Through the Line with Andy Bargery

In the marketing and advertising worlds, we often hear about the importance of creativity. A great deal has been written about how creativity is a big driver of marketing effectiveness, and it’s hard to argue with the data - see Paul Dyson's work evidencing how greta creative delivers a 12x profitability multiplier in advertising effectiveness, or WARC's Effectiness code. So, what does it take to be creatively excellent? How do you get from good to elite in marketing communications. That's where Neil Quick, my colleague at Oystercatchers and guest in this episode of the show, comes in. Neil has been in advertising for 35+ years, working on brands including, Guiness, Harley Davidson, Co-Op, a whole raft of household icons in the P&G House, and many more. In the show, Neil and I explore why brands should invest in creativity and what it takes to excel. If you work in the world of marketing, advertising and communications, you'll probably learn something new and it will give you a taster for working with us as we take our Creative Skills Bootcamp training around the world.

Building brand advocacy is at the top of a marketer's to-do list, but we rarely think of internal marketing to achieve it. Maybe we're missing a trick. What if you could use internal marketing to create a tribe of advocates to help grow our brand? In this latest episode of Through the Line, I'm joined by Kerry-Ann Stimpson, the CMO of Jamaican financial services firm JMMB Group and host of the Internal Marketing Podcast. In the show, Kerry-Ann introduces her passion for internal marketing and how it is critical in building her organisation's brand from the inside out.

60% of the World's population is now active on social media. It's probably time we learnt how to sell to them there then. In this latest episode of Through the Line, I'm joined by social selling expert Tim Hughes to explore the new world of sales. No doubt Tim is an expert in this space. Not only does he run an agency that trains and advises clients on how to sell better online, but he's also written THE book on the subject. In the show, Tim shares bucketloads of advice for how sales (and marketing) professionals need to shift their methodology forward to get better sales results. This show is 39 minutes and 34 seconds long. Surely you can invest that sort of time to find the secret sauce to greater sales.

A common challenge for B2B marketers is how to reach a C'Suite audience. After all, they're the decision-makers, right? So we really need to get some content in front of the CMO, CFO, CRO, C whatever O, but they are notoriously hard to reach, let alone influence. Thankfully, the team at copywriting agency RH&Co did a little research into the type of content CxOs want to read, which they pulled together into a handy report for B2B marketers. Rin Hamburgh, the agency head, joined me on this episode of Through the Line to take me through the research. One of their key findings was that marketers underestimate the CxO's desire for things to be simple. They want complexity of thinking presented in a way that is simple and engaging, and tied to the bigger picture. They don't want you to sell to them, nor do they have time for waffle. Click below and listen to the show if you want to find out more about engaging the C'Suite with your marketing.