That's What I Call Marketing

In this episode of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne speaks with Andrew Tindall, Chief Growth Officer at System1, about his new publication/pdf The Creative Dividend. Built using global Effie case study data and creative testing from over 250,000 respondents, the research explores a simple but uncomfortable truth: most advertising fails to deliver profitable growth. Andrew explains why creativity has been undervalued in modern marketing, why many campaigns generate revenue but not profit, and why the industry’s biggest problem may actually be a lack of creative confidence. The conversation also explores the relationship between emotion, distinctiveness, media investment, pricing power and brand growth and what marketers should actually do differently. If you care about marketing effectiveness, advertising creativity, and long-term brand growth, this is a fascinating deep dive.

Topics Covered
• Why only 9% of advertising campaigns report profit growth
• The concept of creative confidence
• What the Creative Dividend actually means
• Why distinctiveness beats differentiation
• Why advertising cannot create loyalty
• The link between emotion and profit
• Why many campaigns are designed to fail
• The tension between creative quality and media investment

Timestamps
05:00 What The Creative Dividend is trying to solve
06:32 Why global Effie data matters for marketing effectiveness
07:17 Has creativity been undervalued in advertising?
08:59 The crisis of confidence in marketing creativity
10:16 Why many organisations see creativity as a risk
11:21 The role of the client in protecting great ideas
12:17 Why businesses avoid creative risk
13:00 The shocking statistic: only 9% of campaigns report profit growth
14:17 Are marketers measuring the wrong outcomes?
15:21 The importance of pricing power in marketing
16:45 How creativity enables brands to charge more
19:16 What the “Creative Dividend” actually means
21:00 The four drivers of creative effectiveness
22:00 Why 83% of campaigns are designed to fail
23:06 Why great creative fails without media support
24:16 The power of long-term creative platforms
26:00 Consistency vs freshness in advertising
28:46 What surprised Andrew most in the research
29:07 Why distinctiveness matters more than differentiation
29:48 Why advertising doesn’t create loyalty
30:00 Distinctiveness vs emotion: efficiency vs effectiveness
31:41 Why emotional advertising drives profit
32:44 Why revenue alone isn’t success in marketing
34:00 The debate about gated content in marketing research
39:00 AI, marketing knowledge and the future of learning

Links Mentioned
The Creative Dividend (download the pdf): https://system1group.com/the-creative-dividend
Tracksuit https://www.gotracksuit.com
That’s What I Call Marketing Podcast https://www.thatswhatIcallmarketing.com
Green Hat Episode (gated content discussion): https://open.spotify.com/episode/72D5zXtNRzzNgdjYytRQdI?si=r2kbvHU3QqWVh6sM6na7wg OR https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/s3-ep39-the-b2b-power-shift-what-marketers-must-do/id1615415427?i=1000672178838
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Synthetic Research Explained, Understanding AI-Powered Audience Testing for Marketers
What is synthetic research and how accurate is it really?
In this episode of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne sits down with Dr. Ben Warner, former Chief Data Adviser to the UK Prime Minister and co-founder of Electric Twin, to unpack one of the most talked-about developments in modern market research: synthetic audiences.

This is not ChatGPT pretending to be a consumer. Synthetic research uses real-world survey data, behavioural modelling and large language models to create AI-driven audience simulations that allow organisations to test messaging, product ideas and strategy at speed before committing real budgets. If you work in marketing, insight, product, strategy or leadership, this episode will challenge how you think about research, risk and decision-making.

⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction to synthetic research
02:00 – From quantum physics to behavioural modelling
03:35 – Why human behaviour is harder to predict than we think
05:17 – The problem with traditional decision-making tools
09:02 – What Electric Twin actually does
10:00 – What a “synthetic audience” really means
13:59 – Testing creative, messaging and propositions in real time
15:06 – Accuracy vs traditional survey research
17:00 – Real-world use cases across marketing and product
19:02 – The danger of asking the “wrong” question
23:06 – Democratising customer insight inside organisations
25:00 – Where synthetic research fits (and where it doesn’t)
27:00 – Innovation vs risk-averse organisations
29:09 – The story behind the name “Electric Twin”

In this episode, we cover:
How synthetic audiences are built from real-world data
Why traditional surveys can be slow, expensive and restrictive
How AI allows teams to iterate research questions instantly
The difference between testing ideas safely and making bold decisions blindly
Why trust and validation matter in emerging AI tools
Where synthetic research complements (not replaces) conventional methods
Why this matters
Every organisation says it wants to be “customer-centric”.
But insight is often expensive, delayed, siloed or underused.
Synthetic research introduces a new tool into the decision-making toolkit — one that allows teams to explore, iterate and pressure-test ideas before they go live.
Whether you are a CMO defending budget, a product lead developing a proposition, or a strategy team modelling future scenarios, this conversation explores how AI-driven research could reshape how decisions are made.

