Mark Ritson on the fall of Nike, KitKat’s perfect positioning and whether Liquid Death is more than just water in a can

11/13/24 • 55 min

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Mark Ritson is back on the podcast for a review of the most read stories this year. We debate if Liquid Death is more than just water in a can, why Nike’s focus on DTC was a mistake and what we can all learn from KitKat’s perfect positioning. Recorded in a pub in London, expect some uncensored opinions from everyone’s favourite marketing professor.

00:00 - Start
05:40 - Mark #5: Brand purpose doesn’t need a commercial excuse
14:13 - Jon #5: Liquid death article
21:15 - Mark #4: There's no such thing as performance branding
25:47 - Jon #4: Nike Winning isn’t for everybody
29:07 - Mark #3: KitKat's perfect positioning
34:33 - Jon #3: Compounding interest, relationships and creativity
39:55 - Mark #2: Why Liquid Death are running into trouble
45:42 - Jon #2: Outrage is the new s*x in marketing
48:32 - Ritson #1: Nike’s biggest mistake
52:44 - Jon #1: Airbnb’s focus on brand

Previous Episode

The brands trying to change the world - Chris Baker, Serious Tissues & Change Please

Chris Baker is an award-winning advertising and social change strategist turned entrepreneur. He is the Founder & CEO of Serious Tissues, a toilet roll brand that fights climate change and deforestation by planting trees with every sale. Over 1.2m trees have been planted in just three years. He is also the Co-Founder of Change Please, a coffee brand that has helped hundreds of homeless people off the streets by training them as baristas, and is available in 23 countries. Change Please was named the World’s Leading Social Enterprise in 2018 and in Marketing Week’s 100 Most Disruptive Brands in the World. He has spent 20 years working on the world’s biggest brands including Unilever, Pepsico, Boots, Sky and Alpro whilst winning over 100 strategic and creative awards along the way.

Find out more about Chris' book, Obsolete, here:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/obsolete-9781399416658/

00:00 - Intro
02:09 - The premise of his book
04:27 - Why Chris called the book Obsolete
06:41 - Making positive change with small businesses
18:32 - Being inspired by change brands
21:53 - How to win against established brands
27:03 - The advantages of purpose
29:31 - How Chris started Change Please
32:48 - Measuring the impact of Change Please
36:28 - How change brands can be distinctive
40:14 - Why Tony’s Chocolonely are making an impact
42:06 - Putting change ahead of profits
47:06 - Applying a change mindset to other industries
49:37 - Making an impact commercially and with purpose
52:55 - How Serious Tissues started
55:53 - The power of partnerships
57:49 - Chris’ biggest takeaway from writing Obsolete

Next Episode

The Power of Compound Creativity with Dom Dwight (Yorkshire Tea), Vickie Ridley (Lucky Generals) & Andrew Tindall (System1)

In this episode, we're going to be talking about Compound Creativity, a new report by System1 in partnership with the IPA showing how being consistent with your creative compounds over time. I'm speaking with the author of the report, Andrew Tindall, who explains the core facets of the report and shares some fascinating statistics on the impact of creative consistency.

And in a double bill, I'm also joined also joined by Dom Dwight, from Yorkshire Tea, and Vickie Ridley, from their partner agency Lucky Generals. Yorkshire Tea have been putting the principles of compound creativity to practice over many years and have been hugely successful as a result. So not only are we talking about the data, we're also talking about the practice.

Download the Compound Creativity report here.

Part 1 with Andrew Tindall
00:00 - Intro
00:58 - Launching the Compound Creativity report
01:35 - Coming up with the right name for Compound Creativity
02:52 - The building blocks of consistency
05:13 - The value of being consistent
08:04 - How compounding helps wear in
09:25 - Power of fluent devices
12:14 - Collaborating with the IPA for the business effects data
15:00 - Don’t fire your agency
16:39 - The 5 most consistent brands

Part 2 with Dom Dwight and Vickie Ridley of Yorkshire Tea

18:29 - Intro to Lucky Generals and Yorkshire Tea
19:25 - Dom Dwight’s history with Yorkshire Tea
22:28 - Where did the “doing things proper” idea originate
25:31 - Narrowing 17 ideas down to 3
26:19 - How to use celebrities well in advertising
29:57 - Yorkshire Tea Ad with Sean Bean
32:06 - Yorkshire Tea Ad with Kaiser Chiefs
38:03 - How does the campaign work across channels
42:24 - Key to a successful client agency relationship
48:37 - The results of Yorkshire Tea’s compounding creativity
52:56 - Advice to clients to get the most out of their agency