Articles

What are the 3Cs of marketing (and why do they matter)?

Peter Sumpton — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Stop overcomplicating brand positioning. Start with the 3Cs model and you can’t go wrong, says Mark Ritson

Positioning has a habit of becoming more complicated than it needs to be. It is easy for untrained marketers to become overly reliant on brand positioning maps and value proposition canvases – positioning tools that are often mistaken for the job itself. The real job of positioning is much simpler:

Understand what consumers want;
identify what your company can genuinely deliver;
and ensure the offer is credible versus competitors.

The Three Cs model – Consumer, Competitor, Company – is a foundational marketing framework that keeps positioning anchored in strategy rather than promotion. By sitting at the intersection of these three forces, it helps marketers identify where meaningful, relative differentiation can be created.

Consumer. What matters to buyers in your category? What do they genuinely want? What problems are they trying to solve?

Good positioning starts with demand, not internal ambition. If the position does not connect to what customers care about, it will struggle to move behaviour. Strong positioning begins with the customer and the problem being solved.

Company. What can the business genuinely deliver? What assets, capabilities, products or operational strengths make the chosen position believable? This is a test of credibility, not wishful thinking. Without that internal substance, positioning will collapse under scrutiny.

Ambition matters; fantasy is expensive.

Competitor. Positioning is never created in a vacuum. A claim only matters if it separates you from the alternatives. This is where marketers need discipline. “Innovative”, “premium” and “putting you first” are not strategic positions in their own right, especially if the rest of the category says the same thing.

Competitive context matters, because points of difference (or ‘relative differentiation’) can account for 94% of a brand's pricing power according to data from Kantar.

Mark Ritson defines relative differentiation as positioning on “more or less of something than the competition”– e.g. IKEA is cheaper and more efficient. Ryanair is lower fare. Dyson is more engineering-led.

Competitive context matters ... relative differentiation can account for 94% of a brand's pricing power

A classic positioning example is Volvo and its long-running association with safety – “safety is in our DNA”, as they aptly put it. There is a real consumer need: people want to feel safe in a car. Volvo is safer than other cars. There is clear competitive value in owning that space.

Crucially, Volvo can support such claims through its history of safety innovation, from the three-point safety belt to current safety systems and data-led development. Volvo's positioning is continually reinforced by how it engineers its cars.

Aldi shows the same logic. Shoppers want dependable quality at lower prices. Although competition is intense, Aldi can support its positioning: a tight range, own-label bias, EDLP discipline and corporate messaging consistently centred on everyday value and award-winning own brands.

It is a position grounded in how the business operates, not just how it advertises, resulting in Aldi being the cheapest supermarket in 2025.

Aldi's position is grounded in how the business operates, not just how it advertises

Good brand positioning is simple. Positioning is what we want someone to think when they think about our brand. Mark Ritson makes this abundantly clear on the MiniMBA in Marketing. This is the enduring power of the Three Cs. It’s a very simple model, but it stops positioning from drifting into abstraction.

The best positions are desirable to consumers, defensible against competitors and deliverable by the company. Miss one, and positioning crumbles.

As Mark Ritson says: “The 3Cs is an inalienable test. The 3Cs will always get you through. If you get anything that ticks the Three Cs boxes, that we can deliver better than or different than the competition, which our customer really wants – that’s the answer.” (MiniMBA Q&A with Mark Ritson*)

The 3Cs is an inalienable test ... it will always get you through

Brand ladders and positioning statements and positioning maps are all useful tools that can inform and enrich a strong brand position (many of which you’ll learn on the MiniMBA in Marketing); but at its core, brand positioning must pass the Three Cs.

The process of positioning can become as complex as we make it. But starting with this simple, elegant model keeps the work anchored in the fundamentals of effective marketing strategy.

*MiniMBA Q&As with Mark Ritson

Biweekly Q&As are a core part of MiniMBA in Marketing, MiniMBA in Brand Management and MiniMBA in Management – giving learners a chance to ask questions, reflect on recent modules and gain additional insights from the course professor. Find out more or download a course calendar here.

Cover: Volvo Ex60/Volvo

The future of linear TV, the marketing knowledge gap and the ghost of the Metaverse

Daisy Truman — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:15:00 GMT

Empirical research from Mark and Ipsos pulls the cover off the marketing knowledge gap, plus the future of AI marketers, the metaverse and more in the latest Ritson round-up...

If you haven’t seen Mark on your LinkedIn recently talking about how ‘marketers need to know more about marketing’, where have you been?

Ipsos surveyed 1,226 marketing practitioners across the UK, US, Canada and Australia, and the results show two-thirds of marketers would fail a basic marketing knowledge test. If you know Mark, you know he isn’t going to let this go lightly.

But fear not, there is a light at the end of a bleak tunnel, because April means MiniMBA courses are starting! We are welcoming a new cohort of hungry marketers into the virtual classroom over the coming weeks.

If you want to get a piece of the action, it’s not too late. Make 2026 the year you upskill yourself. Or here’s a better idea: ask your company to use some of their training budget to fund your place on the course.

Not only will you immediately become a better, more effective marketer (which benefits them), you will also regain your confidence and hunger for our craft.

If you want to talk to our team about booking a place on our April course, reach out to us here.

Or secure your space in the virtual classroom now.

The Drum: Unlikely teammates ITV and Sky show where TV is heading

Read the full article on The Drum

In Manchester City’s recent defeat of Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final, there was an unlikely sight in the top-right of the screen. UK broadcast rivals, ITV1 and Sky Sports, side-by-side, working together like teammates during the 90-minute game.

The TV broadcasters agreed to simulcast select Carabao Cup and EFL Championship matches in a deal made in January 2025. “The logic is straightforward. Sky has the pay-TV subscribers. ITV has the free-to-air reach. Sharing the final gets both a bigger combined audience than either would attract alone.”

It’s likely this has something to do with the possible sale of ITV’s broadcasting business to Comcast (the company that owns Sky), but there is more to it than that.

Over the last two decades, the world of TV has changed indefinitely. Back in the day, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 used to compete amongst themselves.

“The BBC was dominant, ITV a clear second, Channel 4 a credible third. The market looked stable. Efficient.”

Bruce Henderson, the founder of Boston Consulting Group, called it the ‘Rule of Three’. “A stable, competitive market never has more than three significant competitors.”

Now, they have Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime and Disney+ to worry about. And worry they should. In 2024, Netflix overtook ITV1 in monthly audience reach and even edged past BBC1 towards the end of the year.

And it’s not just the UK. Germany’s two public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF, and the ‘Big 3’ in the US (NBC, CBS and ABC) are losing audiences to their new streaming rivals.

So, what does the future of TV look like? We're not sure yet, but the Sky-ITV entity is the first major example of consolidation amongst legacy broadcasters, and that working together is a better option than competing for a declining slice of the market.

Sky is also making a bid to diversify against the big streamers, wrapping four high-profile streaming services – Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Hayu – into its headline TV package. Read: Sky reminds us why marketers shouldn’t underestimate product improvement.

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Sometimes half the pie is better than nothing at all. Learn about brand extension, diversification and consolidation in Module 8: Brand Architecture of the MiniMBA in Brand Management. Our April intake is starting soon.

ADWEEK: 65% of Marketing Jobs May Not Survive AI

Read the full article on ADWEE

Last month Anthropic, the company behind Claude, released its Labor Market Impacts report.

Their findings project an unsettling future for the marketing job market, with an estimated 65% of tasks performed by marketing professionals eventually being replaceable with AI operations.

