Embracing Marketing Mistakes

Tom Goodwin recounts the campaign that still makes his stomach drop back in episode 48. While leading a Nokia music service launch in 2007, his team secured exclusive rights to a major Kylie Minogue album and poured around £15 million into media and technology. 

The problem was simple and devastating. Only 37 people were able to download the app because almost no one owned a compatible Nokia handset. Tom explains how he saw the issue coming, why his warnings were ignored and how rigid corporate business cases can derail common sense. The conversation unpacks what it feels like to face an RO...

Niall Ratcliffe is the 25-year-old CEO of noticed., the Manchester LinkedIn agency he co-founded with his older brother Morgan. He has about 60,000 followers on LinkedIn and says the agency makes about a million pounds a year in sales through the platform, by far its biggest lead channel. In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Niall explains why he thinks the old marketer looked for attention while the new one looks for competitors' leads, why relevance matters more than personalisation in outreach, and why he treats cold email, direct mail, calls and LinkedIn messages as vehicles for the message.

Mat Thomas joined us back in episode 49 as he reveals the surprising social media misstep that held Lexus back for years. He explains how the brand’s social team that's tucked inside the PR department and disconnected from strategy, audiences, and brand codes that ended up chasing engagement numbers rather than meaningful impact. From posts about Zodiacs, audiobooks, and even favourite steering wheels, Mat breaks down how the pursuit of “high engagement” pushed Lexus toward light, attention-grabbing content with no commercial value. 

He also reflects on the moment when brands rushed to post about the Queen’s death, hi...

Sam Dunning co-owned an agency with two other founders, has hosted the Breaking B2B podcast since 2020, and now runs Breaking B2B, an AI SEO agency for SaaS brands. In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Sam explains why a keyword with tiny search volume can be worth more than one with thousands, why he thinks many marketers are stuck in what he calls the top funnel trap, and why AI tools recommend brands on buying-intent searches but not on how-to questions.

Sam walks through a page Breaking B2B built for a YouTube agency that...

Jenna Hannon was the first marketing hire at Uber Eats, where the team launched the service in roughly a new city every week for about a year and a half. She left in 2020, became a fractional CMO for Series B and C startups, and is now co-founder of Hatter, a San Francisco AI search agency and platform she started with Peter Holc, formerly of Microsoft and Deliveroo. Chris Norton has been testing Hatter on Prohibition's own website. In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Jenna explains why she thinks Google is fine despite ChatGPT, why most company websites have...

We return to consumer behaviouralist and CX expert Ken Hughes, first featured in episode 92, to revisit the moment that transformed how he believes brands should approach the customer. Ken explains how he spent the early part of his speaking career delivering stock, product first keynotes before realising that audiences and clients were focused on their own business challenges, not his rehearsed narrative. 

He introduces his blue dot consumer idea and shows how it reshapes everything, highlighting how customers now expect brands to move toward them in the same effortless way Uber and Lyft bring the car to y...

John Espirian, the self-styled relentlessly helpful LinkedIn guy, joins Chris Norton and Will Ockenden on Embracing Marketing Mistakes to explain why LinkedIn reach is down for almost everyone and what still works. John is an independent LinkedIn consultant and author, runs the Espresso Plus community, and organises the UpLift Live conference.

John covers why direct messages avoid the algorithm, why you should comment ten times for every post, how LinkedIn newsletters feed search and AI tools, which content formats to test, and why most people do not need Premium. He also shares his own mistakes, including the...

What happens when you pour your heart into a TEDx talk, expect it to skyrocket, and… nothing? We are joined with Niraj Kapoor back in episode 95, and dive into a brutally honest story of resilience, reinvention, and why failure isn’t fatal. Our guest shares how he went from a thriving career in London to losing everything, job, income, marriage, before clawing his way back through vulnerability and persistence.

We talk about the reality behind those glossy success stories, why some talks go viral while others barely register, and the lessons learned when life forces you to star...

Britt Klontz started her career as an SEO agency intern, got a Mashable journalist to cover an infographic by following the journalist's own pitching guide, and now runs Vada Communications as a solo digital PR consultant. In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Britt explains why so many PR pitches fail, why that is rarely the journalist's fault, and why a rejection can be the most useful reply you get.

Britt walks through her own mistake, leading a pitch to an editor at Metal Construction News with too many stats, and how his reply turned into a...

We had Mark Terry-Lush back in episode 94 started his career in the glory days of magazines when Vogue was the size of a phone book and PR was full of big personalities. He worked with some of the most iconic names in the industry and learned how to tell and sell a story. But after 30 years, he realised his biggest mistake: confusing adaptability with focus.

In this episode, Mark shares why chasing every opportunity can leave you feeling lost, what happens when you spend decades building everyone else’s brand instead of your own, and how to fi...

