Mark Ritson

No, no, this is, well, that's, that's what this guy says.

This is Mark Ritson.

He's a PhD in marketing.

He's worked in marketing for 25 years.

So as the technology and the environment evolved, new thinking came, a lot of it good, but Some of it not so good, but I think now we are at a stage where we've learned, there is an awakening, what I'm seeing at least, where evidence-based marketing is slowly but surely coming up and rising up again.

And the interesting thing is that companies like the Ehrenberg Bus Institute or Kantar or Ipsos or System One, You know, you have catalysts like Mark Ritson, et cetera, et cetera, that sort of like crystallize this evidence-based learnings and that becomes more and more popular.

At least my clients are those that seek out this sort of like evidence.

So, you know, don't BS me.

... feel stable? Does it feel violent in terms of the transition, the impact of AI and big tech?

We have the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and Mark Ritson in very, very close proximity to Australia.

So Australia's taken marketing sciences and evidence-based marketing much more seriously than the rest of the world.

The production side of the business is undergoing massive transformation.

It's a very much B2B lens approach.

And that consideration, and I'm telling you what you know very well and that what Mark Ritson repeats every day, that brand consideration drives that moment of evaluation.

So you get people curious about what is this business cards that Amex delivers or that Amex offers.

Spend the time and then it drives the conversion.

And so I guess from the start with the staff, a lot of my vernacular, which was probably Lilly-esque, and that confused some of the people at Purdue when I first got there, and that grew, was probably a blind spot of mine when I got here, uh, once again, and, and we've grown through that.

But probably the coolest investment that we've made is, I think, just as of last week, we've now sent 20 of our staff members through Mark Ritson and the Adweek Mini MBA 10-week intensive program.

We started with my executives, and we just went now a layer below that into most of our directors and executive directors, and we're at 20, roughly, of our 60 or so employees.

And that has opened our eyes.

And I believe that our president now, and I believe this university is starting to see that, that they see the material contribution of marketing as really principal architects of value, and that we should be materially contributing to the realization of the organization's goals and objectives and the realization of its vision.

And if we're not, why are we here? And so, you know, I saw somebody say that CMO the other day is really the chief relevance officer, and I think there's a, a good piece of that.

The things that we can bring to the table in terms of the empathy and the curiosity and, and the courage to be really in touch with the market and be market-oriented, as, as, uh, Mark Ritson talks about, is, is our responsibility, and I don't give up until we get that.

So yeah, it started at Lilly, and then I think as you, as you build the muscle and you build the flywheel, it's sort of like, well, don't ever let that slow down, 'cause I think it's right.

So, you know, kind of, um, y- you've got Dr. Draper, you know, kind of the, the, the satirist.

You've got Mark Ritson, you've got everyone, loads of people.

And I just decided, right, I'm gonna see who of these are on Twitter and follow them, and that sort of led me into marketing Twitter.

And so I've been-