“Commissioning and interpreting consumer research. Analysing data. Sizing markets. Segmentation. Brand strategy. Positioning. Pricing.” AI can already do a lot of this quicker and more accurately than many marketing teams.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also projects that occupations with higher AI exposure will grow more slowly over the next decade. We’re already seeing this come to life, with marketing job postings in the US down by 7% in 2025.

When available job roles drop, people stay put and the job market stagnates, which means roles stop being backfilled. But that's not the worst of it. “With fewer marketing jobs existing and fewer people leaving the ones that do, salaries do not keep pace.”

“The 2025 CMO Survey – an independent U.S. study tracking 281 marketing leaders – found median marketing salaries stayed flat last year: a decline in real terms against inflation.”

Perhaps the most disturbing detail in the Anthropic report is the workers affected are disproportionately younger and earlier in their careers. A senior marketer with 20+ years' experience, knowledge and client relationships is harder (and more expensive) to replace than an entry-level marketer.

So, if you’re under 40 and work in marketing, here’s what Mark thinks you should do:

Train up. Learn your field, make yourself as indispensable as possible.
Move up or move out. Junior roles will disappear first so move up as quickly as you can or consider changing roles.
Learn AI properly. Become fluent and confident in it. Use it to double, triple and quadruple the quality and quantity of your work.

AI can deliver a 95% match to real survey results, so it’s time marketers learn to work with AI, not against it. Learn how you can use AI and synthetic data to conduct your market research.

The Drum: Meta can kill the metaverse. It can’t escape the name

Read the full article on The Drum

Meta announced last week that Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality platform that was going to be ‘the next chapter for the internet’, will be shut down in June.

“Eighty billion dollars and four and a half years later, the metaverse is officially dead.”

Not only is this pretty humiliating for Zuckerberg, who in 2021 told the world he expected 1 billion people to work, shop, play and socialise in the metaverse.

It also highlights the stupidity of changing the entire company’s name to Meta. At the time, Zuckerberg said “I want to anchor our work and identity on what we’re building toward.” How is that working out for you now?

The move wasn’t entirely stupid. The Facebook brand was damaged so the company was right to introduce a new brand architecture that separated the product from the corporate entity.

Google did the same in 2015 when they created Alphabet, “an empty holding company name that allowed different businesses to do different things, unencumbered by the specificities of brand meaning.”

Also, it’s easy to assume Zuckerberg acted alone in his quest for the future but “most of the marketing and consulting ecosystem followed him at full speed, naked, into the same void.”

Conferences were invaded, brands opened virtual stores and waited for customers and Bloomberg predicted an $800bn market. But the ship sank, and Zuckerberg and his team are left to carry on the company name in quiet embarrassment.

Meta has 2 options according to Mark, both of which are not great. He can wait for semantic numbness, for everyone to see Meta as the (slightly sinister) global corporation it is. “That sounds sub-optimal, but it is considerably better than being the company permanently named after the most expensive tech balls up in history.”

Or they can rebrand (again), which will cost hundreds of millions, but the reputational cost is likely bigger. “A second rebrand within five years signals to the world that you cannot be trusted to know what you are or what you are building.”

“So now he sits, staring at his company’s name and deciding whether to change it again, or suck it up and look slightly silly for another quarter century while Meta gradually dissolves all its negative connotations.”

Let this be a very important lesson to you. Rebranding is almost always the wrong move, especially if you decide to name your entire company after its biggest failure. Remember when Twitter rebranded to X?

Learn why rebranding is a quickest to tank brand equity on Module 5: Positioning of the MiniMBA in Marketing.

The Drum: Britain has a marketing knowledge problem

Read the full article on The Drum

Earlier this year, Mark worked with Ipsos, the global market research company, to build a representative study of basic marketing knowledge amongst British marketers.

The team surveyed 317 UK marketers, asking them 10 undergraduate questions with 4 multiple-choice answers. And the results were not promising...

“Only 31% of British marketers could identify a quantitative research method. Fewer than half – 48% – knew what Distinctive Brand Assets meant. Only 42% understood ESOV. Just 53% could correctly define penetration. And on the question of STP – Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning, the absolute bedrock of how we think about markets – a third of British marketers drew a blank.”

Across the pond, the results weren’t much better. Two-thirds of American marketers would fail the most basic test of marketing knowledge.

Sky reminds us why marketers shouldn't underestimate product improvement

Joe Bolger — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:15:00 GMT

Sky has begun rolling out their beefed up ‘Sky Ultimate TV’ package – demonstrating how product improvement can hold its own against new product launches

The four Ps of marketing – product, price, place, promotion – are the tactical foundations of our world.

But as a marketer, can you – hand on heart – say you routinely consider all of them? Are some of the Ps more loved than others?

Promotion (or marketing communications, as many marketers would call it today) commonly gets most attention. That’s understandable, isn’t it? Creating campaigns, making channel choices, allocating budget, taking a view on long vs short – who can blame the marketer who decides this is the P they can best control and use to drive results?

It’s not the most important P though. The P we should focus on, as Mark Ritson explains on the MiniMBA in Marketing, is product: “Without a good product, no matter how good everything else might be, you’re not going to be successful.”

Sky fights product with product

Wherever you are in the world, there’s a good chance there’s a local television operator currently demonstrating why marketers mustn’t forget about the product P.

These companies are commonly facing price-sensitive consumers, a growing preference for streamed content and thriving, well-funded competitors like Netflix. For these companies, product is a powerful differentiator.

For these companies, product is a powerful differentiator

That goes some way to explain why Sky, the UK pay-TV operator, has announced it will this year wrap four high-profile streaming services – Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Hayu – into its headline TV package, so customers can access everything in one place, with one charge and minimal effort.

According to UK media regulator Ofcom, streaming services are increasingly the first place viewers head when they switch on their TV – especially among younger audiences (13-24s), who prefer Netflix (35%) and YouTube (31%) to traditional linear TV.

Sky wants to become that ‘first click’ for subscribers – the place they start their viewing when they sit down and switch on their TVs.

Dana Strong, Sky’s CEO, talked about this at an industry event in 2023, noting that the broad range of players in this space – and the multiple routes to content – made it time-consuming for viewers to find content they wanted to watch. But by acting as a gateway to content, Sky is seeking to reduce the time it takes viewers to find great content – or reduce the “speed to joy.”

Research from Deloitte in the US supports this strategy, finding that streaming subscribers report “fatigue with having to manage multiple subscriptions to get the content they want.”

For Sky, it also reduces the threat from new streaming services like HBO Max, which launched in the UK last week – carrying content previously exclusive to Sky.

The Last of Us (HBO), previously exclusive to Sky for UK viewers

Sky is just the latest of many media companies to opt for this approach to ‘bundle’ services together. Audience needs and wants are changing – and being met elsewhere. Sky’s choice was to accept the risk of disruption to its traditional pay-TV and growing streaming business, or to embrace the big streaming brands. The conclusion seems to have been that pulling other tactical levers, such as focusing on more effective marketing communications, wouldn't win in these market conditions.

Sky’s move is a good illustration of what product development often really looks like

Sky’s move is also a good illustration of what product development often really looks like. While it’s tempting to think of product as an opportunity to create something new, more often than not, product investment is in existing product improvement.

And as Mark Ritson teaches on the MiniMBA in Marketing, this is a space that all marketers should want to play in. While marketing may not ‘own’ product anymore, we are particularly well-placed to influence how it evolves, because knowing the customer is the most important part of the job.

When there’s a gap between the proposition and the needs and wants of those customers, that’s an opportunity for marketing to step up.

It’s easy enough to say that marketers should be influencing product, but how should we best approach that?

