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.
Embracing Marketing Mistakes
When Exposing Bad Hairdressers Costs Eight Hours of Your Life
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Let me introduce you to Ann Wright, a journalist, BBC producer and PRCA-approved media trainer with years of experience behind some of the UK’s biggest live events and investigations. She’s had an impressive career, but not without a few wild turns and difficult lessons along the way.
While working on "UK's Worst Hair Disasters", Ann went undercover at a Norfolk salon with secret cameras to expose their terrible braiding service. What she uncovered was shocking: staff openly smoking marijuana and drinking whisky while working.
• She spent eight hours in the salon chair receiving ginger-coloured braids for her brown hair
• The stylists ran out of hair during the process and had to send someone to another salon to get more
• Extensions were sealed with cigarette lighters instead of proper tools
• She developed painful blisters from the poorly installed braids
• She had to sleep with the extensions in overnight before having them professionally assessed
• The salon eventually shut down after the investigation aired
Another mistake in her career came when she agreed to a Huffington Post interview about producing royal weddings for the BBC without getting the proper approval. The article was never published, but BBC management were furious. That decision effectively ended her working relationship with them for good.
Ann’s story is one of bold journalism, unforgettable undercover work and the reality that even experienced professionals can find themselves in difficult situations.
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UK's Worst Hair Disasters Investigation
Chris NortonThat was one of your fails as well , wasn't it ? One of the mistakes you shared with the show , working on that show for the BBC .
Ann WrightSo I worked on a programme called UK's Worst Hair Disasters , and the thing about working on a programme with the title UK's Worst is you have to be really , really legally sure that the thing is pretty bad . Basically , you can't say something that you something's the UK's worst without being , you know , legal to the hilt . So we had to go and experience everything . We had to have evidence for everything , we , everything , we said . So , for example , with UK's worst hair disasters , there was a hairdressers in Norfolk which did braids and there'd been multiple complaints about it . So I went undercover to have braids put in my hair and um , how was it ?
Ann Wrightit was . I was there for eight hours with it was unbelievable um . I had so that . So they didn't , so my hair is brown . They put ginger braids in . They didn't have enough hair . They were scrabbling around on the floor for stray bits of hair to add on . They had to send out their their work experience person to another hairdresser to get their get more hair . They were smoking pot and drinking whiskey and they were sealing the ends .
Chris NortonI don't know if you know when they they were sealing the ends .
Ann WrightI don't know if you know when they . They were sealing the ends with a lighted , a lighter , literally . I mean , it was extraordinary the whole . We filmed the whole thing because I was wearing a secret camera and we had a bag with a secret camera , so that was
Eight Hours of Hair Horror
Ann Wrightyou know . They went out of business afterwards , basically , and I think they kind of deserved it , but that was quite an experience eight hours sitting in a chair , pretending , to did your hair look terrible afterwards as well after eight hours , or was it all right ?
Chris Nortonmy hair ?
Ann Wrightlooked absolutely awful . No , it looked terrible and I had to . I had to go home . It was in Norfolk and we had a hairdressing expert who was in in Swindon who was then most meant to assess my hair , and so we didn't have time to do it all in one day because it had taken eight hours . So I had to go home , put a towel on my head and sleep with it in and then go to swindon the next day . My hair have it all taken out and I was already getting blisters around the back from where they'd where it had been oh my god so , yeah , it was I can't imagine that was cheap either to have that done , was it ?
Ann WrightOh , I don't remember , but I don't think it was that this wasn't a classy joint .
Chris NortonCome on you know it was smoking a spliff and drinking whiskey .
Ann WrightIt wasn't Tony and Guy then no . Well , that's a dedication to the craft , it wasn't yeah we've .
Chris NortonWe've also got another , um well , and we've also got another story , haven't we ? Regarding the huffington post , do you want to explain what happened there and when I was at bbc
The Huffington Post Interview Disaster
Chris Norton, I worked in the consumer unit .
Ann WrightThen I went and worked in bbc's live events department , which produces major state occasions , basically , and I did that for five years and after I left the bbc I continued to work for them on a freelance basis and each time I did an event I would just post some pictures on my blog . You know , just do a nice little piece about having worked on Kate and William's wedding , for example . Post found my blog and rang me and said can you be interviewed about being a producer , about producing a big , major stage occasion ? And I ignored all the advice that I would ever give anybody in media training , was just really flattered and she said oh yeah , that's great .
Ann WrightDidn't do the due diligence of thinking it through , didn't think about what the um , what questions might be , didn't think about what my key messages should be all the things that I would tell everybody you have to do before an interview . And what I did do was ring the editor of events on the day of the interview and say just to let you know I'm doing this interview with the Huffington Post about , about um being about Harry and Meghan's wedding and just what I thought I'd let you know I'm doing this interview with the Huffington Post about , about um being about Harry and Megan's wedding and just what I thought I'd let you know . I did the interview and I came off the phone and my phone literally exploded
BBC's Explosive Reaction
Ann Wrightwith anger . It was the editor had rung me straight back and she went bananas and um , I was breaching , I was a traitor to events . I was breaching my contract . I was just awful and basically I've never worked for the BBC again and I never will . That's why I can tell the story .
Chris NortonSurely it depends what you blinked and said about the , If you were absolutely complimentary about the experience and the brilliant work that the BBC do behind the scenes of a royal wedding they hadn't seen it by then surely .
Ann WrightNo , they hadn't seen it . I had to ring the Huffington Post up . She demanded that it never run . So I had to ring up the Huffington Post and beg them not to run it and I don't think I'd said anything . I mean I would never . I loved working in events so I would never have been horrible about it never in a million years but that didn't matter .
Chris NortonQuite a strange reaction , really . I think that's a bit of an overreaction
Career Consequences and Reflections
Chris Norton. To be honest , for them to be so angry Depends what you said , though , I suppose . She doesn't know what I said .
Ann WrightNo one ever does now . No one ever does now .
