That's What I Call Marketing

Most advertising doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because it’s dull and dull is expensive.

In this episode of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne sits down with Adam Morgan and Karen Nelson-Field to unpack the real cost of dull creative and dull media using hard evidence from IPA effectiveness data, System1 testing, and large-scale attention measurement.

The conversation moves beyond taste or opinion and into economics: why rational, low-emotion advertising can still “work” but only by wasting millions; why some media environments structurally suppress attention; and why optimisation, procurement pressure, and performance thinking have quietly normalised mediocrity.

If you work in brand, media, B2B, finance-led marketing, or any category that tells itself it has to be boring, this episode is a wake-up call.

What you’ll learn

Why 50% of ads struggle to beat a cow chewing grass on attention and emotion
How dull creative drives up required spend by millions to achieve the same outcomes
Why CPM is often a cost per meaningless thousand
How attention volume predicts ROI, memory, and effectiveness
Why great creative fails when media doesn’t give it a stage
How risk, responsibility, and “sensible” decisions slowly drain impact from work
Where AI may actually help creativity rather than flatten it

This episode draws directly on the “Cost of Dull” research programme and explains what it means for marketers trying to balance effectiveness, efficiency, and real-world constraints.

02:27 – What do we actually mean by “dull” advertising?
03:55 – The cow-chewing-grass test and why half of ads lose
06:00 – Attention vs emotion: two ways to measure dullness
08:00 – The Cannes “Ennui” experiment and burning money as a signal
11:10 – What “dull media” really means (and why it’s misunderstood)
13:55 – When great creative is wasted by low-attention environments
16:20 – Is dull creative ever the better option?
17:24 – Trust, facts, and why rational messaging costs more
19:00 – Campaigns vs single ads: where attention is really lost
20:00 – Why mix matters more than hero-only thinking
21:00 – Global differences: creative vs media effects
23:00 – Why B2B marketing is structurally duller and the cost of that
26:00 – The “dull eclipse”: performance mindset, optimisation, benchmarks
28:20 – Procurement, pricing pressure, and creative erosion
31:00 – CPM, wastage, and the illusion of efficiency
34:20 – AI, challenger brands, and testing creativity at speed
37:55 – Risk vs responsibility: how sensible decisions kill ideas
41:00 – What marketers can actually do differently
43:45 – Final reflections and where the research goes next

About the guests

Adam Morgan is co-founder of Eatbigfish and a leading voice on challenger brands, effectiveness, and commercial creativity.
Karen Nelson-Field is Professor of Media Science and one of the world’s foremost researchers on attention, media value, and advertising effectiveness.

If you’re trying to explain to a CFO, procurement team, or board why “safe” work keeps underperforming, this episode gives you the language and the evidence to do it properly.

Content Mentioned in the Episode:
Risk & Responsibility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuJx2IJjaFw
Cost of Dull Media Report https://21467338.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/21467338/COMPANY%20MATERIALS/Cost%20of%20Dull%20Final.pdf
Cost of Dull Eat Big Fish https://www.eatbigfish.com/thinking/challengers-and-cost-of-dull
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François Bazini, CMO of Suntory Beverage & Food Europe is one of the most thoughtful brand CMOs in global FMCG
François shares a rare, inside view of what it really means to be a brand steward in organisations like Danone, BCG, PepsiCo and Suntory. From resisting short-term zig-zagging, to building brands that can withstand private label pressure, this conversation goes deep on the realities of modern brand leadership. We explore why marketers must act as brand CEOs, how tension with CFOs can be productive rather than problematic, and why targeting older audiences is one of the most under-exploited growth opportunities in marketing today. François also unpacks the Ribena turnaround, Schweppes’ response to Fever-Tree, and why most advertising testing is misunderstood. This is a wide-ranging, honest discussion about judgment, evidence, culture, and the long game in brand building.

Topics include: Brand stewardship vs short-termism, marketing ROI, working with finance, global vs local marketing roles, age targeting myths, private label competition, creative testing, and why some brands endure while others drift.

03:25 – Career path: from Danone to consulting and global brand roles
04:55 – What BCG teaches marketers about being fact-based
07:00 – Brand stewardship and avoiding strategic zig-zagging
09:30 – Timeless vs timely brand decisions
11:00 – Marketing ROI beyond short-term sales
12:30 – Marketers as brand CEOs
13:45 – Working with CFOs and productive tension
16:00 – Global vs local marketing roles
20:00 – Ribena: brand decline and recovery
22:30 – Going back to a brand’s peak moment
26:00 – The myth of always targeting youth
29:00 – Schweppes, Fever-Tree and category disruption
31:45 – Targeting over-45s unapologetically
34:00 – Media thresholds and focus over fragmentation
35:45 – Moving beyond marketing mix modelling
38:15 – The limits of advertising testing
41:00 – When great ads fail tests but succeed commercially
42:20 – Competing with private label
43:00 – DAQV: desirability, affordability, quality, visibility
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What happens when a radio comedian, a senior drinks marketer, and a 2,000-year-old Roman hydration recipe collide?