What we shouldn’t do is take a piecemeal approach: a small suggestion here, a quick change there. As marketers, we need to take a much more strategic approach, informed not by our gut feel but by the input of customers. By mapping out the customer touchpoints and gauging how well our product is doing at each stage of the customer journey, we can be clear on where there’s most scope for improvement.

The MiniMBA in Marketing also introduces the Jobs to Be Done framework – an approach that focuses on identifying what ‘job’ the customer wants the product to fulfil. Sky’s focus on "reducing the time it takes a subscriber to find content they like" is a clear example of a job to be done.

This is how marketing can demonstrate its strength in product conversations: bringing the voice of the customer into the foreground.

What about the other Ps?

For Sky, this is also about the pricing P. The new product is better value for money. The bundled proposition allows the company to offer a saving to customers that might otherwise take each service individually, allowing Sky to defensibly frame its pricing as “the best value in the market.”

There’s another P at play here too, but not for Sky. For the streaming companies, this is about place.

Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Hayu gain an additional channel of distribution through Sky – an easy way to reach the millions of customers that don’t already subscribe to their service. This matters when we consider that the TV streaming subscription market in the UK has plateaued in recent years.

The additional channel of distribution is also likely to leave them less vulnerable to customer churn, a particular problem they’re facing as customers habitually churn then return to catch the series they really care about. For the streaming companies, that feels like a big win.

The launch will also, inevitably, be accompanied by product launch campaigns and well-funded communications strategies, capping off our four Ps.

Working on the product P doesn’t have to mean ground-breaking change

Working on the product P doesn’t have to mean ground-breaking change. But when aligned with the other three Ps, even small product improvements have the potential to deliver meaningful impact. When you’re next thinking about the marketing mix, don’t underestimate the power of product.

If you’d like to explore how you can make more of the product P (and the other Ps too), the right training can help.

Join Mark Ritson on the MiniMBA in Marketing and you’ll learn how to make the four elements of the marketing mix work for your plans. The next course starts in April – secure your place here.

Interested in Team Training? Join Specsavers, Google, Adidas, Yakult and more – a global network of leading brands who are already training with MiniMBA. Contact our training team to find out more.

Cover: The Last of Us (HBO) on Sky

Consistency pays double when it comes to brand codes

Peter Sumpton — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 01:15:00 GMT

Actually, it’s closer to 3x according to research from System1 and Effie. Learn why brand codes – or distinctive brand assets – are critical to marketing effectiveness

Marketers have a soft spot for change, and a brand identity overhaul is usually at the centre of that temptation. The intention is good. The effect is often less so because, like Rome, brands aren’t built in a day. Nor in a lengthy presentation.

Brands are built in memory and consumers remember brands through consistency: showing up with the same brand codes, everywhere, for a sustained period of time.

Byron Sharp’s definition of mental availability makes the point neatly: growth depends on the “probability that a buyer will notice, recognise and/or think of a brand in buying situations” – in other words, the strength of those memory structures you’ve created by showing up consistently.

Well-trained marketers start with an unfashionable admission: “I don’t know… yet.” They diagnose before they decorate. In practice, that means working out what brand codes people already recognise, across the messy reality of consumer touchpoints – and leaning into it.

For more on testing which of your distinctive brand assets are most effective, read: Distinctive brands “paint with a palette of codes,” says Mark Ritson

Well-trained marketers also accept the humbling reality that brand recognition is fast and automatic. Buyers don’t pause to admire your branding; they catch fragments in motion and decide, quickly, whether it looks familiar or just more of the noise we’re bombarded with each day. No one wants to add to that pile.

Buyers don’t pause to admire your branding

Brand codes, also called distinctive brand assets or DBAs, are what make that quick recognition possible. They are the colours, shapes, characters, packaging structures, slogans and sonic mnemonics attached to our brand that, used consistently enough, trigger the brand name in buyers’ minds.

Think AO, the e-commerce electrical retailer, a prime example of consistency and creativity: the smiley face logo, green Pantone, and careful adaptation of The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop' Lyrics “A, O, let’s go...” and more recently, a mascot bear that has its own web channel and following.

In data provided by System1 for their co-produced report with Effie, How Creativity Multiplies Profit (2025), a meaningful proportion of viewers (20%) don’t know what brand an ad is for – even after watching the whole thing.

This is a valuable lesson. Every time you change your codes, you force buyers to relearn what “you” looks and sounds like – increasing friction and reducing consistency.

It takes a strong-willed, informed marketer to hold their nerve and not be seduced by the prospect of creating a whole host of shiny new brand assets to play with.

Consistency means looking like yourself. It’s using the same palette of brand codes to become recognisable to consumers. Successful brands like AO do this because it pays off in very real terms. The System1/Effie report shows that the most consistent brands deliver an average ROI of 8.8, compared with 2.1 for the least consistent.

The impact of consistency only becomes greater over time

The impact of consistency only becomes greater over time, with the same report finding that average business results rise from 2.1 for campaigns running <3 months to 3.0 for campaigns running 3+ years, bringing a profit multiplier of 2.9x.

This aligns with broader effectiveness work on the need to invest in long-term brand building alongside short-term sales activation. If you can take one lesson on advertising effectiveness from Mark Ritson and the MiniMBA in Marketing, it's that brand building takes time to work.

Consistent doesn't mean boring

Of course, the moment you argue for consistency, someone will worry you’re arguing for boring. You’re not. You’re arguing for disciplined brand building and creativity at the same time. Consistency is anything but boring. It provides a platform for creativity to thrive.

The collaborative (not-so-dull) white paper The Extraordinary Cost of Dull (2024) explains this well: 50% of ads are less engaging than cows in a field. (No really, they tested it.)

Across the UK and US, media campaigns that spark no emotional response spend an average £9.6 million extra just to match the share of voice of their emotional counterparts.

Brand code uniformity isn’t permission to freeze creativity. It’s about keeping the codes cohesive so that ideas can flow through them, creating campaigns that entertain and persuade, all while maintaining a consistent look and sound that reflects your brand year after year.

Less than 50% of marketers know what brand codes are

In a new study from Ipsos, 1,226 marketing practitioners across the UK, US, Canada and Australia were asked to complete a 10-question basic skills assessment, developed with our own Professor Ritson.

Less than half the participants could correctly identify DBAs – despite the mounting body of evidence on their effectiveness from System1, Ehrenberg-Bass and a decade of schooling from Mark Ritson.

Unlocking the power of brand codes, then, can give you an even bigger advantage against the untrained or undisciplined.

Read more or download the full report here: 65% of marketers fail to meet basic knowledge benchmark, reveals Ipsos study

Or you can learn more about brand codes on the MiniMBA in Brand Management. Professor Mark Ritson will take you through the how and why of brand codes, as well as some case studies of effective brand codes in action.

The next course starts in April – secure your place here.

Cover: AO World PLC

65% of marketers fail to meet basic knowledge benchmark, reveals Ipsos study

Rachel Morris — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

A new report confirms what Mark Ritson has been shouting about for years: training in marketing makes you better

The gut-feel gurus and self-taught savants can finally sit down and bow out. In a landmark study from Ipsos, new data reveals that formally trained marketers are more capable, with better career progression and greater measurable impact in their role.

Released today, Marketing Anchors: The case for capability in an era of transformation proves once and for all that “marketing knowledge is not a theoretical concern – it is a competitive advantage.”

Surveying 1,226 marketing practitioners across the UK, US, Canada and Australia, participants completed a 10-question ‘Marketing Anchors’ assessment, developed with our own professor Mark Ritson.

