But what do you think of our logo?

“But what do you think of our logo?”

The chilling first question asked by a CEO after an hour’s strategic marketing presentation.

Briefed to outline my broader vision and action plan to accelerate growth in a global tech brand, I dutifully laid out a short presentation covering:

  • Marketing Vision

  • Market Forces & Ecosystem Dynamics

  • Repositioning the Business

  • Strategic Marketing Priorities

  • First 100 Days Action Plan & Success Metrics

  • Team Vision, Leveraging AI & Leadership Approach

You know when you think you nailed it. The CEO nodded along, seemed engaged and thanked me for laying things out. But then came the all important first question. I was floored. I didn’t know what to say.

But there you are - all was revealed about the role of marketing in THAT company - make things look pretty and solve the company’s ills by “better” “marketing”.

Reminds me of another company who, in the hiring process, wanted to see my campaign portfolio. FFS. Again, pointless. My prior work could’ve been backed by a $10M agency budget just as much as by knocking things up myself in Adobe Creative Suite. I politely pulled out of the process.

For many business leaders, marketing hasn’t broken out of the colouring-in department.

So the lesson? Perhaps as it’s always has been - marketing lacks a standard definition, and a CMO/VP Marketing/Head of role can mean anything to anyone. The Job Description may say “strategic leader driving growth, able to operate at the highest level”, but don’t make assumptions. If you’re in the business, be clear on KPIs. If you’re going in to a business, really understand what is meant by “marketing”. Quiz deeply, ask questions, clarify.

Finally, don’t get me wrong, image, identity, naming, logo, lock-ups, strap-lines, colour palette are all REALLY important components of great marketing. But to get there takes insight & data. Not a gut feel assessment. And certainly not the first question out of the gate.

Next up: the CRO who told me that marketing doesn’t generate leads (!)

Always walk facing the traffic

"Always walk facing the traffic" 🚶‍♂️‍➡️🚗

Still the best advice I got at 11 years old.

Picture this: A rain-soaked Boy Scout, freezing his a*se off on a "summer" hike in the Lake District. Our leader drops this wisdom: When there's no footpath, walk where you can see what's coming.

Don't get hit from behind.

Decades later, I still work out the logic. Even in Italy last month, watching a Piaggio Ape buzz towards me (that's "bee" not "gorilla" for the non-Italians).

Here's the thing: Marketing works the same way.

Too many marketers get blindsided. They're so busy looking at dashboards, they miss the truck coming around the corner.

The only way to survive? Face the traffic head-on.

Some examples from my own journey:

2000s: Founded a face-to-face networking dinner club when everyone was going digital. Built connections that still pay dividends today.

2010s: Got my hands dirty as a CMO - even wrote a daily music blog for a year. While others debated strategy, I learned by doing.

2020s: Dove headfirst into AI. Not just talking about it - actually building with it. Prompts, agents, automation. The works.

The pattern? I didn't wait for change to hit me from behind.

That free webinar you're avoiding? The coffee with someone outside your bubble? That AI tool you're "too busy" to learn?

That's your traffic.

Stop walking backwards. Turn around. Face what's coming.

It won't cost you much. Just the willingness to see what's ahead before it runs you over.

Angst!

I’ve never seen so much angst in marketing as there is right now!

Having had several rich, unfiltered conversations with other marketing leaders in the past few weeks a few things really stuck with me.

Marketing is having an identity crisis. Are we growth drivers? Brand builders? Revenue enablers?

We debate this more than any other function. Instead of obsessing over internal definitions, we should obsess over customers.

And when it comes to reaching new customers, we’re so caught up in contemplating our own navels, we ignore the way WE actually buy - through referrals, networks, and recommendations. And yet, many marketing teams are still chasing attribution models that rely on outdated touchpoints when most real influence happens in “dark social” and trusted peer networks.

Imagine flipping your new logo strategy to focus entirely on turning happy customers into referral engines. Connect them to prospects at events, put them front and centre in your brand campaigns, make them the heroes of your website.