In this episode of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne sits down with Merrick Watts and Ed Stening, co-founders of Posca Hydrate — a sugar-free, hypertonic hydration drink inspired by ancient Roman Posca.

Posca isn’t a nostalgia play. It’s a sugar-free, hypertonic drink inspired by a Roman solution to unsafe water — rebuilt for modern life, modern habits, and modern expectations. That means confronting everything from flavour and formulation to packaging, positioning, and retail resistance.

Along the way, Merrick and Ed unpack a set of ideas that matter far beyond drinks:

Why liquid still matters more than marketing.
Why category creation is harder than brand building.
Why refusing “me-too” formats can slow growth — but protect belief.
And why brands should aim for humour, not jokes.

Merrick explains why jokes age quickly, but a sense of humour travels across audiences, occasions, and time and how that thinking shapes Posca’s tone, creative decisions, and internal culture. It’s not about being funny. It’s about not taking yourself seriously while taking the product seriously.

They also discuss building brand in-house rather than outsourcing belief, measuring brand as a startup using Tracksuit, balancing mental and physical availability, and what it really takes to scale a challenger brand globally without losing the story that made it matter in the first place.

This is a conversation about founders, flavour, brand discipline, and the uncomfortable decisions that come with doing something genuinely different.

3:50 – From radio comedy to drinks founder
5:50 – Why the liquid comes first
7:50 – The Roman origin of Posca
10:50 – Turning history into a brand story
14:50 – Ancient wisdom meets modern science
16:20 – Building brand from the inside out
19:50 – Tone, humour, and taking the product seriously
23:50 – Building a category, not fitting one
29:50 – Brand vs physical availability
32:50 – Measuring
34:50 – Global expansion strategy
38:50 – The hypertonic breakthrough moment
44:50 – Risk and belief
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Kit Kats Global Head of Marketing Shares what it really takes to build and protect an iconic global brand?

In this season opener for Season 5 of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne is joined by Wael Jabi, KitKats Global Head of Marketing at Nestlé, for a deep conversation about brand judgement, consistency, partnerships, and the decisions that quietly shape long-term growth.

Wael’s career spans Leo Burnett, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé, and the discussion moves well beyond surface-level case studies. Together, they explore what KitKat teaches us about resisting reinvention, diagnosing the right marketing problems under pressure, and how major cultural platforms like Formula 1 can be used to express brand meaning rather than dilute it.

This is a practical, reflective conversation for CMOs, brand leaders, and senior marketers who care about building brands that last not just chasing short-term performance.
Topics covered include:
Why most brands don’t need reinvention they need restraint
The marketing failure that taught Wael when price becomes the wrong answer
What KitKat gets right about consistency and memory structures
How to think about F1 and major sponsorships without losing brand meaning
Brand vs performance decisions under pressure
Why judgement matters more than tactics at senior levels

01:55 – Wael’s career path: agency to P&G
05:50 – Why advertising isn’t the most important thing
09:40 – A pricing decision that went wrong
14:20 – Diagnosing the wrong marketing problem
18:40 – KitKat and brand consistency
23:15 – “Breaks are broken” insight
26:50 – Making iconic work at global scale
30:20 – Formula 1 and partnerships
34:50 – Showing up in your world vs theirs
38:20 – Judgement under pressure
41:00 – What’s next for KitKat

Thanks to Tracksuit for their partnership with this episode, check out https://www.gotracksuit.com to find out more about the always on brand tracking platform
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Don't Look Back In Anger - the episode where we look back at the biggest stories we covered on The Singles and see how those brands have gotten on this year. So What happens after the marketing headlines fade? Let's we revisit some of the biggest brand stories of 2025 — and test them against what actually changed over time. Using always-on brand health data from Tracksuit, Conor Byrne is joined by Dan and Jasper to look back at Tesla, American Eagle, Rhode, and Deliveroo, six to nine months after the noise. Not opinions. Not predictions. Just evidence of where attention turned into demand — and where it didn’t.
Across very different categories, a consistent pattern emerges: “The campaign didn’t hurt sales — but the brand is weaker than it was.”
In this episode, we explore:
Why Tesla still dominates innovation perception but is leaking trust and preference in both the US and UK
How American Eagle’s controversial campaign held short-term revenue while brand fundamentals quietly eroded
What Rhode’s acquisition by e.l.f. gets right — and the brand risks that come with scaling distribution
Why Deliveroo, post-DoorDash acquisition, faces a preference problem in a category defined by low loyalty and easy switching
This is a conversation is about thinking about long-term demand, pricing power, and resilience not just quarterly performance. If you care about the gap between being noticed and being chosen, this episode is for you.

02:40 – Tesla: innovation without reassurance
11:40 – American Eagle: sales hold, brand weakens
17:45 – Rhode: scaling without dilution
23:05 – Deliveroo: preference in a default-driven category
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