Grateful for a busy few months working with several SaaS and data businesses. A few reminders along the way:
๐ฆ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป. Theory doesn't grow companies. Execution does. You don't need the perfect plan - you need to start. I've built a messaging framework "live" in a one hour workshop, a digital strategy in a morning.
๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ถ๐๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐น๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐ฒ๐๐. Consistent messaging is better than better messaging. Endless tweaking is a great way to ensure the market never understands what you do.
๐๐๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฏ๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ถ๐ ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ. When you're small, pipeline beats precision. Yes, learn what's working, but don't get lost in the weeds trying to prove it. Teaming is more important than departmental victory laps.
๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ณ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐บ๐ฒ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ป ๐บ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐. But not for humans. For AI. Those plans/style guides/messaging frameworks that no one read are now the lifeblood of an AI-forward marketing team. Just don't labour the (power)point.
๐๐ ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐บ๐ผ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐๐. This feels like the early days of marketing automation all over again. Except faster. And bigger. Small teams can now punch way above their weight. Yes, there's a risk of beige content - but the upside is enormous if you get it right. Oh, and Claude all the way - great writing, much better file creation and Co-Work really is a game changer.
๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐น๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด. My business has been built on them. No funnel beats trust. No campaign beats a recommendation. In the spirit of which - check out Thomas Coles if you need help. More people should be thinking this way.
And finally, eternally grateful to fashion designer JW Anderson for producing branded JWA merch ๐
20 years of friendship. 150 years of brands.
Finally caught up properly with B2B marketing legend Jason Miller the other week. We go back nearly 20 years, but like most things in lifeโฆ work, travel, lifeโฆ we hadn't really connected in a while.
We met at the Museum of Brands in west London. A brilliant place that charts 150 years of brand marketing, largely through a UK lens. (BTW you pay once and get free access for a year).
What struck me (again) is how universal brand memories are. No matter your background, there's always something in there that pulls you back to a moment, a product, a feeling.
For me, it was computing. My first computer was a Commodore PET that my dad lugged home from work โ took two people to carry it and it was roughly the size of a small fridge. That led to the ZX81, the ZX Spectrum, and a path that eventually took me into computer scienceโฆ and then into sales and marketing. Less love for coding itself, more love for what technology makes possible.
If you don't know Jason, he's a brilliant example of a true learn-it-all. From content superemo (I first met him at Marketo) to brand, demand and growth, he's built serious T-shaped depth โ with creativity right at the centre. He's also a rock photographer and runs a refreshingly honest, no-BS marketing podcast that's well worth a listen (https://lnkd.in/eQ-a_kbM).
A great reminder of everything that's good about marketing: curiosity, creativity, and people who never stop learning.
From idea to desk in just six weeks : a modern marketing sprint across 3 continents
Every now and then a project comes along that reminds you just how quickly marketing can move when everyone leans in. This one - working with a fintech looking to launch part of its product portfolio - was exactly that. What started as a positioning conversation turned into a full-blown international direct-mail campaign. Yesโฆ direct mail. Stay with me.
The brief was simple: reposition an under-leveraged solution for a tighter ICP and launch it with enough impact to cut through a noisy market. Once we nailed the messaging, we went searching for a channel with real stopping power. Counterintuitively, the answer wasnโt โmore digital.โ It was zig-while-others-zag. So we resurrected a long-forgotten hero: the video pack.
Imagine opening what looks like a book, and a video springs to life the moment the cover lifts - no QR codes, no clicking, no faff. Just a beautifully produced story delivered straight to the desk of exactly the people we wanted to reach.
Of course, the client had a designer. But that was it. Everything else, from sourcing a production partner to creating a fulfilment workflow to building a follow-up machine, had to be stood up from scratch. Fast.