The questions are not designed to criticise or ‘catch out’ participants, but to gauge the level of basic knowledge that any working marketer should have to be effective in their role. For example: brand positioning, the 4Ps and distinctive brand assets.

These are the marketing fundamentals – or Marketing Anchors – defined in this report as “the enduring principles that explain how brands grow and how marketing creates commercial value.”

Astonishingly, only 35% of participants met the basic knowledge threshold (7 out of 10 questions correct).

68% of participants couldn’t correctly identify the 4Ps. While 65% couldn’t distinguish between quantitative and qualitative market research methods.

Marketing training is (by far) the biggest differentiator

Digging into the results to understand what is driving the capability gap, marketing training emerged as the clearest differentiator.

In the context of the report, ‘formally trained’ includes a marketing degree, professional certification or a structured online marketing course like The MiniMBA in Marketing.

Formally trained marketers are four times more likely to reach the benchmark, with 40% achieving it compared with 9% of those without formal training.

Breaking it down even further, level of marketing education was – by far – the biggest contributing factor in how well participants understood the marketing anchors. Formal training is 10x more important than years of marketing experience.

Formal training is 10x more important than years of marketing experience

Survey participants were also asked to self-report on career progression, organisational behaviour and business priorities.

Training creates a 28ppt gap in marketers’ confidence in their marketing ability. 86% say they are delivering measurable impact, compared with 68% of marketers without formal training.

The training advantage also plays out in lived experience. 77% report steady career progression versus 54% of marketers without formal training.

Key takeaways for individuals and businesses

For businesses, the data presents both a warning and an opportunity. The Marketing Anchors capability gap uncovers a real danger at the heart of businesses today.

For example, market research was one of the weakest areas in the benchmark assessment, yet 87% of marketers reported confidence in interpreting data. When marketing teams are expected to move at pace, this gap in fundamental knowledge leads to poor decisions and real business consequences.

The report concludes that formal marketing training “sharpens professional standards ... It provides the frameworks that clarify decision-making, the shared language that improves alignment and the conceptual grounding that allows institutional knowledge to build rather than fragment.”

training sharpens professional standards

For individuals, marketing training brings not just greater confidence and impact in your current role, but a long-term investment in yourself.

70% of trained marketers expect to still be working in marketing in ten years’ time, versus 41% of marketers without formal training.

They also report higher levels of motivation and happiness with their career progression. So, for those in it for the long haul, formal marketing training is – empirically – a no-brainer.

Download the full report now: Marketing Anchors: The case for capability in an era of transformation

Or find out more about MiniMBA in Marketing training for yourself and for your team.

Cover: sitthiphong/Adobe Stock

Influencer marketing and CEO blunders from McDonald's, Unilever and WWP

Daisy Truman — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 03:00:00 GMT

Some of the world’s biggest, and well paid, CEOs have been up to no good... Find out why with our bi-weekly round up of Mark Ritson's latest columns

From pretending to enjoy their flagship burger on camera, announcing the death of traditional mass-reach advertising and moving their company from a house of brands to a branded house, and back again. The actions of these CEOs have ruffled a few feathers and potentially damaged their share price too.

In better news, Mark has joined forces with the wonderful leader of Ipsos, Kelly Beaver to preview their new report, ‘Marketing Anchors.’ Following in-person events in the UK and US, the full report will be available from 19 March 2026.

"The most important marketing story of 2026,” the global report reveals some troubling insights from their interviews with 1,500 marketers about the current state of marketing – and what our industry can do to turn things around.

ADWEEK: The McDonald’s CEO Can't Seem to Stomach His Own Burger

Read the full article on ADWEEK

No doubt you’ve seen the McDonald’s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, ‘enjoying’ the new Big Arch burger on your newsfeed recently.

What started as a promising marketing moment, the CEO, the flagship product and the authentic feel of the video, quickly turned sour. In the video, his first (and only) unconvincing bite of the burger told us everything we need to know about how often this CEO consumes his own product.

When we compare this to the likes of Warren Buffet, who drinks five cans of coke a day, and happens to own 400 million Coca-Cola shares worth $20 billion. “He doesn’t drink Coke because he owns shares. He owns shares because he drinks Coke.”

Or Akio Toyoda, the Chairman, ex-CEO and grandson of the Founder of Toyota, who would race his product in a 24-endurance race under an alias.

“Buffett and Toyoda built great companies partly because they closed the distance between their lives and their products. It made them better leaders.”

Kempczinski is an effective CEO and McDonald’s has performed strongly under his lead. But this video, and the onslaught it got on social media, put a huge spotlight on him and how far away he sits from McDonald’s products.

“This is the central tension of the modern CEO. The higher you rise, the further you get from the thing you sell. You earn $20 million a year, for selling a combo meal that costs nine bucks.”

“You know your product intimately as a concept – its market share, brand equity, net promoter score – but you stop knowing it as a thing you shove in your mouth on Tuesday when you're shitfaced.

So often, businesses forget the most important P in the 4Ps is product. In the MiniMBA in Marketing, we have a whole module for it and have trained over 40,000 marketers how to properly manage it, with the customer in mind.

The Drum: Micro-influencers work. But they aren't a substitute for brand building

Read the full article on The Drum

In recent weeks, brands like Urban Outfitters, Sephora and American Eagle have launched micro-influencer programmes, but Mark implores brands to keep a close eye on salience, equity and overall control of their brand message.

There is significant research to suggest micro-influencers, those with fewer than 100,000 followers, outperform their celebrity counterparts on engagement.

Think Kylie Jenner and her 400 million followers. “Kylie has more raw reach. But the micro-influencer army delivers far greater engagement. And their granularity lets me target only those who post in brand-relevant categories with genuine audience fit.”

Vaseline have also worked with micro-influencers. They noticed creators were posting different uses and hacks for their petroleum jelly and instead of trying to control the narrative, they gave it a quiet nudge. Their co-created content featuring Unilever scientists achieved 136m social views, a 43% sales uplift and 87% positive sentiment.

With digital streaming and platforms also fragmenting the once great mass-reach television, brands are relying on influencers to reach younger demographics.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, there are some downsides. First, working with micro-influencers makes distinctive brand assets and the brand message diluted and harder to manage.

“A hundred micro-influencers, each talking to their own small community in their own organic voice, is a low-salience activity. The brand’s distinctive assets – the colours, the characters, the sonic identity – are filtered through a hundred different aesthetic sensibilities.”

Also, though celebrity endorsements like Kylie might not be as effective in terms of engagement, they create a ‘big by association’ effect which improves brand perception and equity.

Whilst micro-influencer campaigns are generating some exceptional ROI, brands must remember that infiltrating small pockets of the internet does not equate to mass-market reach.

“The brands succeeding with micro-influencers are the ones who understand that distinction and still appreciate the role that other media must play in building long-term growth.”

Influencer marketing forms an important tactic for many brands these days, but brands who do so at the cost of brand advertising will suffer. Read Mark’s 5 steps to proper advertising.

ADWEEK: The Unilever CEO Has a New Marketing Doctrine, and It Is Completely Wrong

Read the full article on ADWEEK

Sticking with a theme of influencer marketing, Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez told investors that “times of big corporate big brand messages are gone” and that the company will replace traditional advertising with an army of creators, at a conference last month.

This is a bold claim and frankly, one CEOs do not make often, let alone in public.

“The tactical specifics are usually left to the CMO because it’s their job to handle it, and because a CEO publicly freelancing about advertising trends usually culminates in embarrassment. Fernandez, apparently, did not get the memo.”