If you found this useful, share it with a colleague and subscribe for more conversations with marketing leaders shaping the future of the industry.
🎧 Listen to more episodes of That’s What I Call Marketing
📌 Connect with Conor Byrne for more marketing insight
🔗 Learn more about Electric Twin and synthetic audiences

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What does your CFO actually want to hear from you?
In this episode of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne sits down with Michael Kaminsky former analytics leader at Harry’s and Founder & CEO of Recast to unpack the real tension between marketing and finance. After Michael’s Harvard Business Review article on the CMO–CFO relationship circulated widely (and resonated strongly with CFOs and CMOs), this conversation goes deep on:
Why marketing forecasts keep missing
Why finance doesn’t trust marketing numbers
How to talk about ROI and risk credibly
The problem with last-click attribution
How to structure experiments properly
What “expected value” really means for marketers
Why brand investment must be framed as capital allocation
If you’re a CMO, Marketing Director, Head of Performance or brand leader trying to build a stronger relationship with your CFO — this episode is essential.
⏱️ Chapters
01:02 – Michael’s time at Harry’s: analytics, growth & experimentation
05:00 – The early days of podcast advertising & growth bets
06:15 – False precision in marketing measurement
07:23 – Brand tracking, survey data & real signal
08:42 – The Harvard Business Review article
09:07 – Why CMOs and CFOs feel tension
10:13 – Speaking the language of finance
14:21 – Discounted cash flow & thinking in timelines
15:00 – The credibility killer: marketing marketing
15:32 – Why being willing to be wrong builds trust
18:20 – Talking about risk & expected value
22:18 – Incrementality & structured experimentation
25:05 – Recast: forecasting & bridging marketing and finance
28:28 – The forecasting trap: last-touch attribution
30:19 – Compounding learning & agency transparency
32:00 – Final reflections: marketing as growth co-pilot

🔎 Topics Covered
CMO CFO relationship
Marketing finance alignment
Marketing ROI
Forecasting marketing investment
Incrementality in marketing
Last click attribution problems
Media mix modelling (MMM)
Brand investment vs short-term performance
Capital allocation in marketing
Building trust with finance

If you found this valuable:
✔️ Share it with a fellow marketer
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✔️ Leave a review — it helps the show reach more senior marketers

Check out Recast here https://getrecast.com/
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What does it really take to move from brand marketer to global growth leader?

In this episode Conor Byrne sits down with Orla Mitchell for a candid, commercially grounded conversation about leadership, long-term brand building and earning marketing’s seat at the growth table.

Orla’s career spans senior roles at Nestlé, Kerry Foods, and Mars, where she led global food and confectionery portfolios including the transformation of the gum category and the return of Extra to the #1 position in the US. She later returned to Ireland to join WaterWipes, ultimately becoming CEO and helping scale the brand internationally with sharper strategic focus and disciplined portfolio choices.

This episode goes far beyond career highlights. It’s about how marketing thinking matures from creative execution to enterprise-level value creation.

3:00 – Winning the Marketing Champion Award & what recognition really means
4:40 – From accountancy to marketing: finding the discipline that fit
6:00 – Cutting her teeth in FMCG at Nestlé
9:50 – Being headhunted to Mars & stepping into bigger challenges
13:00 – Dealing with disappointment & knowing when to leave
15:20 – Long vs short term thinking before it was fashionable
17:30 – Entering Mars: business model transformation over “just advertising”
19:15 – Business marketer vs creative marketer
21:00 – The Ehrenberg-Bass moment: science over opinion
24:30 – Creative effectiveness, star systems & why great ads last
27:00 – Test & learn done properly (with action standards)
31:30 – Global roles & navigating “we’re different” market objections
35:30 – Leading the gum category transformation
38:20 – Extra’s growth in the US & penetration focus
41:00 – Leaving Mars & the WaterWipes opportunity
43:00 – Scaling a challenger brand & making tough market choices
46:00 – Marketing as growth co-pilot, not support function

If you lead brands, sit at an executive table, or aspire to do either, this episode is a masterclass in commercially credible marketing leadership.

Thanks to Tracksuit for their support of this episode.
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Zappi CMO Nataly Kelly joins to talk about the Sizzle, Systems & Sales Impact of The Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl is advertising’s biggest stage. $8 million for 30 seconds. Cultural noise at maximum volume. Celebrities everywhere. Music in almost every ad.
But once the spectacle fades, one question remains: which ads actually drove impact?

In this episode, we unpack the Zappi Super Bowl 2026 report (check it out here) built from testing every ad live with 20,000 American category buyers and benchmarking them against the top 100 performing TV ads in the US.

We explore:
– Why emotional response alone isn’t enough
– The role of purchase likelihood in predicting sales impact
– How celebrities can amplify an ad — or bury the brand
– Why distinctive brand assets (Budweiser’s Clydesdales, Nerds’ characters) still matter
– The Pepsi polar bear debate and what it says about brand memory
– How health brands like Wegovy, Hims & Hers and Ro cut through
– Why the best Super Bowl ads are part of a system, not a one-night stunt

This conversation goes beyond ranking ads. It looks at what actually moves the needle — and what marketers without Super Bowl budgets can learn from the world’s most expensive media moment. Zappi’s full report is available at zappi.io here.
Chapters
2:25 – What Zappi Measures
4:07 – How the Super Bowl Ads Were Tested Live
5:00 – Celebrity Usage: Amplifier or Distraction?
8:54 – Brand Recall vs Entertainment
10:15 – Super Bowl Ads as Part of a System
12:38 – Music, Multi-Screening & Attention
13:54 – Health Brands, Outrage & Cultural Relevance
16:12 – Why Budweiser Still Wins with Distinctive Assets
18:34 – Pepsi, Polar Bears & the Coke Asset Debate
20:41 – System Over Sizzle: Campaign vs One Night
23:40 – The Emotional Power of Lays
24:35 – Nerds, Product Demonstration & Penetration
27:00 – What Marketers Without Super Bowl Budgets Should Learn
31:56 – Are Super Bowl Trends Changing?
36:50 – Favourite Ad
38:00 – Why Sales Impact Still Matters Most
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