And, no, AI is not the enemy - slow, expensive marketing is. I’ve used it to create campaigns, analyse customer transcripts, build ICPs, and generate Share of Voice insights. AI lets me spend less time formatting and more time thinking.

So enough with the angst! Let’s stop debating what marketing is and start showing what marketing does - by putting customers at the centre, embracing AI as a force multiplier, and driving real impact where it counts.

Time to lead with confidence.

Managing Growth Through Uncertainty

Enjoyed listening to Sam Jacobs of Pavilion on the topic of "Managing Growth Through Uncertainty" at this week's Chargebee's Beelieve London Conference.

Here are my top takeaways for anyone trying to grow efficiently in 2025:

📉 Growth at any cost is dead. Marketers need to understand the cost of capital, not just how to spend a budget. It’s not about hitting your number; it’s about hitting it at the right cost.

🔁 Retention is your growth strategy. Still over-indexing on acquisition? Sam made it clear: retention beats new logos. Make sure your funnel extends after the sale and on renewals.

🎯 Revisit your ROI assumptions. LTV is fragile if your churn’s creeping up or cost to serve is ballooning. Efficient growth needs solid unit economics. Benchmark: LTV:CAC ratio of 5:1, payback under 18 months.

🎢 Test, learn, experiment (I've always been a fan!). Use data to drive learning an split your budgets to support this mantra: 60%: on proven channels ; 30% on confident experiments ; 10% on risky but worth-it ideas.

📊 Run marketing like finance. That means:

  • Monthly cash flow forecasts (yes, even for marketing!)

  • Gradual scaling (10k on LinkedIn this month? Cap next month at 15k)

  • Aligning incentives around moments that create value, not just clicks

Most importantly: Don’t freeze. So many practitioners are delaying right now. But delay = decline. If your competitors hit pause, it might be your best shot at market share.

Biggest takeaway? "Let’s not create a self-fulfilling slowdown by pulling back on smart growth. Use the data. Make the case. Keep moving."

Thanks Sam for the clarity 🙌

And great to see you, albeit briefly, Katherine Torrence, Jessica Michael, Dhevesh Mewawalla.

#B2BMarketing #EfficientGrowth #Pavilion #RetentionMarketing #CMO #MarketingStrategy #Beelieve2025

Let's talk about the B word.

🚨 I’m going to talk about the B word. Yes… BRAND.

It’s cropped up in three different conversations over the past week. Firstly with Chris Wilson of Transmission, we chatted about how marketers have done themselves a disservice by trying to categorise “demand” and “brand” spend. In fact, we’ve done a really bad job, confusing our leadership peers to such an extent that they now see them as distinctly separate & almost competitive buckets of spend. Chris has started to use the term “reputation” instead. “Brand” has almost become a dirty word. One Exec last week told me it was “the part of the budget that has no impact”.

We all know that brand and demand go hand in hand. Does brand need a, errmmm, re-brand?

Cut to Orlando Wood of System 1 talking about this very topic on Rooster Punk’s “The B2B Creative Revolution” Virtual Event. He proposes a different way of looking at things: two marketing/advertising modes: showmanship (story-led, emotionally engaging, right-brain, long-term brand growth) and salesmanship (product-centred, rational, left-brain, short-term activation). Modern campaigns have over-rotated toward salesmanship - quick cuts, on-screen claims, rhythmic edits - eroding effectiveness as emotion-rich work falls to only ~6 % of ads.

Emotion matters because it 1) grabs attention, 2) builds preference, and 3) protects price, all of which lift profit. System1’s data show that four- and five-star “fame” ads - those that spark strong emotions - deliver the highest ROI. History echoes this: the 1950s fact-based USP era (pioneered by Rosser Reeves) ceded to Bill Bernbach’s creative revolution (see the “Lemon” ad for the VW Beetle), proving that wit and charm outsell dry repetition.

