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This week we’ve laid bait of tempting language to snare the exceptionally talented writer and founder of the language strategy agency That Explains Things, Nick Parker.   A one-time creative director, magazine editor, keynote speaker, children’s book author, Viz cartoonist and crystallised-piss-on-door-hinges remover, Nick now helps fellow copywriters, agencies and brands like BT, PWC, Tesco and Spotify define brand tone of voice.   He talks to us on a treasure trove of topics, including his first paid job creating a cartoon strip for Viz, tips for writing, useful words, authoring child fiction, how to define tone of voice, how to run a good workshop and more. You’d be a fool not to let us bend your ear ‘ere. ///// Follow Nick on LinkedIn. On Twitter. Here is his agency website. And his ‘find your own tone of voice’ kit, Voicebox. And Nick's book The Exploding Boy and Other Tiny Tales. Book Recommendations: Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath Alchemy by Rory Sutherland /////

This week we’ve landed in the docklands of London to catch the baby-faced assassin and CEO of NY Collective, Nicole Yershon, who ignites fires of change consulting huge brands like Ford, British Airways and Pizza Hut.   Heralded by The Drum as one of the 25 most influential women in the British digital industry over the last 25 years, she talks to us about her early career and how she went from selling blouses from a stall on Petticoat Lane to working with industry legend Dave Trott at GGT.   But that’s not all. She also dives into her time at Ogilvy & Mather and a rather ingenious way of generating R&D budget for their London Digital Innovation Lab that involved pimping out Rory Sutherland, her Fearless Manifesto, the work of The NY Collective, her best-selling Amazon book Rough Diamond and a whole lot more. ///// Follow Nicole on LinkedIn. On Twitter. On Facebook. And on Instagram. Find out all about the NY Collective. And Nicole’s best-selling book. Book Recommendations: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari  Rotman Management Magazine  One Plus One Equals Three, Creative Blindness, Predatory Thinking and Creative Mischief by Dave Trott /////

This week we’ve muscled past the marketing mafia to shakedown the Don of decision science; Phil Barden. His client-side chops cover working for T-Mobile, Unilever and Diageo, until a run-in with two Germans and a flash mob flung him headfirst into the world of neuroscience and understanding human behaviour. As MD at decision science consultancy DECODE Marketing, he’s written 'Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy', a best-seller with stacks of praise from the likes of Rory Sutherland.    Phil gives us the lowdown on why he got into decision science, Tropicana’s failed redesign, the emotional side of Cillit Bang, scoffing Jaffa Cakes straight off the production line and tonnes more. There’s unmissable insight for brand mobsters managers too.   /////   Follow Phil on Twitter. And on LinkedIn. Or drop him a line. And check out DECODE Marketing. Decoded – The Science Behind Why We Buy by Phil Barden. The Blogfather sunk his teeth into the Mouldy Whopper debate last week with help from Phil’s WARC article on the putrid patties.    Book Recommendations:   How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett Copy, Copy, Copy by Mark Earls Alchemy by Rory Sutherland  /////

We’ve lurked by the theatre stage door this week to catch Charlie Russell; the West End and Broadway star of the smash hit show, The Play That Goes Wrong. Together with her long-standing friends in the Mischief Theatre company, she has appeared in a hit parade of great shows, including The Comedy About A Bank Robbery and Groan Ups, while Mischief Comedy have recently aired their first TV show on the BBC; The Goes Wrong Show. Charlie talks to us on a huge repertoire of subjects; getting into drama school, the beginnings of Mischief Theatre, how Improv theatre works, what makes a good comedy actor, how pain is integral to great comedy, the difference between performing on TV and theatre, taking the show to Broadway, and what it was like to meet and work with the Hollywood director JJ Abrams. So, exit stage left pursued by a bear and go listen. ///// You can follow her on Twitter. And check out all the Mischief Theatre shows. And the BBC’s The Goes Wrong Show. Which is now available on Amazon. Her agent is Chloe Brayfield at AHA (Amanda Howard Associates). She has also appeared on Griefcast. The group’s great outdoor media is done by JHI Marketing. Book Recommendations:  The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy  If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë  His Dark Materials Trilogy by  Phillip Pullman /////

This week we’ve rowed up the Thames with a wine-laced bait to catch Kerry O’Connor, Co-Founder at Tonic Creative Business Partners. Kerry has many specialities, including marketing strategy, PR, and belting out power ballads to huge crowds for charitable causes. She’s mostly worked agency-side for the likes of Ogilvy, Publicis, Imagination and Dragon Rouge, yet also has client-side chops from a stint with what is now Virgin Media. She talks to us on a vast array of information nuggets, including: working at Ogilvy (where accounts included Ford and IBM), overcoming stigma to get into the industry, big agencies Vs small agencies, client side Vs agency side, business development & strategy, positioning, the pitch process, defining growth and singing as part of a Queen tribute act in the Islington Assembly Hall to over 900 people! There’s so much packed in, it’s a veritable sardine can of an episode. Enjoy. ///// Follow Kerry on LinkedIn Tonic’s LinkedIn Page Tonic's website Book Recommendation: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz /////