The supply chain became delightfully global. Production in China. Design in Ireland. My desk in the UK. Fulfilment in New York. A US-based follow-up team. And 2,000 contacts originally split across the UK and the US, eventually laser-focused on the States. Add in a voiceover artist (found, briefed and recorded entirely over Zoom, becauseโฆ of course!) whose audio we synced into the final edit and suddenly weโd assembled a miniature UN of marketing suppliers.
Then came the data work: cleaning, matching, augmenting and segmenting the 2,000-strong list so our beautiful boxes didnโt end up with someone who left the company in 2019.
Six weeks later: assets created, packs produced (sustainably and with carbon offsetting), freighted across continents, warehoused in New York, dispatched across the US, and backed by coordinated email + phone follow-up - our first prospects were literally opening the box. And donโt worry, for you digital nerds we had a campaign across YouTube, web, email and LinkedIN too.
But the thing you donโt get with digital though - people noticed. They loved the mail. They raved how it was the best thing theyโd seen in ages. They shared it with their colleagues. It made them feel something. Thatโs powerful.
The result? A healthy pipeline of prospective business.
Projects like this still blow my mind: global coordination, brand-new suppliers, complex logistics, creative production, data wrangling, cross-border regulationsโฆ all wrapped into a sprint that couldโve taken six months a few years ago.
But thatโs the state of modern marketing: if youโve got a clear message, a bold idea and the right partners, you can turn a spark into a market moment at remarkable speed.
Will humanity return to marketing in 2026?
We've spent the last two years drowning in AI hype. Every conference, every pitch deck, every LinkedIn post (guilty as charged) has been about how AI will transform everything.
Right now, we've got it backwards. AI isn't Artificial Intelligence. It's Intelligent Assistance. A co-pilot, not an auto-pilot. And that distinction matters more than most of us realise.
I've seen this play out firsthand through two AI-powered ventures I'm involved in: LettsArt and LettsSafari. Both built with AI from the ground up. Both in deeply emotive spaces - art and nature restoration.
AI doesn't replace the human connection. It amplifies it.
LettsArt uses AI to help artists and gallerists build a career, and connect people with art that moves them. LettsSafari uses it to bring people, typically in urban settings, closer to wildlife conservation. Both empower peopleโs passions. The technology handles the complexity - the admin, the matching, the personalisation, the scale - so humans can focus on what they actually care about: the feeling.
That's the rebalancing I think we're heading towards.
The AI gold rush has produced a lot of noise. Automated outreach that nobody reads. Generated content that sounds like everyone else. A belief that less experienced, cheaper talent can figure things out.
But the pendulum always swings back.
In 2026, I suspect the winners will be those who use AI to create MORE human connection, not less. Who understand that technology should serve emotion, not replace it.
We don't need artificial anything. We need intelligent assistance that helps us be more human, not less.
The hype is fading. The real work is beginning.
๐ธ : Me โbeing humanโ at the recent HotTopics CMO Studio event.
2025: Family, Music, Work and One Italian Victory
๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฑ: ๐๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐น๐, ๐ ๐๐๐ถ๐ฐ, ๐ช๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ข๐ป๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฐ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐
As we sunset 2025, Iโve found myself reflecting on a few standout moments from the year.
First, some proud dad milestones. My eldest finally got his first car, making life a little easier as he moves between Greater Manchesterโs hospitals in his fifth year as a medical student. My youngest also had a big year, stepping up to News Editor of his student newspaper in Durham - deadlines, opinions and strong coffee the order of the day.
On a personal note, I was incredibly proud to complete the โMighty Hikeโ - raising nearly ยฃ5,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support by walking 26 miles along the stunning Causeway Coast in Ireland - in memory of my mum.
It was also a great year for live music. From the Sex Pistols to Rick Wakeman, The House of Love, Beta Band, Craven Faults and more - with the clear highlight being Radiohead. I last saw them in 2012 (!), but this was on an entirely different level. An unforgettable experience that still makes me smile.