Beyond this being an odd move from Fernandez, let’s look at why his declaration is also way off the mark.

First, the increase from 30% to 50% investment in influencers is big. However, based on Unilever’s full-year 2025 results, that still means $4 billion on traditional mass-reach advertising. “That’s a giant advertising budget sitting in the very format Fernandez has declared deceased.”

Second, Fernandez flagged Unilever’s sponsorship of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a marketing tactic which sits firmly in the mass-reach department. “The kind of big, corporate, broadcast brand messages he had just told investors, seconds earlier, was finished.”

Whilst Vaseline saw remarkable results with its influencer campaign, that does not mean Unilever’s 399 other brands will have the same success, because every brand and market is inherently different.

Unilever tried do the same when a previous leader declared every brand needed a social purpose, which is fine for Ben & Jerry’s but not fine for Pot Noodle. “The purpose mandate became as uncomfortable as it was naive, and Unilever eventually reversed course.”

We’re not sure what Unilever’s marketing communications will look like in the coming months, but we do know that putting all your eggs into one tactical basket is never the answer. “Integrated marketing communications is not just a theoretical nicety in a textbook. It is how effective advertising actually works.”

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) isn’t a nice to have. A consistent marketing message, delivered across several, integrated marketing channels has been proven as the most effective way to reach and convert your customers.

Learn more in Module 9: Marketing Communications of the MiniMBA in Marketing, which starts next month.

The Drum: WPP cannot be both a branded house and a house of brands

Read the full article on The Drum

Coming up next on an episode of ‘crazy CEO announcements’, Cindy Rose told the world that WPP is moving from a holding company (with brands like Ogilvy, VML and Mindshare), to a branded house.

WPP will now operate as a single company with four divisions: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production, WPP Enterprise Solutions.

It seems WPP has been in a state of flux for some time. Rose is the third CEO in eight years. In which time there has been three restructures and the headcount has fallen from 130,000 to 100,000. The average tenure of WPP’s senior management team is around 1.2 years, though WPP dispute this figure.

“You cannot build anything in 1.2 years. You cannot understand a client’s business in 1.2 years. You certainly cannot execute a multi-year brand strategy in 1.2 years. And yet WPP would like you to believe it can do all three of those things for you, at considerable expense, while apparently being unable to do any of it for itself.”

What is more surprising is WPP’s lack of strategic focus. Rose announced the company will now operate as a single entity, whilst also stating they are not merging or consolidating agency brands. Come again?

No doubt this news sends an unsettling message to employees who have already experienced immense change, and an even bigger message to clients. “It says: the team you briefed last year may not be here next year.”

Clients are noticing. Mars, Paramount and Coca-Cola North America have all left for Publicis, WPP’s 2025 revenue fell 8% year on year, and operating profit is down 23%.

Most hilariously of all, WPP’s core commercial proposition, what it charges businesses millions of pounds a year to deliver, is long-term strategy. Brand, equity, salience, built consistently over time.

“And yet WPP cannot apply a single one of these principles to itself. It is getting strategy wrong. It is getting change management wrong. It is getting brand architecture wrong. It is getting corporate communications wrong.”

Don’t be like WPP. Learn the fundamentals of brand architecture and how to manage your brand effectively in Module 8: Brand Architecture of the MiniMBA in Brand Management.

Images (from top): McDonald's, Urban Outfitters (ME@UO), asaffsouza/Adobe Stock, WPP

Mark Ritson talks rule breaking, Starbucks’ CEO and the marketing job market – MiniMBA online courses with Mark Ritson

Daisy Truman — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:15:00 GMT

Think of Mark as your marketing agony aunt, as long as you don’t mind straight-talking, no-nonsense advice with very little compassion or empathy.

From the buzz of Super Bowl advertising to Mark Ritson and Andrew Tindall giving away free pints of Guinness (yes you heard that right), it’s been an exciting month to be a marketer.

So sit down, grab a cuppa and catch up on all things Mark in your bi-weekly 5-minute Mark Ritson round up.

The Drum: Has Pepsi reignited the taste test or spent $8m advertising Coke?

Pepsi’s Super Bowl LX ad has our professor in two minds. The 45-second spot features the iconic Coca Cola polar bear in a blind taste test between the two soft drink rivals, with the bear inevitably choosing Pepsi.

Is this a stroke of genius by Pepsi or a dumb (and expensive) mistake? “Exposing millions of Super Bowl viewers to a polar bear drinking a cola could generate as many Coke associations as Pepsi ones. Perhaps more.”

Pepsi used blind taste tests in ‘The Pepsi Challenge’, a marketing campaign that started in US shopping malls in 1975 and helped them narrow the gap with Coke throughout the 70s and 80s. It was the very essence of differentiation: "find a meaningful point of difference (the taste), dramatize it compellingly, then invest heavily in the message and watch market share follow.”

However, in using the polar bear, one of Coca Cola’s most distinctive brand assets, Pepsi has created a standoff between differentiation and distinctiveness. Will consumers resonate with the differentiation (the better taste), or is a polar bear holding a soft drink so deeply burned into customer memory that they can’t help but think of Coca Cola?

Who is going to win? Who is going to achieve the most recall? It might be hard to tell. “Despite the industry hullabaloo around Super Bowl advertising, its lasting impact is remarkably piss-poor. Ipsos has observed that more than half of Super Bowl ads achieve less than 1% brand recall the morning after the game.”

What we do know is that if Coke achieves any significant brand recall from an $8 Million ad it didn’t pay for, they win.

The debate between distinctiveness and differentiation is not a new one. Mark Ritson claims you need both, which he calls the ‘Double D’ approach to positioning. And that’s what he teaches on the MiniMBA in Marketing.

ADWEEK: Flag on the Play: How the Super Bowl Breaks All the Advertising Rules

Sticking with the Super Bowl, this year’s ad slots sold out five months early, the fastest sellout in Super Bowl history. Not only were they the fastest selling in history, NBC also comfortably sold the ad slots with a pretty price tag. The most expensive 30-second slot costing up to $10 Million.

Yet, amongst the hysteria that surrounds the Super Bowl, there are some obvious contradictions. For one, it goes against everything we know about modern advertising.

Think you need personalised, segmented advertising? Think again. “Super Bowl ads are the definition of mass marketing: 127 million people, no targeting, no segmentation, no first-party data enrichment. Just a single creative bet placed in front of half the eyeballs in America.”

Think TV is dead and individual consuming rules? Wrong again. Super Bowl advertising is traditional TV in its purest form. The apogee of event-based ‘togetherness’ television watching.

Think optimisation and performance are king? Noone cares about that during the Super Bowl. Emotion and creativity take precedence. “Super Bowl ads trade almost entirely in emotion: humour, nostalgia, inspiration, spectacle.”

Think short-form is the only way to get your audience to engage? Not this time. Brands are paying through the Levi's Stadium roof for 60, 90, and even 150-second ad slots.

“Every Super Bowl exposes the gap between what the marketing industry claims to believe and what actually works. Mass reach is not a relic. Television is not dead. Creative is not secondary. Emotion is not inefficient. And the Super Bowl is no anachronism. It’s a wake-up call.”

Outside of the Super Bowl, effectiveness is still king. Recently, we reached out to the Brand Management Consultant at Rangemaster to learn how they used the core lessons of Brand Management in their latest TV ad. Read: "The MiniMBA frameworks behind Rangemaster’s brilliant new ad"

The Drum: The Great Stay and the quiet collapse of the marketing job market

The Great Stay is here. Not to be mistaken for the Great Resignation of 2021, the Great Stay is much bleaker.