This week we’ve snuck up the Thames to Ogilvy’s offices to catch Shelina Janmohamed; the bestselling author of Love in a Headscarf (a memoir about growing up as a British Muslim woman), and the Vice President of Islamic Marketing at Ogilvy- The world's first bespoke consultancy for building brands with Muslim audiences.She also, somehow, still finds time to write for the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the BBC, and was named one of the UK’s 100 most powerful Muslim women.   She talks to us on how brands and agencies can understand the Muslim population better to create better ads and comms, writing books, how writing ‘Be Nice’ on her index finger helps her be a better person, how being a mother has improved her efficiency x10, the social healing power of chips, working on the iconic Motorola RAZR and more. ///// Follow Shelina on LinkedIn On Twitter On Facebook Her books/reports are: Love in a Headscarf by Shelina Generation M by Shelina The Great British Ramadan from Ogilvy. Book Recommendation: Alchemy by Rory Sutherland /////

This week we’ve packed our plasticine and carried out a search of The Avon to pick up Bristol’s finest maker of noise, Gavin Strange. By day, Gavin is Director and Designer at the beloved Aardman Animations, the Academy Award winning studio behind Wallace & Gromit, and by night he indulges in passion projects, drenching them in fizzy, fuzzy energy as he morphs into his alter-ego Jam Factory. A serial tinkerer whose capacity for fun bursts through his beanie, Gavin is also an author, toy inventor and speaker. He talks to us candidly on this, having car parts thrown at his head, pixels, plasticine and what Morph is really like, the unlikely crossover of Maya Angelou and Dragon Ball Z, why we need more wonky things, and a whole lot more. Embrace your fizz and fuzz. Listen and you won’t be disappointed. ///// Gavin/JamFactory Links:   Follow @JamFactory on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn  And visit his website. (https://www.jam-factory.com/) Gavin’s directorial debut, The Amazing Maya Angelou And his brilliant talk at The DO Lectures   Animation Recommendations:    Adobe Creative Cloud (with student discount) Stop Motion Studio Blender   Book Recommendations:  Do Fly: Find Your Way. Make a Living. Be Your Best Self by Gavin Or for more fizzy, fuzzy energy… listen to the audio version Feck Perfuction by James Victore Draplin Design Co: Pretty Much Everything by Aaron Draplin Why? How? What? The First Big Book of Art by Brosmind Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions by Guillermo del Toro Anything and everything by Shepard Fairey /////

We’ve put a tasty worm on our line and cast it into the Big Apple to catch Zenith Media’s Exec VP & Head of Innovation, Tom Goodwin.   The best thing to come out of Sheffield since Sean Bean, Tom has worked with a list of clients that reads like the FTSE 100, including Microsoft, BMW, FOX and Emirates, and he is also the bestselling author of the ground-breaking book, Digital Darwinism.   Tom talks to us on tonnes of topics, including the evolution of tech and what excites him, his experience working at TBWA, metrics & short-termism, programmatic, selling Ribena to the North of England and a whole lot more. ///// Links:   Follow Tom on LinkedIn  On the Twitter And here is his website   Book Recommendations:    Re-imagine by Tom Peters Disruption by Jean-Marie Dru  Alchemy by Rory Sutherland /////

We sneaked up the river Liffey in a Viking long boat and kidnapped arguably Ireland’s greatest marketer for a natter; Colin Lewis.    Colin’s vast experience and multiple industry awards come from a career that includes working at iconic brands like BMI, 118118, Thomas Cook and CityJet, and from working all over the world, from Australia to Hong Kong, Japan, and the UK and Ireland. He’s also a speaker, lecturer and teacher, educating brands such as Unilever, Facebook, Ryanair, and Heineken.   This pod is packed with nuggets of golden insight as Colin talks to us on strategy, friction, robot car racing, the value of teaching and education in marketing, how to truly be market orientated, turning into a grumpy old man, and lots more.   We also assume he has an exclusive membership for The Long Room Library at Dublin’s Trinity College, as he is one of the best-read people we’ve ever spoken to, and he’s shared tonnes of tomes below. ///// Colin Links:   Follow Colin on LinkedIn And on Twitter Read his Marketing Week articles And check out his website   Book Recommendations:    Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt  How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp  The Creativity Code by Marcus Du Sautoy Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries, Jack Trout, Philip Kotler  Deep Work by Cal Newport Competitive Strategy by Michael E. Porter Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari The War of Art by Steven Pressfield Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield  /////

We’ve lurked in the waters of San Francisco Bay to catch arguably the most outspoken and controversial voice in the industry; the bullshit detecting bulldog, Bob Hoffman. He is the acerbic wit behind the highly popular ‘Ad Contrarian’ blog, named one of the world’s most influential marketing and advertising blogs by Business Insider, and is the author of four Amazon Number 1 selling books about advertising. Bob’s commentary has appeared in the likes of BBC World Service, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Forbes. He talks to us on his early career as an adult fiction writer (!!!), ad fraud, his experience of client and agency side, the great danger of tracking and surveillance in online advertising, the de-valuation of creativity, his writing of a new book and so much more. ///// Bob Links:   Follow Bob on LinkedIn On the Twitter Here is his AdContrarian blog And his website You can also check out the details on his 4 published books here   Book Recommendations:  The Anatomy of Humbug by Paul Feldwick The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton  One Plus One Equals Three by Dave Trott   Predatory Thinking by Dave Trott The Big Book of Rants by Rich Siegel Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz  Alchemy by Rory Sutherland /////