Work-wise, itโs been a real pleasure continuing to help start-ups and scale-ups find clarity in their marketing, sharpen their strategy and execute for growth. More importantly its been a great opportunity to work with, and meet, so many smart people. Iโve learnt a great deal, and enjoyed every minute.
And finally, perhaps the greatest achievement of all: securing planning permission for building work at our place in Puglia. In just 18 months. Which I believe may qualify as an Italian bureaucratic speed record. Victory! Negronis on me.
Wishing everyone a restful break and a very happy new year.
And, yes, no mention of AI.
Ciao.
Another coffee shop just opened in my neighbourhood. Thatโs number 31.
Walking past yet another new coffee shop opening yesterday in my neighbourhood, I counted. Thirty places to grab a coffee already trading within a 15-minute walk. And someone still thought: "You know what this area needs? Another one."
That takes serious conviction. Or serious delusion. Maybe both. I mean how much coffee do we drink?
But here's what struck me: they're probably right.
Because saturated markets aren't actually saturated. They're just poorly segmented. Every one of those 30 coffee shops/bakeries/casual dining spots serves a slightly different job:
The commuter grab-and-go
The 10am business meeting spot
The all-day laptop warriors
The weekend brunch destination
The evening wine-and-coffee hybrid
Same product category. Completely different businesses.
I see the same pattern in B2B SaaS every day. "The market's too crowded." "There are already 50 competitors." "How can we possibly differentiate?"
Wrong questions.
The right questions:
โ Which specific job are we doing that others aren't?
โ Which micro-segment is underserved despite the crowd?
โ What experience gap exists that nobody's filling?
At VMware, we entered markets with 100+ competitors. At Adobe, we fought in categories everyone called "commoditized." The markets weren't saturated. They were just badly understood.
That new coffee shop owner gets it. They're not opening coffee shop #31. They're opening the only coffee shop that does their specific thing, for their specific people, at their specific moment. The problem then becomes how to communicate that. Enter the marketing team.
And if youโre interested, hereโs my fab 4 out of those 31:
CuriousRoo. A little off the beaten track - its actually a small cafe at the front of a roastery. So super fresh beans. Not the best location as itโs outside seating only, but definitely my favourite in terms of taste.
Chief. Has a pinball room in the basement! I have a soft spot for Chief as they hand-delivered coffee beans to homes during the pandemic lockdowns.
Tamp. Mainly South American coffee along with tasty empanadas.
Heisenberg Coffee Co. Because who doesnโt love a Breaking Bad theme?
20 Film Crew, 3 Days, 15 Parking Spacesโฆ for One Photo?! AI, Please Save Us!
In my corner of West London, thereโs not a month, no a week, that doesn't go by without a film crew turning up. This week it was my street.
Most of the time its for film/TV, but on this occasion it was to take photos of this house for an ad.
A simple โphoto of a house festooned in Xmas lightsโ turned into a full production: 20+ crew, multiple trucks swallowing residentsโ parking, road closures, craftsmen, lighting rigs - they even repainted the side of the house from white to brick red to hang signage and Christmas lights.
And all I could think was: AI should already be doing this.
We worry about AI replacing creatives, but this wasnโt creativity - it was costly, disruptive logistics. I appreciate the challenges of AI producing TV-quality video and the need for IRL work, but surely you could generate a photorealistic image of that same house, lights, signage and all, in minutes.
No trucks.
No repainting.
No three-day shoot.
AI wonโt replace imagination, but it will replace the unnecessary production machinery around it. I feel somewhat torn about the disruption AI is causing. But I can't feel that jobs like this just don't make sense any more. The shift feels inevitable.
Art and a cure for Cancer
You may have read of the passing of acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Sir Tom Stoppard, who died last week at the age of 88.
He was a thinker who made language, art and ideas dance together (and was also not adverse to turn his hand to "lowbrow" films in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises).