Research found job postings and openings fell by 8% on average across the UK and US. A lack of mobility in the job market also means salaries take a hit. UK salaries grew 3% in 2025, down from the 6% average. In the US, marketing salaries actually fell by 3%.

Why is the job market so terrifying I hear you cry? The economy is doing okay; GDP is positive, inflation is moderate, company earnings are stable and consumer spending hasn’t tanked.

In comes the villain of this story: AI. “HubSpot reports that 74% of marketing professionals already use AI day-to-day, and a CMO survey by the Wall Street Journal found more than one-third expect to cut staff over the next one to two years.”

The sad truth is that as AI continues to play a bigger role in marketing, we need fewer human marketers. So, according to Mark, here’s what you should do if you’re sitting inside this blackhole of a market.

First, don’t make any sudden movements. “The grass is not greener. It is increasingly artificial turf. The job-switching salary premium has halved from 8% in early 2023 to just 4% in 2025.”

Second, being a generalist may work in your favour. Companies want marketers who can understand strategy, brand and comms, and work across a range of marketing tasks.

Third, get good at using AI. “The marketers who will thrive can use AI to multiply their output and make a team of three perform like a team of eight. But – and this is key – don’t bang on about it. Just use it. We will soon wince at how often we invoked the term “AI” to describe perfectly normal work. It’s just the process now.”

Forth, build skills AI cannot replace like leadership, negotiation and relationships. “The ability to sit in front of a CEO and make the case for a brand investment that won’t pay back for three years. The ability to say no to a bad idea when the algorithm says yes.”

–

The MiniMBA in Management follows the same structure as our flagship courses, but focuses on developing boardroom skills like leadership, negotiation, and decision analysis. It kicks off on 20 April and will give you the confidence to excel in more senior roles. Book your place here .

ADWEEK: Starbucks Chief Brian Niccol Might Just Be the Best CEO in America

Coming from Taco Bell and Chipotle, Brian Niccol joined Starbucks as the CEO back in 2024. It’s fair to say he didn’t get off to a swimming start.

“First, there was the messy scrap about wanting to work from home while leading a company insisting its managers return to the office.” Second, his 4-month salary of $96 Million, 6,666 times more than the average barista, was hard to ignore.

But the tide is changing. Niccol has since made some moves in the right direction for Starbucks. Let’s unpack the beans.

Niccol’s first smart move was bringing good people in. He hired Tressie Lieberman from Chipotle as Chief Brand Officer, Cathy Smith from Target as the CFO, and installed new leadership across all his stores.

The next point on his agenda was the brand’s position. Its old mission statement was vague, overwritten and suggested someone in the senior team had lost their strategic way. “With every cup, with every conversation, with every community—we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection.”

Versus its new position: “A welcoming coffeehouse where people gather, and where we serve the finest coffee, handcrafted by our skilled baristas.”

A tighter position also brought simplification in the brand’s processes. Niccol cut 30% of the menu, brought back handwritten names on cups, removed the extra charge for non-dairy milk, removed all price promotions and shifted spend toward brand experience. “Classic brand building: Stop bribing customers and start reminding them why they love you instead.”

“Then came Green Apron Service—the largest operating standards investment in Starbucks’ 54-year history. The $500 million program is built around five customer moments: greeting, glassware, a message on the cup, connection at handoff, and a clean café.”

The numbers are beginning to reflect these changes. Revenue is up 6%, loyalty and non-member visits grew for the first time since early 2022, and shareholder value has increased by roughly $18 Billion.

“For once, the big salary is justified.”

–

When it comes to a brand’s position, tightness and simplicity is everything. Learn how to effectively position your brand, and articulate it to your customers, in Module 5: Brand Positioning of the MiniMBA in Brand Management.

Images (from top): Mark Ritson photoshoot (cough OpenAI cough), Pepsi, Maxgor/Adobe Stock, Starbucks

Mark Ritson’s take on OpenAI, ‘maximiniflation’ and the price of beans – MiniMBA online courses with Mark Ritson

Daisy Truman — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:15:00 GMT

Because who doesn’t want to start their day with a healthy dose of Mark Ritson putting the world to rights?

If you’re familiar with Mark’s columns and teaching on the MiniMBA courses, you will know he has a habit of coining his own marketing words. See: Bothism, Tactification and last month's ‘bull-shittery’ to name a few examples.

So this week, I would like to formally introduce you to the concept of ‘Maximiniflation’. You have to keep reading to find out what that means.

From Tesco’s pricing confusion to OpenAI’s profit (or lack thereof), here’s your bi-weekly, 5-minute read on what Mark’s been up to.

The Drum: Why ‘maximiniflation’ is about to blow up in brands’ faces

You may have heard of ‘shrinkflation’, when manufacturers reduce product sizes without a corresponding price reduction. Mark’s newly coined ‘maximiniflation’ refers to something he predicts will cause much more consumer anger in 2026.

Maximiniflation is when companies reduce product sizes while quietly raising prices. “It’s a kick in the balls followed by a kick in the face. That double indignity, executed without declaration, is why it’s causing significantly more noise than standard shrinkflation.”

Maximiniflation is happening because the volume of sales is declining and costs are rising, so what should companies do instead? How do marketers avoid becoming the next victim of a social media maximiniflation exposé?

First, learn to price properly. This means giving marketers a seat at the pricing table. Clearly communicate and explain price changes while reminding your customer of the value. “If you must raise prices, be clear, be early, be specific, and connect it back to something customers value.”

Companies should also consider value engineering, reducing package waste or introducing smaller sizes at lower price points for budget-conscious shoppers. As well as portfolio rationalisation, repositioning products with premium pricing or discontinuing when they are no longer sustainable.

“The common theme here is that transparency preserves procedural fairness: “you told me, now I decide”. Even if the outcome is financially identical, shoppers judge upfront communicated price rises as fairer, making them more likely to stay and less likely to go or turn nuclear.”

Brands can avoid stooping to the levels of maximiniflation by taking Module 8 of the MiniMBA in Marketing. Learn how to set prices properly in the first place – and why price framing is sometimes as important as the price itself.

ADWEEK: OpenAI's Ad Offering Is a Last Resort, and It Still Won’t Save the Company

OpenAI recently announced it will test advertising on its free and lower-paying tier. Analysts project this could generate the company $25 billion annually by 2030, but that’s not enough.

“At first sight, OpenAI looks spectacular. Recurring revenue hit $20 billion in 2025, a tenfold increase in two years. ChatGPT has recruited 800 million active users, and more than a million businesses now pay for the service.”

OpenAI’s issue is profitability, with the company estimating it needs to grow last year’s impressive revenues tenfold to turn a profit.

“Amazon proudly, famously, spent five years losing $1 billion before turning a profit. But the scale of OpenAI’s losses make Amazon’s early burn rate look like a rounding error.”

Google on the other hand is OpenAI’s older, wiser relative that has net profit stashed in every draw of the house.

“Its AI investments are layered on top of a cash-generating mountain, not instead of one. Google already has the income that OpenAI is shakily projecting it will one day earn.”

So what levers will OpenAI pull? They could expand into new markets, but the company is already well-penetrated, and new markets increases computing costs.

They could increase pricing, but only 5% of users currently convert into paying customers as it stands. They could diversify, which is what’s happening with Sora and Atlas, but increased R&D costs will shrink their already non-existent profit.

So we land on their recent move to advertising on their products, which is “very much a last resort” according to Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, in 2024.