Showmanship seems to resonate better with executives too, and to revive it, Orlando offers three principles:

  1. Find the magic: the attention-getting device must also tell the product story.

  2. Moto e azioni: pioneered by renaissance artists, “motion & action” is a way of depicting pivotal human moments - in faces, gestures, connections - to trigger feeling.

  3. Fluent device: use a recurring character or scenario (e.g., Specsavers, M&M’s) to build easy mental recall and justify premium pricing.

Yorkshire Tea’s long-running “where everything’s done proper” campaign illustrates all three, doubling market share since 2017. And in B2B, Workday has done a great job with their Rockstar Campaign (featuring a host of real rockstars from Ozzy Osbourne to Gene Simmons to Gwen Stefani).

Orlando calls for a new creative revolution, and I like it! Check out his “Advertising Principles Explained (APE)” course with Sir John Hegarty.

Ultimately we need to work our way back to spending our hard-won budget in the right way for our businesses. Growth will not come without investment in both showmanship and salesmanship. Whatever we decide to call it.

SEO+GEO=FTW

Ever sat in a business review and have your CEO Google your brand/product/category and ask why results come up blank? Speaking to peers, it seems to be a familiar story…often embarrassing but always a wake-up call on living the real customer journey, and not one that starts with that awe-inspiring whitepaper download or wonderfully-catered breakfast briefing.

Now AI-driven search - from ChatGPT to Google's AI Overviews - is reshaping the path to purchase. I thought TrustRadius' 2025 report, "Bridging the Trust Gap: B2B Tech Buying in the Age of AI” made interesting reading. Four things struck me:

1. AI is the new search front door. 72% of B2B buyers now encounter Google’s AI Overviews during research, with 90% clicking through to at least one cited source. >> Your content needs to be in the AI spotlight.

2. Buyers decide earlier, and with AI help. 60–70% of B2B decisions are made before vendor contact and 7% of buyers are now using tools like ChatGPT directly. >> Your first impression may come via an AI summary.

3. Trust in AI content is growing. 80% of buyers now trust AI-generated content at least some of the time. A 19% jump year-on-year. >> Quality content matters more than ever.

4. AI usage is rising fast. Occasional use of AI in B2B buying rose from 17% in 2024 to 30% in 2025. >> The laggards are shrinking.

I had the pleasure of catching up with AI expert Christopher Kelly PhD, whose work in natural language processing and decision science is helping shape the future of web content. What I took away from our conversation is that Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) actually builds on SEO. In fact AI often uses search engine results as its source (who knew?). Additionally, AI favours authoritative, well-structured, conversational and frequently updated content. But more importantly (and somewhat ironically) it also hates vanilla content (and bullet points!), so maintaining a strong, unique brand voice is equally essential. Christopher is pioneering some fascinating work, identifying 150+ features that help your content surface in AI-generated responses - without hurting traditional SEO performance.

💡 The takeaway? Optimising for AI isn’t optional - it’s foundational. Content must be AI-friendly. You need to think GEO and get ahead of the game. Make sure next time it’s not SEO, Uh-oh, but SEO, GEO, FTW!

Who Remembers Tumblr? Lessons in Tech, Empathy & Daily Music Blogging

Lessons in Tech, Empathy & Daily Music Blogging 🎧💡

Remember Tumblr? That place where gifs went to live forever, fandoms flourished, and your experimental poetry probably still lingers in the digital ether?

Well, back in 2014, I decided to embark on a rather eccentric side project: write a daily music blog/Tumblr for an entire year. Yes, daily. Every. Single. Day. 😅

The blog (Morning Music Shuffle) was my attempt to combine a love of music, a need to better understand content marketing, and possibly some masochistic tendencies 🥴.

What started as a quirky experiment quickly became a crash course in content creation, consistency, and most importantly - customer perspective 🧠.

Looking back, this wasn’t just about music. It was about walking the walk 👣.

