Mark Ritson

And I think when you learn the actual, the practicalities of the marketing process, and this is what I did during the pandemic, I did two mini MBAs whilst I sat at home waiting for, you know, our restaurants to reopen.

And they're two, three month MBAs by a guy called Mark Ritson.

So I did them too.

They're also another brand marketing mini MBA by Scott Galloway, Professor Scott Galloway.

I'd recommend that, you know, online education is a good way to go books are kind of thing of the past really aren't they or paper books but uh

audio books

yeah audio books i mean i do a lot of really i listen to a lot of podcasts i've got to say but i would say if you can if you're into business for me what i've realized is marketing is business like the marketing process is our business if you're a great marketer they probably wouldn't start a lot of businesses that you want to start so everything starts with marketing um so if you if you can chuck a few quid at it i'll say do a few of mark ritson's uh mba marketing courses that could change your business career

brilliant yeah how's for you it did for me so yeah i speak from a bit of experience there definitely and if you could have dinner or breakfast with any business leader owner past future present what would it be

When brand marketing legend Mark Ritson told Adweek readers to not let retail media pass itself off as brand building a few weeks ago, Benoit Vatere pushed back harder than anyone on LinkedIn.

I recapped that tussle in a previous podcast episode.

Benoit's argument was that brands need velocity off the shelf and you can't get that properly without retail media.

Actually, the more important thing to get right, first of all, for anybody that's considering kind of how they should turn up online is what do they stand for? And if you think about the same kind of work that I've spoken about with businesses, it's the same for people.

So positioning for people is actually a thing I'm kind of looking at right now in terms of what? what I can do and there's a process for that because think of it it's the same right what's the market that you want to address and be known for in who do you want to be chosen by is it like a headhunter HR leads in a particular company or is it like you know do you want to be chosen by an investor as an example which is totally different so who, what, why did they go to, why are they going to choose you? What makes you different versus your competition? Who is your competition, right? Is it, you know, if it's for you as being, you know, an incredible, uh, event, uh, curator and host, um, you'll compete against Mark Ritson or, or another kind of like high profile um you know well-versed industry expert that's kind of where i'd put you now positioning you against ritson is really interesting right because you're in the nicest way possible like ritson's probably a high ticket kind of item as super famous

Super credible, super famous, super well-known, right? Super expensive, VST.

Super expensive, right? So if you position yourself against Ritson with a clear difference in the way that you would deliver that service, so you'd be different to him.

wanted.

You see what I mean? So I thought to myself, I'm going to have to find a way here of going and doing an event where everyone's like, we just want Mark Ritson to be Mark Ritson.

And we sort of got there.

I'm still not as famous as Gary Hamill, but we've got there in the last five, six years.

that's where I struggle a little bit, but.

Well, even to your point, when we went to Cannes, The big topic was Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp talking about the five things they agree on.

Yes.

And even there, I was like, I know brand codes was Mark Ritson's term.

Distinctive brand assets was...

Distinctive brand assets, yes.

But if your strategy is mush, AI just helps you generate mush at the speed of light.

And nobody called out the industry on this more fiercely or more hilariously than Professor Mark Ritson, founder of the Mini MBA.

Listen to our back and forth on why Mark says marketers don't need AI training nearly as much as they need strategy training.

I think the tragedy of modern marketing is more than 90% of marketers never have a strategic day in their lives.

And they have this fantastic event called Heard, right, in Sydney.

You know, they get the likes of Mark Ritson and all these big brains in.

And for the second year in a row, it's in Sydney.

There's no live stream.

Well, the good thing is you're basically the consumer.

I don't know if you guys know Mark Ritson, great famous marketer, who says you are not the consumer, but in this case, I am.

I've always been the end consumer.

So it gives you this inside look and it gives you a good connection with your target audience.