Artificial Intelligence is unlocking huge potential across the marketing discipline: synthetic research, advanced pricing models and the ability to execute tactics at scale – but OpenAI must remember the marketing fundamentals if they want stable, long-term growth.

Learn the essentials of targeting, pricing strategy, product, advertising effectiveness and more on the MiniMBA in Marketing, which starts on 7 April 2026.

The Drum: Tesco’s pricing monster and the impossible price of a can of beans

Tesco launched ‘Everyday Low Prices’ last month, not to be confused with Sainsburys’ ‘Low Everyday Prices,’ Asda ‘Rollbacks’ and Morrisons’ ‘Price Match’.

‘Everyday Low Prices’ is a classic example of Everyday Low Pricing (EDLP), the pricing model that Walmart used to dominate the US market. No frills, no discounts, just low prices on customers’ favourite items, every day.

Whilst there is research for EDLP, there is just as much evidence to suggest Hi-Lo Pricing, the discounting villain in the grocery supermarket story, is equally favoured.

Big-basket shoppers prefer EDLP as it reduces decision fatigue and provides the comfort of consistent value. While cherry pickers, those who shop around for the best discounts, love the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of a good deal.

Of course, you can’t get the good without the bad. IRI research found British shoppers are among the least responsive in the world to pricing discounts. Simultaneously, JCPenney’s sales collapsed by 25% in 2012 when they ditched discounting for EDLP.

That's why Tesco isn’t EDLP alone. “It’s doing EDLP and Hi-Lo and loyalty pricing and price matching – all at the same time. Tesco knows pure EDLP won’t work in the UK. The research shows it. So it has built a Frankenstein’s pricing monster, stitched together with a bit of everything, aimed at everyone.”

This can (and is) leading to pricing confusion. A single product, a tin of beans in Mark’s example, has 8 different price points depending on the quantity, date and time of your purchase.

Shoppers often build a perceived “price image” in their head. Waitrose and M&S are ‘expensive’, Aldi and Asda are ‘cheap’. Tesco, although it continues to dominate its market, sits somewhere in the muddy middle.

Mark Ritson talks a lot about the addiction of price promotions. If you’re guilty of running sales or discounts, read his 7 steps to kicking your price-promotion addiction.

ADWEEK: Is Silence Strategy or Complicity? Two standpoints on the events in Minneapolis

Amidst the events unfolding in Minneapolis, Mark did something different last week. He produced two columns with two different standpoints; whether national brands should or should not publicly weigh in on political charged moments like these.

Let’s start with ‘Silence is Strategy’, which suggests large corporations should stay quiet and remain in their commercial lane.

The numbers show the nation is almost split down the middle when it comes to the topic of immigration, so “the activists insisting that silence equals complicity are asking you to bet your company on a position that half your customers oppose. That’s not courage. That’s commercial suicide.”

It's easy to view Patagonia and Ben & Jerrys as success stories when it concerns brand activism, but we forget these brands built their entire identity around it.

Succumbing to this pressure might temporarily do your image (and conscious) some good, but you will likely alienate half your potential customer base, and future revenue, in the process.

Okay, let’s flip the argument on its head.

Yes, immigration is a divisive subject, but the majority of registered voters disapprove of how ICE is handling its job. “When you have two-to-one public sentiment against an agency conducting operations inside your stores and arresting your employees, staying silent doesn’t protect you.”

Second, research shows consumers are increasingly choosing brands based on beliefs, with 63% of Gen Z and 57% of Millenials more likely to purchase from companies that speak out.

Plus, let's not forget your employees, who make up the different cultures and communities spread across the country. “Purpose-driven companies don’t just attract customers. They attract and retain better people.”

“When 700 small businesses can close their doors and stand for something, when 70,000 Minnesotans can march in life-threatening cold, surely the nation’s largest corporations can muster something more than bland HR memos.”

Bud Light’s influencer partnership with Dylan Mulvaney wiped billions from its market value and lost its reign as America’s favourite beer in 2023.

Learn more about purpose, when to exercise it and when to not, in Module 5: Brand Positioning of the MiniMBA in Brand Management.

Images (from top): IbragimovN, Mojahid Mottakin, Jammer Gene, andreykr / Adobe Stock

Mark Ritson’s take on Gucci, the McRib and the junk food ad ban - MiniMBA online courses with Mark Ritson

Daisy Truman — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:15:00 GMT

Your bi-weekly round-up of the very best columns, features and excerpts from the marketing professor himself

As calendars reset and goals are finalised, now is usually the point where marketers promise they’ll finally “make time for their personal development this year”. Spoiler, it will drop to the bottom of your priority list… again. This time, we’re stepping in early.

This year we’ll be creating and sharing more Mark and MiniMBA content than you can shake a stick at, to give you genuinely helpful tools and knowledge to advance your skills and career.

Plus, the MiniMBA courses start in April. If you’ve been putting off training or have a personal development goal in 2026, come and learn with us. There are three courses to choose from (though we recommend Marketing or Brand for non-Alumni) and they have all been designed to make you a better, more confident marketer.

Here’s what Mark Ritson’s been saying so far this year…

ADWEEK: Christmas Is Over. So Is Effective Advertising.

Read the full article on ADWEEK

In Mark’s opening column of 2026, he shares his first (of many no doubt) marketing gripes of the year.

In mid-November through December, the advertising goal posts change. Budgets increase, creative improves and emotion actually matters for a brief, magical moment. From Apple and Amazon to Cadbury and Disney, everyone and their Nan understands the importance of Excess Share of Voice (ESOV), and they spend good money to achieve it.

“These brands understood what effectiveness Godfathers Les Binet and Peter Field have said for a decade: emotional advertising produces twice the profit of rational messaging. During Christmas, marketers believe.”

Then January rolls around and what happens? “We abandon effectiveness for the same reason we break promises about gym membership and fiber: it’s easy to go back to our old habits. Performance marketing feels productive. Micro-targeting seems sophisticated. Cutting brand budget appears financially prudent.”

This year, before you dive head-first into performance marketing and price promotions, remember that effective advertising is for life, not just for Christmas.

Maximise the effectiveness of your advertising, and therefore return on your budget, with these three factors of good creative.

The Drum: From questionable McRibs to Quaker fibs: the power of brand name bullshittery

Read the full article on The Drum

McDonalds recently appeared in federal court after being accused by Four Americans of deceiving customers with its McRib Sandwich.

This is a classic case of ‘brand name bullshittery’, something our marketing ancestors have been getting away with for decades. “Not only is the McRib not made from pork ribs. Quaker Oats has never had any link to Quakers. Dr Pepper wasn’t invented by a doctor.”

The list continues. Subway’s footlongs are not always a foot long. Not everything in Poundland is a pound. KFC isn’t based in Kentucky. Most hilariously of them all, Häagen-Dazs is not in fact Danish and was in fact created in the Bronx as an up-market alternative in the US ice-cream market in 1959.

“And yet it worked so well that Häagen-Dazs continues not only to be commercially successful, but one of the great brands of modern marketing. Brilliant positioning. Fantastic execution. Buckets of brand equity. Premium pricing.”

“You can choose a more truthful, valid brand name: the Eleven-Incher, Less Than Five Pound Land, a McTripe sandwich. But where is the fun, or fame, or benefit in any of that?”

Mark’s advice? Lean into the ‘bullshittery’, if you can get away with it.

Learn more about how to name, position and manage your brand in the MiniMBA in Brand Management, a 12-week course designed to help you become a better, more confident Brand Manager.

ADWEEK: The $1,000 Gucci T-Shirt Problem

Read the full article on ADWEEK

Turning to the luxury goods market, where Mark spent most of his early career consulting for the likes of Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon and LVMH.