A 20-year agency founder built his reputation turning Pizza Express back into a cult favourite, then years later made the mistake he now calls his biggest regret. Gerry Hopkinson, founder of Unity and now a cultural strategist, joins Embracing Marketing Mistakes to explain how he sold his agency, why he stayed on for five more years, and the commercial decision that cost him a loyal client.

Gerry walks through the Pizza Express "living lab," a real restaurant handed over to customers, chefs, designers, and even an acoustics professor to redesign together, and the customer-psychology insight that made...

Social media can feel like the best networking tool in the world, until it throws you a curveball. We were joined by Asif Choudry back in episode 96. We talk about the early days of Twitter when it felt like a friendly space for real conversations, and how one superhero-themed event turned into a lesson in handling criticism. From swag bags to unexpected backlash, this is a story about resilience and why staying visible matters even when things get uncomfortable.

We also dive into the reality of trolling, online pile-ons, and why ignoring negativity is often the smartest...

We revisit Andy Lambert back in episode 93 to unpack the influencer marketing moment that changed how he thinks about influence in B2B. Andy explains how his team approached creators like a media buy, treating the partnership as a quick transaction and expecting one post to shift perception and drive signups.

He shares the campaign that made the lesson unavoidable. They spent £30,000 on a Facebook Live with a North American influencer, stayed late to watch the registrations roll in, and saw almost nothing. The mistake was not the talent. It was confusing awareness with intent, and expecting d...

A VP of Marketing running two brands at once shares what's working in AI search visibility right now, and admits to one of the messiest direct mail campaigns a B2B marketer has confessed to on this show. 

Val Riley, VP of Marketing and Strategy at Unbounce and Insightly CRM, joins Embracing Marketing Mistakes to explain why she pays a dedicated contractor to represent her brand on Reddit, how a 2.5-billion-conversion research report drives both PR pickup and AI citations, and why removing one line from a signup form quadrupled trial signups overnight.

Then Val t...

Kevin Chesters reveals the painful truth behind what he calls the worst advert ever made in British history. This is a forensic breakdown of ego, bad process and the lessons every marketer needs to hear.

Back in episode 102 of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Kevin walks us through the infamous Big Cheese Dipper campaign. From ignoring clear strategic signals to forcing a flawed creative idea onto TV, this is a masterclass in how good teams end up making terrible work.

If you’ve ever wondered how to stop bad advertising before it happens, this conversation is essential li...

Influencer spend hit $32.55 billion in 2025, and most brands still can't prove it works. In this Prohibition PR webinar, Chris Norton and Will Ockenden break down why influencer marketing keeps losing boardroom arguments, the mistake that turned a Brit Awards influencer activation into a creator revolt, and the six-part framework that turns influencer spend into a revenue channel instead of an awareness line item.

Chris covers the boardroom case for influencer marketing, the Mastercard Brit Awards story, and how HelloFresh beat its own paid acquisition costs on TikTok using creators like Mindy Kaling. Will then walks through a...

Back in episode 99 with Sarah Waddington, we dive into the story of a well-intentioned tweet about a Biff and Chip book image, posted during the height of the Me-Too era. What was meant to be a harmless comment, shared in the midst of the chaos of parenting, quickly spiraled into misreporting by UK tabloids, global backlash, online abuse, and even death threats. As her career and personal life were thrust into the public eye, the turning point came when credible voices stepped in to offer support.

Through it all, the lesson emerged: consistency, values, and resilience matter...

A professor who built his entire career on communication measurement almost couldn't answer the question that started it all. Professor Jim Macnamara joins Embracing Marketing Mistakes to explain why so much of PR and marketing still confuses outputs with outcomes, and what changed after a client rejected his activity report and demanded results instead.

Jim walks through the framework behind AMEC and the Barcelona Principles, a real Volkswagen case study that shifted marketing budget from 5% to 15%, his global evaluation work for the World Health Organization during COVID-19 (including a video series that hit 400 million views), and his...

If you have ever watched a brilliant marketing strategy die in a sign‑off meeting, this episode is for you. We unpack the real reasons ideas fail in the boardroom and what senior marketers can do to read the room, create emotional buy in and keep stakeholders focused on what matters. 

Faris Aranki, founder of Shear Ghetto Consulting and former top‑tier strategy advisor, explains his IQ x EQ x FQ model for success back in episode 96. IQ is the quality of your idea, EQ is your emotional intelligence and stakeholder awareness, and FQ is your focus quoti...

Most B2B brands are interchangeable, and Talia Wolf built a career proving it.

In this episode, Talia Wolf, founder of GetUplift and creator of the emotional targeting framework, explains why most products test identical on every measurable feature, and the two emotional clusters, self-image and social image, that drive buying decisions. She tells the story of the book cover mistake she caught before print, when beta readers including Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds told her the professional, generic design was missing her own voice, and how the comic-book redesign became a number one Amazon bestseller in...