Why Marketers Need to Get Their Hands Dirty 🛠️

Too often, we sit in meetings debating campaign frameworks, buyer journeys, and martech stacks. But here’s the truth: you can’t understand what it means to engage an audience if you’re not doing it yourself. You need to live the customer experience 🙌.

That little Tumblr blog taught me more about SEO, tagging, audience behaviour, and CX than any whiteboard ever could. Not because it was complex but because I used the platform, felt the friction, and had to earn every reader 🧩.

It was content marketing in its rawest form: no paid media, no automation, no fancy analytics dashboard. Just a post, a track, and the hope someone out there enjoyed it 🎵❤️.

That kind of empathy, really thinking about what someone else would want to read or listen to, is exactly what today’s marketing often forgets. We forget that at the end of every campaign is a person, probably scrolling on their phone while drinking lukewarm coffee ☕📱.

So, What Did I Learn From a Year on Tumblr?

💡 Empathy beats assumptions. Real marketing starts with understanding the human on the other side of the screen.
💡 Consistency is hard, but it builds trust (and a backlog of great content).
💡 Tools don’t just support marketing, they shape it. Learn them, use them, respect them .
💡 Oh, and never underestimate the power of a great playlist!

So, if you're a marketer wondering whether you really need to get hands-on with your tech stack or spend more time seeing the world through your customer’s eyes… the answer is yes! Preferably, with headphones on 🎧😉.

📸 : Author's own! Kraftwerk @ Tate Modern, 2013.

Curiosity. Experimentation. Acceleration. The Future of Marketing with AI.

Twelve months ago, most marketing teams I spoke with were cautiously circling the edges of AI - curious, but conservative. But in just a year, we’ve gone from guarded experimentation to full-on integration. AI isn’t a side project anymore. It’s woven into how we can work, plan, create, and grow.

Speaking with agency heads and peers over the past few weeks alone, its clear AI is not just a strategic play niw - it’s a cultural one. Innovative leaders doesn’t just push for AI adoption, they’re now rallying employees to think differently, experiment relentlessly, and see AI as an amplifier of human potential, not a replacement.

As a Computer Science graduate, I’ve always been curious about innovation and quick to adopt emerging tech in marketing. My own AI journey started back in 2017, launching Adobe’s AI offering at the time, Adobe Sensei. Since then I launched AI Search at Yext in 2020, lead AI adoption within VMware marketing in 2022 and more recently work within LettsGroup, pioneers of an AI-powered VentureFactory that helps startup ventures get from idea to exit.

In tech you’ve always needed a learn-it-all mentality but Kieran Flanagan’s recent LinkedIN post highlighted two emerging trends that are particular to AI:

  1. Employees need to take ownership of their AI knowledge. You can't rely on others to teach you. You have to do the work.

  2. Before asking for more headcount and resources, leaders should ask if AI can do this.

I’m taking ownership by using tools like MyTelescope, ChatGPT, Deep Research, Claude, and agent.ai daily to streamline and supercharge my personal work. Plus I keep up with the daily innovations by participating in industry forums hosted by the likes of B2B Marketing, Pavilion, CMO Circle, Propolis, IQPC and more.

But a word of caution. It’s tempting to fall in love with the efficiency gains AI brings - faster content, streamlined workflows, endless outputs. But more content doesn’t always mean better content.

At the same time, we need to engage more deeply with the ethical questions AI raises. These tools are powerful - but what exactly are they trained on? And can we confidently say they’re safe for commercial use? These are critical conversations we must have as we embed AI into our day-to-day work.

So, let’s nurture curiosity. Create space for innovation. Encourage teams to explore, experiment, and embrace what’s next. But let’s keep intentional too.

Because the future of marketing isn’t just AI-enabled - it’s AI-accelerated. And we get to lead the way.

#AI #MarketingLeadership #Innovation #FutureOfWork #CMO #AIinMarketing #B2BMarketing