The Marketing Week Podcast

Most marketers are grappling with emotional exhaustion, feelings of being overwhelmed and crippling levels of imposter syndrome, according to Marketing Week’s 2026 Career & Salary Survey. To explore the human stories and real life consequences behind the data, deputy managing editor and head of insight, Charlotte Rogers, is joined by former Deliveroo marketer and founder of training firm Badass Unicorn, Alice ter Haar, and former Sephora CMO Richard Clark, founder of content agency Boodsta. From working long hours covering gaps in the team, to remits expanding to cover two roles in one, marketing’s messy ‘more with less’ culture is leaving marketers exhausted and without a support system. Layer on company culture without any psychological safety and the constant pressure to justify your worth, and some marketers are questioning if they need to leave the industry to protect their mental health. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Ellie Norman joined Formula E as chief marketing officer in October 2024, the 11-year-old electric motorsport was in “plucky startup” mode with its eyes set on growth. Her brief was to turn it into a “global brand”. By the end of its recent 2024/25 season, Formula E had grown its TV audience by 14% to 561 million and its fanbase was up 13% compared to the previous year, reaching 442 million people. All signs that suggest the plan Norman set in place is working. In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, recorded live at Festival of Marketing with podcast agency 18Sixty, Norman shares her approach to partnerships, how she navigates team building and the importance of “building a culture where everyone can do their best work”. She also shares how she approaches her first few months in a new role, with previous jobs including chief communications officer at Manchester United and global director of marketing and communications at Formula 1. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

Hosts Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor and head of insight, managing editor Lucy Tesseras and senior reporter Molly Innes are joined by the wider editorial team to find out what trends, developments and decisions are shaping the year ahead. The episode spans everything from what levers marketers could pull to help gain investment and influence, to the shifting media and marcomms landscape, social media's growing share of brands’ budgets and the impact of AI on martech. We also look at how marketing recruitment is changing, what B2B marketers should be paying attention to and offer a sneak peak of our upcoming 2026 Career & Salary Survey results. 00:00 Intro 00:43 Niamh Carroll on growth 06:51 Charlotte Rogers on marketers' progression 11:51 Amrit Virdi on social media and influencers 21:49 Molly Innes on recruitment 27:32 Josh Stephenson on technology 33:10 Grace Gollasch on media and marcomms 38:30 Emily Manock on B2B Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Playbook2024/25 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.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, Hugo Boss's global marketing lead, James Foster, shares his vision for the fashion brand and the crucial role marketing is playing in its turnaround. Hugo Boss has been on a journey over the past five years, as the business looks to build relevance and top-line growth. Marketing is playing a critical role in this transformation, with CEO Daniel Grieder singling it out as a key growth driver as part of his Claim 5 strategy, which launched in 2021 and is concluding this year. Critical to helping deliver that vision is James Foster, who joined Hugo Boss at the start of the year to head up global marketing and communications. He joins managing editor Lucy Tesseras to discuss his first eight months in the role, how to strike the right balance when joining a brand midway through a turnaround, and why the 'why' is so important when rallying teams to drive change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether it’s a time to reset how you work or a moment to look for a new challenge, September can feel like a fresh start for many aspects of marketers’ careers. In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor, is joined by senior reporter Molly Innes and reporter Grace Gollasch to discuss how September and the year’s final quarter can be a period of recalibration. They discuss how marketers can access mentorship and the benefits of finding a mentor, as well as career development and why it may be a good time to review CVs and refine LinkedIn profiles. Grace also shares how marketers can reassess their agency relationships, unpacking how AI and data are reshaping dynamics, and following new guidance on intermediary fee structures that encourages marketers to ask more questions about the commercial relationships shaping agency selection. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From ghosting and indecision to recruitment being a buyer's market and marketers facing an uphill battle to land roles, marketing recruitment is facing a breadth of acute challenges. Last month, more than a fifth (22.4%) of marketers said they expected marketing job cuts at their brands in the following quarter, according to exclusive IPA Bellwether data for Marketing Week. Senior reporter Molly Innes is joined by former Asahi chief marketing officer Grant McKenzie, Lauren Spearman, marketing consultant, careers content creator and Marketing Week 2024 Changemaker, and Suz Bannister and Lamees Butt, cofounders of Riser, an AI-powered recruitment startup to explore how AI is impacting marketing recruitment, from screening bias to contributing to more applications for roles, as well as the broader challenges in marketers' job searches today, such as ghosting, long processes and indecision. The episode also looks at how companies can rethink recruitment to be fairer, more transparent and more effective, and asks how AI could be used thoughtfully to improve hiring rather than making it harder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In partnership with Google: Google's managing director of retail and consumer goods, Sophie Neary, joins Marketing Week's Russell Parsons, to explore how marketers can harness the latest consumer trends and technological evolutions to fight for greater share of shoppers' online baskets. They examine how brand and retail marketers can use AI, Search and data to unlock growth opportunities, and to face down growing competitive threats from online rivals, large and small. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, we’re discussing why short-termism is becoming a even bigger issue for brands and what marketers can do to mitigate it. Marketing Week’s 2025 Language of Effectiveness survey, in partnership with Kantar and Google, reveals 63.1% of marketers say their business has increased its focus on short-term activity over the past 12 months. Just 17.3% strongly agree their business invests sufficiently in long-term brand health, while more than half (52.9%) believe their campaigns are too focused on performance or sales. The barriers to investing in brand range from a lack of data and budget, to scepticism from leadership and a lack of agreed metrics. As a result, just 11.1% of marketers claim to be able to comprehensively demonstrate the effect of brand marketing and its overall business contribution. To dig into these stats, host Charlotte Rogers, deputy managing editor and head of insight at Marketing Week, is joined by senior reporter Niamh Carroll, Rhea Fox, marketing director for gift experiences at Moonpig Group, and Pete Markey, former Boots CMO and Marketing Week Marketer of the Year 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In partnership with Campaign Monitor by Marigold: Email isn’t dead - it has just been misunderstood and possibly undervalued. This Special Episode unpacks how today’s smartest brands are turning email into a high-ROI channel that powers both long-term brand equity and short-term performance. With Campaign Monitor's senior product marketing manager Michelle Slifcak Villa, we explore the challenge marketers face today to prove effectiveness, how the latest in AI technology is shaping the larger marketing landscape, and how brands who treat email as a strategic channel will outperform in 2025 and beyond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elf Beauty recently marked its 25th consecutive quarter of growth. With sales up 28% year-on-year, it’s a business charging forward while many others struggle with stagnation. Laurie Lam, chief brand officer at Elf Beauty, joins The Marketing Week Podcast to shed light on how the business is achieving its success. “It doesn’t happen by mistake,” she tells Molly Innes, senior reporter at Marketing Week. “It really happens by design, and that design is with our CEO, who has built a board of directors that is 67% women and 44% diverse.” Lam also asks what would happen if other brands had boards and teams that reflect their communities. “We can see that for us, it equals profit. Your purpose is driving performance, and it’s driving incredible results.” Ahead of the next episode in Marketing Week’s regular series, find The Marketing Week Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recent data from Marketing Week's 2025 Career & Salary Survey revealed marketing effectiveness is the major core marketing skills gap. Three in five (60.5%) of the more than 3,500 respondents identified knowledge of marketing effectiveness as a skills gap within their business. In this episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, deputy managing editor Charlotte Rogers, senior reporter Molly Innes and senior reporter Niamh Carroll discuss why effectiveness is such a pronounced skills gap, as well diving into the other skills gaps marketers identified, including social media. We are joined by Rachel Moss, head of marketing strategy as National Lottery licensee Allywn, who expresses her surprise at marketing effectiveness being the biggest perceived skills gap and questions the industry's understanding of effectiveness beyond advertising.