New data from Bain & Company confirms that luxury goods spending will decline this year, but why? And how will luxury brands react?

Changes in buying behaviour largely come down to price. “Post-pandemic price increases were too aggressive and often unjustified. Consumers began to question the value proposition of a cotton Gucci T-shirt priced north of $1,000.”

Luxury brands can, and should, react in one of two ways: go up or down.

Going down, like Coach have demonstrated, means “occupying the space between mass market and true luxury where consumers can trade up, or down, from their usual repertoire.”

Going up means leaning into the exclusivity of the brand. Make less and charge more, like Hermès.

Brands should avoid the ‘muddle in the middle’. “Charging Hermès prices without Hermès exclusivity, claiming craftsmanship while outsourcing production — is where the damage is being felt. Gucci and Burberry, caught in this no-man’s-land, are watching customers defect in both directions.”

The key lesson here is creating a strong position your brand can live up to. For the luxury market, exclusivity and desirability is its superpower. But when brands can’t deliver against that position, they will fail.

See how Dom Pérignon perfectly demonstrated the appeal of scarcity back in 2023.

The Drum: The junk food ad ban isn’t a problem, it’s a marketer’s gift

Read the full article on The Drum

The new year has brought new restrictions on advertising products classed as High in Fat, Salt and Sugar (HFSS). Paid online and daytime TV advertising is now off limits, a move designed to reduce childhood obesity. While many food and beverage marketers will be shaking in their cholesterol-filled boots, Mark sees an opportunity.

First, the ad ban applies to HFSS products, not brands, meaning marketers can no longer rely on product shots. Instead, they will need strong, clear distinctive brand assets to drive recognition and salience.

“You may not be able to show the final food destination, but you have unlimited licence to promote the semiotic signposts that send consumers in the desired direction. The golden arches. The Cadbury purple. The Kit Kat snap. The Colonel’s face.”

HFSS also unintentionally forces marketers to do more brand advertising. The work of Field and Binet, plus years of marketing effectiveness research, show that long-term brand building outperforms short-term product activation.

“Want to run digital advertising for your crisp brand? Better make it about brand associations, characters, and emotion. The result will be more emotionally resonant creative that builds mental availability over time.”

Beyond advertising, HFSS bans multibuy promotions, quietly relieving manufacturers of margin-destroying trade deals.

“Terribly sorry, Tesco, but the government won’t let us run that three-for-two any more. Awful, isn’t it?” Behind closed doors, brand managers across the food industry are doing quiet cartwheels.”

The regulations also force marketers to diversify their channel mix. Paid online and TV advertising have restrictions, but everything else is up for grabs. “We’ve known for a decade that diversity in media choices delivers more bang for buck. Now brands will be forced to find that out first-hand.”

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. These changes will disproportionately benefit bigger brands with deeper budgets and established distinctive brand assets, while making it harder for challengers.

Achieving distinctiveness in your category isn’t easy. Learn how to identify and establish your Distinctive Brand Assets. We also cover this in great detail in Module 6: Brand Codes, of the MiniMBA in Brand Management.

Images (from top): Waitrose, Adriana / Adobe Stock, Sergio Delle Vedove / Adobe Stock, Cadbury

What does the ‘junk food ad ban’ mean for marketers? - MiniMBA online courses with Mark Ritson

Rachel Morris — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:15:00 GMT

For many marketers affected by new restrictions on advertising high fat, salt and sugar products, it will ultimately make them better at their jobs – provided they have the right training

The UK’s junk food ad ban came into force this month, prohibiting ads that show high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) products on TV before 9PM, and imposing a blanket ban across all paid-for online media.

The HFSS legislation is aimed at tackling high rates of childhood obesity in the UK. A noble cause, indeed. But a second, still worthy, outcome is a chance at redressing the state of marketing today.

The new restrictions will bring a healthy shift away from product promotion and back to brand advertising – restoring balance to the UK marketingverse.

To understand why this is good news for marketing, we need to first take stock of what the junk food ad ban is not.

What it means for TV advertising

The ban doesn’t stop the brands selling us sugary drinks and stuffed crust pizzas from advertising. It only prevents them from showing the actual product.

TV advertising should, almost without exception, be brand led anyway. It’s not the right medium for shifting product.

An effective TV ad does three things: triggers emotion, reinforces brand codes, and does those things consistently over time.

What it means for online advertising

Online channels, on the other hand, are often the right place for product-based, sales activation messaging. This part of the deal will make life harder for HFSS marketers, but not impossible. And perhaps a little more fun.

The new rules only apply to paid-for online media. That means owned channels, earned media and physical spaces are all fair game. So, if you’re a HFSS brand, you and your customers can post as many mouth-watering product shots as you like. You just can’t pay to place them.

In the meantime, your paid online media can focus solely on the work of brand building: distinctiveness, differentiation and ultimately pushing consumers through the purchase funnel – where they can experience all your other, legislation-free marketing touchpoints.

McDonald’s doesn’t need to show us a burger or fries. We see the golden arches and our mind makes that connection

It’s an unavoidable fact that established HFSS brands will come out of this smelling better than lesser-known brands.

Those with already-entrenched brand codes – the colours, sounds, shapes, characters, et cetera that identify their brand – will reap the rewards of that work now more than ever. McDonald’s doesn’t need to show us a burger or fries. We see the golden arches and our mind makes that connection.

This doesn’t mean other brands are necessarily doomed. After all, the second-best time to start establishing brand codes is now.

More diversity in media channels

The other headline news buried in the HFFS restrictions is that every other media channel is exempt. Long-serving, highly effective channels like out of home, radio, cinema, print media and even PR are still very much in play.

TV ads are a fun, but distracting part of marketing. In the Marketing Communications module of the MiniMBA in Marketing, the takeaway isn’t how to make a brilliant ad. It’s how to deliver advertising effectiveness.

That means media decisions, budgeting, ESOV, S Curves and – crucially here – the superior returns of a multi-channel, synergistic approach. This Analytic Partners study, for example, found that an integrated campaign across five different media platforms results in +35% ROI.

And so, for many brands, a forced shakeup of the default TV + online approach is no bad thing.

Brands must seize the opportunity

In one fell swoop, the UK government has forced a whole swathe of marketers to confront what Mark Ritson has been shouting about for years: marketing communications is much more than creating new ads.

Advertising is not a separate discipline, but part of the bigger marketing picture. Market research and brand diagnosis tell us exactly who (and how) to target with our ads. We have to select the right brand positioning – i.e. what we stand for at a brand level. And we have to tie all that together into pointy brand objectives to achieve measurable business results.

For marketers who follow this strategic process, brand-level thinking becomes the default. And effectiveness will follow.

Advertising effectiveness is a skills gap that’s becoming endemic across our industry. A global marketers survey by System1 & Effie found that only around half of marketers surveyed were confident in their ability to deliver advertising effectiveness. And even less (40%) believed they could use creativity to drive business impact.

System1 & Effie – Global Marketer Survey (N386). Across US, EU, APAC. 2024

The answer is simple: marketers need training in the fundamentals. With the right training, marketers won’t need to panic when new regulations, tools or even public health crises hit, because the core strategic playbook remains the same.

Join Mark Ritson on the MiniMBA in Marketing and you’ll learn how to deliver marketing effectiveness, with or without product shots. Sign up for the next course here.

Interested in Team Training? Join Specsavers, Google, Adidas, Yakult and more – a global network of leading brands who are already training with MiniMBA. Contact our training team to find out more.

Cover: WD Stock Photos / Adobe Stock

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