A CIPR fellow with nearly six decades in PR says the industry still protects itself from its own scandals.

In this episode, Robert Minton-Taylor, a CIPR fellow recognised at the institute's 70th anniversary and a 24-year PR lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, argues that no PR professional has ever been sanctioned for their industry's complicity in Grenfell, the Post Office Horizon scandal, the infected blood scandal, or the NHS maternity scandal. He tells the story of the former intern who says he failed her over the Hillsborough police statements, then shares four named mistakes from his own...

A toxic hire nearly cost him his agency. Then he made a similar mistake again, this time trying to build his own AI instead of renting one.

In this episode, Roger Hurni, founder and Chief Brand Strategist of Off Madison Ave, whose client roster includes Nike, Wells Fargo, PetSmart, and P.F. Chang's, breaks down the culture-first hiring lesson he learned the hard way, why his team abandoned an in-house AI build for an off-the-shelf tool, and the AI philosophy he wrote for his own staff: expand your options, never let AI replace your judgment. Trained in...

He ran creative for the world's biggest advertising group. Then his own recommendation to the board cost him the job, and he sold every share he owned the same week.

In this episode, John O'Keeffe explains how he took WPP from a "creative desert" to seven straight years as Creative Holding Company of the Decade, why recommending Mark Read to succeed Martin Sorrell as CEO turned out to be his biggest mistake, and what happened when Read undercut him in front of the entire company. He also makes the case for why AI can execute a creative...

KFC and Weetabix both threw away the most famous slogans in their category, and had to fight their way back to them.

In this episode, Tom Roach explains how "Finger Lickin' Good" and "Have You Had Your Weetabix" both got dropped while each brand chased fresher creative, and the research and internal persuasion it took to bring them back. He also breaks down why the standard marketing sales funnel misreads how people actually buy, why the von Restorff effect explains why distinctive brands get remembered, and how a hundred-year-old rule about creative quality (95% of everything has always...

Ben Branson invented an entirely new drinks category from his kitchen. Then a £1 million hole nearly took it all away.

In this episode, Ben explains how Seedlip, the world's first non-alcoholic spirit, grew twice as fast as the industry standard, and how that growth hid a working capital gap that surfaced mid-flight to Australia. He breaks down how the team traded their way out of the crisis in six months through relationships rather than financial engineering, why he launched straight into Selfridges instead of starting small, and why he chose to publicly embrace a review that called h...

A growth lead at a fast-scaling startup admits the truth: his old company cut a 30-person marketing and sales team, and sales didn't change at all.

In this episode, Hector Hughes explains why a year of growth work, SEO, conversion rate optimization, and endless website testing achieved almost nothing, and how that failure led him to build Unplugged, a digital detox retreat business now serving thousands of guests across the UK and Spain. He breaks down why "tracking everything results in tracking nothing," why most companies never answer the one question that matters, and how stepping away...

Rand Fishkin built Moz into the biggest name in SEO. Then he raised $30 million in venture capital and watched it nearly break him.

In this episode, Rand explains why raising venture capital was his biggest mistake, how it led to a battle with depression and his resignation as CEO, and why he is happier, healthier, and making more money today running SparkToro, a company a twentieth the size of Moz. He also breaks down why traffic has always been a vanity metric, how to build a new analytics framework for the AI and zero-click era, and why...

A top YouTube strategist just revealed the single habit that cost him over 100 million views and then live-critiqued our own channel's titles on air.

Leroy te Braak works with creators and brands doing hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. In this episode, he breaks down why most businesses get YouTube wrong, reveals his IDEAL framework (Idea, Data, Execution, Analysis, Longevity), and explains exactly how a 70-year-old soil-products founder grew from 30,000 to 100,000 subscribers with revenue up 60% month-over-month in just a few months.

Chris and Will discuss why "packaging" (title + thumbnail) matters more than the video...

Behavioural science meets marketing mishaps back in episode 46 with Phill Agnew. As a specialist in testing what really works in ads, Phill exposes how well intentioned campaigns often push audiences in exactly the wrong direction. 

He unpacks the idea of negative social proof, where highlighting how many people binge drink, steal from parks or ignore donation prompts can actually signal that this behaviour is normal and acceptable. Phill shares stories from university alcohol campaigns, an American park full of disappearing petrified wood and even the familiar fundraising banner on Wikipedia to show how this plays out in t...

Most companies have bought AI. Hardly any are actually using it properly inside their teams.

In this episode, recorded live at the AI for PR conference in London, we break down the real reason AI adoption fails in marketing and communications, and what it takes to make tools like Microsoft Copilot genuinely valuable.