His death reminds us that words and stories leave a mark far beyond the stage. And hereโs a powerful exampleโฆ
In 1993 Dr. Michael Baum went to see Stoppardโs play โArcadiaโ, and in the interval experienced a breakthrough realisation. As a clinical scientist he was trying to understand the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the play, one of the characters asks: โIf there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?โ With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which Dr. Baum realised could better explain the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs.
The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of โadjuvant systemic chemotherapyโ, and rapidly contributed to a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patientsโ survival.
Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia.
This story beautifully illustrates why art is not a luxury, but a catalyst. Creativity fuels insight: ideas born in a theatre can ripple out into science, medicine, marketing - anywhere we choose to ask โwhat if?โ instead of โwhat is.โ
Itโs a reminder to us that the division between art and science is often artificial. The magic happens where they meet.
Letโs carry that forward in our own humble ways - with imagination, curiosity and courage.
B2B marketing isn't what it used to be. And that might be OK!
๐๐ฎ๐ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ถ๐๐ป'๐ ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐๐ผ ๐ฏ๐ฒ. ๐๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐บ๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ ๐ฏ๐ฒ ๐ข๐!
Always a pleasure to be invited to the HotTopics CMO Studio at BAFTA. This year, one theme kept resurfacing: B2B marketing continues to have an identity crisis.
We kicked off with the classic debate: Do we actually need a CMO? Should marketing report into sales? The CRO? The CGO?
Marketing might be the only function still regularly asked to justify whether it belongs in the building. We remain the function that must bring the receipts - every month, every quarter - to prove our worth.
And yetโฆ the data says something very different.
Hot Topicsโ benchmark research shows companies with CMOs on the board grow 2.5x faster than those without. Thatโs not a rounding error - thatโs a strategy.
Other interesting reading was, according to HotTopics own research, the top three priorities for CMOs in 2025:
1๏ธโฃ ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐-๐๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ ๐ด๐ฎ๐ฝ. Marketing still struggles to reach senior decision makers. Millennial buyers dominate. Committees rule. Research happens long before intent surfaces.
2๏ธโฃ ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐น๐ฒ๐ & ๐บ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐ด๐ป๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐ฏ๐ฒโฆ ๐ฎ ๐ท๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐ป๐ฒ๐. In my 25+ years, this theme has never left the stage. It just rebrands itself every few years.
3๏ธโฃ ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐น๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐๐ป๐ฐ๐ต ๐ถ๐ ๐ผ๐๐, ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฏ๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ป๐ ๐ถ๐ฒ๐๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ถ๐ป. With more strong candidates in the market, hiring isnโt the burning issue it was. Instead, attribution has taken centre stage - yet another way of asking marketing to prove its value.
So are we in crisis? Maybe. But itโs a productive one.
Great marketing still exists. So does poor marketing. Most of us operate somewhere between the two, nudging things forward - educating, influencing and building impact in organisations that donโt always see it.
But hereโs the positive: conversations like this move the industry on.
They sharpen our thinking, reconnect us with purpose, and remind the business world that marketing is a growth engine - when itโs understood and empowered.
Huge thanks to the Hot Topics team for sparking the debate and bringing us all together. Philip Randerson Peter Stojanovic Faith Wheller Ruth Rowan Ross E. Chapman Duncan Harris
What Todayโs Students Reminded Me About Innovation
Spent an interesting morning at St Maryโs University, Twickenham, listening to final year students present case studies of Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
From the EV innovation of Tesla to the "Fenty effect" in cosmetics to digital banker Revolut to ethical clothing from Patagonia to the growing trend in healthy prepared meals at Simmer Eats, it was a fascinating reminder of how to strategically analyse business success. As well as the spectrum of approaches that can define "entrepreneurship".
I loved seeing the thinking of Schumpeter, Burns, Greiner, Kirzner, Drucker and others alive and well in our younger generation.
Congrats to all the students on their presentations. Great to meet you Roland Daw. And thanks Lucy Timms for the invite!