longevity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Given, Sainsbury's chief technology, data and marketing officer, and Marketing Week's 2025 Marketer of the Year, has steered the retailer through a period of strong growth by putting customers at the heart of everything it does.He joined Sainsbury's in 2013 and was promoted to chief marketing and sustainability officer six years later. The promotion saw him join the business's board and, as he details in this interview with Marketing Week's editor-in-chief Russell Parsons, allowed him to focus "relentlessly" on making it a brand that listens to its customers.In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, marking Given's first podcast appearance, he shares the secrets to Sainsbury's success in recent years. He also reflects on a varied and accomplished career in marketing and shares career advice for any marketer at the start of their own journey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spearheading a brand turnaround means committing for the long haul, embracing transparency and prioritising patience, according to Burger King.In this latest episode, Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor and head of insight, chats to Burger King UK CMO Katie Evans and BBH London deputy chief strategy officer, Saskia Jones, about their journey from a decade of “Whopper silence” to winning the coveted Grand Prix and Long-Term Brand Building prizes at the 2025 Marketing Week Awards. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Niamh Carroll, a reporter on growth strategies, discusses how low GDP growth necessitates bold creative marketing approaches. Amrit Virdi explores AI's influence on social media, urging brands to adopt more human-centric content. Molly Innes highlights recruitment trends, indicating a recovery in senior hiring despite challenges for mid-level roles due to AI disruption. Josh Stephenson forecasts the transformative impact of agentic AI on consumer interactions and marketing strategies. Together, they provide insights into the changing landscape that marketers will navigate by 2026.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, we’re looking back on the stories, moments and quotes that shaped marketing in 2025.  From it being another 12 months of “more with less” for many brands and a summer of women’s sport, to our reporting on the reality of a career in marketing for working parents and the industry’s burnout crisis, it’s been a busy year.  Host Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor and head of insight, is joined by managing editor Lucy Tesseras, editor-in-chief Russell Parsons and senior reporter Molly Innes to dig into what 2025 meant for marketers. We also hear from our columnists Helen Edwards, Jonathan Knowles and Laura Chamberlain, who share their marketing moments of the year.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, recorded at Marketing Week’s Festival of Marketing with podcast agency 18Sixty, Sadler shares how the charity pulled off its biggest fundraising year to date and how she's built the team for growth.The British Heart Foundation's most recent financial results showed the charity generated £108.4m from legacies, while its other fundraising efforts raised £58.2m, a 22% increase on the previous year. Current president of Women in Advertising Communications Leadership (WACL), Sadler also shares her priorities for the year and how the industry can do better on equality.Extra reading: WACL 50% CEO PlaybookBritish Heart Foundation's 2024/25 financial results Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Specsavers scooped the win of Marketing Week’s brand of the year for 2025, pipping Adidas, EE, Monzo, ServiceNow and Warburtons to the prize, off the back of its success in the October 2024 IPA Effectiveness Awards, where it won gold for its for its ‘I don’t go’ campaign. Founded by Doug and Mary Perkins in 1983, Specsavers has seen strengths in the business, as group revenue grew by 7.5% in the 2023/24 financial year to £4.18bn.In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, editor-in-chief Russell Parsons is joined by CMO Peter Wright and global brand director Spencer McHugh to delve into how the brand has evolved and grown into new territories but kept its purpose core to its heart and maintained “enviable awareness consideration and trust” in a competitive category. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Great leadership is great leadership. Poor leadership is poor leadership, irrespective of what discipline or function that leadership is in," Becky Moffat, chief customer officer for retail banking and wealth at HSBC UK, tells Marketing Week. In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, recorded at Marketing Week’s Festival of Marketing with podcast agency 18Sixty, she shares her lessons for leaders, and how leadership is "fundamentally" about building trust and joining dots. ‘We’ve put marketing in context’: Inside HSBC’s team evolution She also explains how her remit has widened with her promotion from CMO to CCO earlier this year and how HSBC's team structure has evolved as a result. Marketing at HSBC sits within the 'customer' function, alongside disciplines including data and analytics, advertising and partnerships. She describes her team as working in "communities of practice" and explains how the business got to this setup and how, at the heart of it, the customer is being put first. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adidas has been on a transformation journey in the last few years, following a period of turbulence as it grappled with the discontinuation of its popular Yeezy line, waning investor confidence and an overreliance on performance marketing.  Today, the sportswear brand is back on track. Earlier this year, CEO Bjørn Gulden told investors the business had succeeded in building back “brand heat” - thanks to an increase in brand marketing and its new brand platform ‘You Got This’, a clearer brand identity and effective partnerships, to name a few.  In this edition of The Marketing Week Podcast, recorded at Marketing Week’s Festival of Marketing with podcast agency 18Sixty, we get an inside look at Adidas’s brand revival.  Roy Gardner, vice president of brand activation, shares how reinstating marketing fundamentals and getting to the core of what the brand is – and isn’t - created a full marketing solution, “not a brand comms-led, marcomms-led" answer to turning the business around.  “It was about coming together and going, what is it that we can do in marketing to essentially reset and regrow this business?” he says.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fresh from the release of new IPA data revealing the ROI of influencer marketing, in this edition of the podcast we’re taking inspiration from our Influencers Explored series to discuss the numbers, ask what the professionalisation of creators means for brands and how businesses can better support influencer wellbeing.Host Charlotte Rogers, Marketing Week deputy managing editor and head of insight, is joined by reporter Amrit Virdi and Jane Christian, executive vice-president of analytics at WPP Media and author of the IPA research. Our panel is rounded off by Simon Harwood, global effectiveness director at influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy, and Scott Guthrie, director general of the Influencer Marketing Trade Body.We discuss what it is about influencer content that’s driving ROI, why a strong creator-brand fit is essential and ask whether the IPA research will help marketers secure greater investment.Our guests also debate what the increasing professionalisation of the influencer economy means for brands and consider the impact on UK creators of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.