Embracing Marketing Mistakes
Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the world’s leading irreverent podcast for senior marketers who are tired of the polished corporate b*llshit.
Join Chris Norton and Will Ockenden, founders of the award-winning Prohibition PR, as they sit down with industry leaders to dissect the career-ending f*ck-ups they’d rather forget. The show moves past any pretty vanity metrics to uncover the brutal, honest truths behind marketing disasters, from £30,000 SEO black holes and completely failed companies, to social media crises that went globally viral for all the wrong reasons.
We don't just celebrate the f*ck-ups; we extract the tactical blueprints you need to avoid them yourself. If you are a business owner, or a CMO looking for a competitive advantage that only comes from real-world experience, this is your weekly masterclass in resilience and strategy.
- Listen for: Raw stories from top brands, ex-McKinsey strategists, and industry disruptors.
- Learn from: The errors that cost thousands and the recoveries that saved careers.
- Get ahead by: Turning other people's nasty disasters into your unfair market advantage.
If you have a story to tell and would like to appear on the show, tell us your biggest marketing mistake and drop us a line.
Episodes
176 episodes
EP 115: The Moment Claude Co-Work Replaced 4 Days of Work in 30 Minutes
He handed AI a full marketing project… and it came back finished in 30 minutes.What used to take 4 days of analysis, reporting, and presentation building was done in a single sitting with better insights included.In this episode, ...
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EP 114: We Deepfaked a CEO in 2 Minutes. Here’s What Happened
A finance worker joins a Zoom call with their CFO and colleagues.Everything looks and sounds real. They transfer $25 million. Every person on that call was fake.AI misinformation has moved from theory to real-world crisis, and br...
The Mistake That Burnt Me Out: Staying Too Long Where I Didn’t Belong
Cory Koryczan opens up about the career mistake that nearly broke her.Staying too long in a role that no longer fit. She’d built her identity around someone else’s business and clung to safety until it led to burnout. In this episode, Co...
EP 113: Why Most CMOs Fail at Brand Strategy
Most marketing fails before a single ad is made. Not because the execution is bad, but because teams leap straight to tactics and skip the strategy underneath. Ben Norman calls the result "busy fools": lots of activity, very little impact.<...
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I Took A Team To Paris And Discovered The Brief Was In Spam
A missed brief. A room full of decision-makers. A team fresh off the Eurostar waiting to present a tailored proposal that never existed—because the client’s detailed instructions were quietly filed in spam. We tell the whole story with candour,...
EP 112: Author of Decoded Explains Why This T‑Mobile Ad Failed in One Sec
Phil Barden, Author of Decoded once led a European brand relaunch that cost millions. The problem was not the strategy, the budget or the agency. The human brain rejected the advert in seconds.In this episode, Phil explains the T‑Mobile ...
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The Expedia Pitch Mix-Up: When the Wrong Logo Won the Deal
In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, Sam Benton, co-founder of Mad Masters, joins Chris Norton and Will Ockenden to revisit one of his most unforgettable marketing moments. Early in his career, S...
EP 111: The Typo That Lucy Woolfenden Made It Onto a 96-Sheet Billboard
Growth looks exciting from the outside. Inside, it is usually chaotic, opinion-led and full of avoidable mistakes.In this episode, we sit down with Lucy Woolfenden, a former Skype marketer turned fractional CMO who now helps B2B and fint...
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The Disappearing Pitch: How a Magician Cost Us the Client
When James Thomlinson decided to “bring some magic” to a high-stakes pitch for InterContinental Hotels Group, he meant it, literally. The plan? A magician disguised as a team member, ready to wow the client with a “reappearin...
EP 110: Most Creative Directors Are Never Told What Their Job Is | Mick Mahoney
Most creative directors are never told what their job actually is.That confusion leads to imposter syndrome, burnout and years of silent mistakes at the top of agencies.In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes, we sit down...
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Too Many Topics, Too Few Clients: David's YouTube Marketing Mistake
David thought his YouTube channel was flying tens of thousands of views, rapid growth, big smiles all round. But behind the buzz was a costly mistake. By turning his finance channel into a jumble of lifestyle, language and fitness videos, he co...
