My Favourite Marketing Podcasts

October 3, 2024

Today I'm going to be writing about podcasts, because I am a podcast whore.

By which I mean I love listening to podcasts, and in particular marketing podcasts.

There was however once a time when the only podcasts I listened to were music. Soul, hip hop, EDM and dancehall. But once we went into lock down that changed.

See, for me the office chit chat got my brain working. It readied me to be creative, to be effective. Remote working in lockdown took all of that away.

And so I found podcasts. My way of getting some smarts into my brain and be ready to roll. I called it my daily brainfood.

So I wanted to share some of the podcasts that I listen to, make some recommendations, and also find out from you if there's anything that I'm missing out on too. Please let me know.

The first one I'm going to talk about is probably the first marketing podcast that I really got into, and that's Call To Action, hosted by Giles Edwards from...Gasp!

Each episode Call To Action has a guest from the world of marketing, business and beyond, and probes them about their career paths – often squiggly, as mine has been, and how they found their way into what they're doing now. Obviously it goes into more depth than that, but it's a really interesting way of getting into the brains of marketers, beyond them just promoting their latest thing or promote their books.

Another one that has been a go to from the beginning is The Overthinkers, with Shann Biglione and Rachel Mercer. Two brilliant former strategists, though they were strategists when they started the pod.

Strategists like to think and unpack everything, and yes, overthink it. So each episode, they talk about a chosen topic in detail, and as they're both really interesting, smart people it is a fascinating topic focus. And extra kudos to Rachel for keeping Shann in a leash!

Another long-time favourite is Sweathead. If you're not familiar with Mark Pollard, he runs a strategy business called Sweathead which provides training, workshops and runs amazing events. There's also a brilliant book, Strategy is Your Words.

Mark's a really thoughtful and interesting person, and sometimes the pod will be a one to one interview, sometimes a panel, sometimes he's just spitballing whilst walking in the park. It's very open, very honest. In fact The last one I listened to was an hour of him just wandering around Washington State somewhere, but it was interesting stuff, because he's an interesting guy.

The B2B marketing podcast is more recent to me, hosted by Joel Harrison. It’s a podcast with guests, and topical issues, and they unpack these from a B2B perspective, which you don't get so much of. So much marketing and advertising discourse is around B2C and the so-called sexy stuff. So B2B marketing podcast with Joel is brilliant and needed.

Another that's relatively new is Indie Business Club, hosted by my mates Mel Barfield and Ben McKinney. And they are just brilliant together. They're both copywriters with their own businesses though they have also worked together.

Over the last year or so I’ve watched and admired them trying a few formats, such as LinkedIn Live, before launching the Indie Business Club, which amusingly every week has a title that is based on a 90s indie tune. Which goes right over my head most of the time. I'm a soul boy.

Mel is just brilliant, and Ben is too, but Ben, I don't know how you deal with her, mate.

Going back, Let's Talk Branding is something I've been listening to for a number of years now. The host Stef Hamerlinck was a brand designer to start with, and when I first came across the podcast it was in part him sharing his journey learning about marketing effectiveness. He went deep down the whole effectiveness rabbit hole as I had - How Brands Grow, Ehrenberg Bass, Binet and Field etc. It’s now very much a brand strategy perspective, and I absolutely love what has become his catchphrase, buckle up, and let's talk branding.

The Whole Marketer with Abby Dixon is really, really wonderful, because it tackles everything. The clues in the name. It does technical skills, it does job skills, but it also soft skills and life balance. It really is about the whole marketer. And Abby's just such a lovely, warm person. I was lucky enough to meet her at an event and she is as lovely in person as she comes across on the podcast, but also super smart.

So The Whole Marketer is one that I love. Get the book as well.

I remember once asking Mark Ritson whilst doing his mini MBA course, it’s not like we just hang out in front of the bins together, which podcasts he listened to. There are only two, Call To Action, which I mentioned above, and On Strategy Showcase with Fergus O'Carroll.

What's brilliant about On Strategy is that each episode Fergus will unpack a single campaign, and deep dive into how it came to be made, how effective it was and he'll talk about what the “unlock “is, the insight and what makes the campaign work. There’s some absolutely brilliant case studies on there. So not only is it worth subscribing to, it's one of those where you can always find something useful digging into the back catalog.

Uncensored CMO is another that I've been listening to from the beginning. The host Jon Evans is a former CMO who now works at System 1, who I'm kind of low-level in love with, I have to be honest, I love what they're doing there.

But anyway this is about marketing from the inside, from the CMO side. So it's not so much about execution, it's not so much about strategy really, and it's not about the agency world, but it is brilliant listening and Jon is a really engaging host, funny, exciting and excitable.

Also, just to put out there in case you haven't listened to it and you don't know, Jon once got sacked twice within six months.

Last but in no way least is What Gets Measured, a Ninjacat podcast hosted by Jake Sanders.

Jake isn't just a brilliant podcast host and a fantastic marketer, he's a ridiculously talented musician, hilarious guy, and for me, growing up in the 80s as a soul Hip Hop kid, Jake plays saxophone for Big Daddy Kane. So there's nothing not to love there.

There's lots of stuff in there, mainly in and around digital marketing and data, but Jake’s take on it breaks it down and lets his guest shine. And this is a guy that created a musical about big data. Yeah, he's smart and funny, but also, I've never heard anyone ask a guest to make make a decision by imagining that he just pulled a shiv on them in a dark, dark alleyway. The genius of Jake Sanders.

So that's it. That's my little download of podcasts what I download.