Chris Norton is with two experienced voices from the PR and SEO world who share practical use cases, honest frustrations and proven ways to close the gap between AI ambition and execution.

Stuart Bruce is a communications and PR consultant...

In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Chris Pharo CEO from 72 Point talks through the controversy that erupted after critics on social media challenged the term guaranteed coverage. 

What began as a few confused comments quickly grew into a public discussion about ethics, transparency and how PR teams work behind the scenes. Chris explains how two members of his team were unexpectedly named online, why the situation became so stressful for everyone involved, and how a lack of clarity around their processes helped fuel the reaction. He also shares the steps 72 Point took in response, including bringing i...

Everyone is talking about AI transformation. Almost no one is thinking about whether their brand shows up when customers ask AI what to buy.

This episode breaks down the biggest mistake in modern marketing and why PR is quietly becoming the most powerful driver of visibility inside generative search.

Recorded live at the AI for PR conference in London, this episode features Andrew Bruce Smith, Johnny Bentwood, and James Crawford. Each brings a different lens, from strategic AI adoption to data-driven marketing and PR measurement.

Together, they...

Our guest, Guy Utley CEO of Tall Agency, shares a candid story about winning a major pitch despite being severely hungover from celebrating a "Best Creative Agency" award the night before. 

This unexpected success led to a complete transformation in his approach to business presentations, moving away from over-preparation toward more authentic communication.

• Celebrating winning "Best Creative Agency" award led to drinking too much the night before a 9 AM pitch
• Despite being hungover and unable to remember the pitch itself, the presentation was successful
• The partner agency didn't notice anything wrong with the present...

He handed AI a full marketing project… and it came back finished in 30 minutes.

What used to take 4 days of analysis, reporting, and presentation building was done in a single sitting with better insights included.

In this episode, Andrew Bruce Smith breaks down how tools like Claude Co‑Work are changing the way marketers actually work. This is not about faster copy or better prompts. It is about delegating entire workflows to AI and shifting your role from execution to management.

You will hear how AI can analyse raw marketing data, build reports, crea...

A finance worker joins a Zoom call with their CFO and colleagues.

Everything looks and sounds real. They transfer $25 million. Every person on that call was fake.

AI misinformation has moved from theory to real-world crisis, and brands are already losing control. From deepfake CEOs and fake giveaways to hijacked campaigns and cloned influencer accounts, the speed and scale of risk has changed completely.

In this episode, Will and I break down how AI is reshaping crisis management in 2026 and why most organisations are still underprepared. You’ll hear real examples of deepfake fr...

Cory Koryczan opens up about the career mistake that nearly broke her.

Staying too long in a role that no longer fit. She’d built her identity around someone else’s business and clung to safety until it led to burnout. In this episode, Cory talks about the cost of over-loyalty, the fear that kept her stuck, and how she rebuilt her courage to finally walk away. She also shares a second big lesson from returning to work after maternity leave. 

Why confidence doesn’t just snap back and how discomfort became her best teacher. It’s ho...

Most marketing fails before a single ad is made. Not because the execution is bad, but because teams leap straight to tactics and skip the strategy underneath. Ben Norman calls the result "busy fools": lots of activity, very little impact.

Ben, Strategy Director at Principles Agency and host of Marketing Room 101, joins Chris and Will to break down what brand strategy actually is, why so many senior marketers get it wrong, and how to do it properly without drowning in 20-page decks and brand "salad bowls".

What you'll learn:

A missed brief. A room full of decision-makers. A team fresh off the Eurostar waiting to present a tailored proposal that never existed—because the client’s detailed instructions were quietly filed in spam. We tell the whole story with candour, including the costs, the embarrassment, and the uncomfortable gap between personal brand and reality when a simple system failure derails a big moment.

We dig into what professionalism really looks like in sales and agency life: not bravado at the pitch, but the boring brilliance of process. You’ll hear why “creds plus” only works at the right...

Phil Barden, Author of Decoded once led a European brand relaunch that cost millions. The problem was not the strategy, the budget or the agency. The human brain rejected the advert in seconds.

In this episode, Phil explains the T‑Mobile campaign that quietly failed and why the creative meant something very different to audiences than it did in the boardroom.

That mistake changed his career. It took him from senior brand roles into behavioural science, neuroscience and decision science, and eventually to writing Decoded, one of the most cited books in modern marketing.

...

In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Sam Benton, co-founder of Mad Masters, joins Chris Norton and Will Ockenden to revisit one of his most unforgettable marketing moments. Early in his career, Sam walked into a major pitch for Expedia only to realise that Experian’s logo was proudly displayed on every single slide. What could have been a career-ending blunder turned into a long-standing client relationship and a story that still gets a laugh today.

The team reflects on the lesson behind the mishap. Sa...