EP 109: The Tweet That Broke Yorkshire Tea with Dom Dwight
Dom Dwight joins Embracing Marketing Mistakes to share the reality of building a challenger brand that people genuinely care about.Across 18 years at Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate, Dom helped turn Yorkshire Tea into one of the UK’s mos...
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The Expensive Mistake of Starting a Shop You Don’t Believe In
What happens when you pour your heart and money into a business you’re not truly passionate about? In this episode, we hear the candid story of Louise, who launched a bricks-and-mortar craft shop while juggling three kids and a career in IT pro...
EP 108: Why 95% Of Buying Happens On Autopilot
Most marketers believe customers think carefully before they buy. Behavioural science shows that 95% of buying happens on autopilot, driven by subconscious shortcuts rather than logic.In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mis...
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The Weight We Carry: Authenticity and Mental Wellbeing in Corporate Life
Mental health neglect emerges as the most impactful career mistake, affecting happiness, security, and stability in both personal and professional realms. Many people recognise mental health issues too late, silently carrying burdens that signi...
EP 107: Award-winning ads stopped driving growth says Steve Harrison
Steve Harrison has spent over 40 years in advertising. He rose to Creative Director at Ogilvy, then founded Harrison Troughton Wunderman, building one of the most awarded direct marketing agencies in the world and winning 18 Cannes Lions.
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What Losing a £10K Tape Taught This BBC Journalist
Veteran tech journalist Spencer doesn’t hold back in this refreshingly honest episode filled with media mishaps and marketing missteps. From confidently predicting the iPad would never take off to losing £10,000 worth of BBC footage in a single...
EP 106: Ant Cousins Explains Why Handing Empathy to AI Almost Went Wrong
In this episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes features Ant Cousins unpacking a moment where trusting AI with empathy nearly caused real harm.Ant Cousins is Vice President of Product at Meltwater and has spent over 25 years working acr...
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The Costly Hiring Habit That Nearly Broke Sarah Clay’s Business
Ever hired someone just because you clicked with them? You are not alone. In this candid episode, our guest admits to recruiting based on personality instead of business needs. The result was duplicate roles, major skill gaps, and tough decisio...
How My Coca-Cola Site Tour Ended in Disaster - Richard Shotton
Marketing mistakes happen to everyone, even the so-called experts. We’ve seen everything from press releases that accidentally went viral for the wrong reasons to brand names so complicated even the CEO couldn’t spell them. But there’s somethin...
EP 105: The Email That Destroyed 30 Years Of Customer Loyalty - Roger Dooley
One email rewrote “lifetime” loyalty and turned Carnival’s most devoted customers against the brand.In this episode, neuromarketing pioneer Roger Dooley breaks down the background to that decision, the Royal Caribbean photo-op disaster,...
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How A PR Exec Survived Lads’ Mags, a Riot, And A Near-Top Gun Airspace Incident
What happens when the person paid to pitch stories decides to live them instead? We pull back the curtain on 90s Soho PR, where relationships were built over ringing landlines, long lunches, and last-minute invitations, and where the distance b...
EP 104: Why Liquid Death and Guinness Highlight Their Flaws with Phill Agnew
Behavioural tactics collapse more often than marketers admit. Phill Agnew joins us again to expose the shortcuts that fail, the ones that hold up under pressure, and the science senior marketers can actually trust.Phill is the creator an...
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We Printed 50,000 Catalogues... With the Wrong Phone Number.
Ever had that stomach-sinking moment when you realise you've made a massive, irreversible mistake? Try 50,000 glossy brochures printed with the wrong phone number. One poor marketer handed over a random pensioner’s number to the public, then ha...
EP 103: From Fax Nightmares to AI: Staying Future Ready with Alistair Frost
A single fax almost caused a multimillion pound pricing collapse. Yet the story is only the starting point. This episode goes much deeper into how marketers cope with relentless technological change and why so many professionals feel overwhelme...
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