Category: Books

My guest believes that online advertising gave birth to one of history’s greatest frauds, and has become a threat to democracy. That’s right. It’s actually the subtitle of a 2022 book he wrote called AdScam.  

It is the basis for our talk, which looks critically and conscientiously at the unsavory side of digital marketing. 

He’s not some advertising outsider wagging his finger at the industry. Bob Hoffman has been the CEO of two independent agencies and led a major international agency’s US operations. He has written numerous books, including “Bad Men” and “Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From New Jersey.” 

Nicknamed the “Ad Contrarian,” his writings under that name caused Business Insider to recognize it as one of the world’s leading blogs about marketing. He has been honored as the Ad Person of the Year by the San Francisco Advertising Club and served as part of the Advertising and Marketing International Network and the California Academy of Sciences. In short, he knows what he’s talking about when he says there is something  wrong with advertising. 

He and I both agree that there is a war between the privacy-side and the surveillance-side proponents here. And  it’s unclear how this dichotomy we’re in is going to be resolved. I will say that his solution for how to fix this – to eliminate all tracking – is harsher than mine. I’d like to end up with some arrangement where buyers receive advertising that gets close to feeling personalized, but that doesn’t track them without their consent.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Bob’s original AdContrarian blog

Bob’s website

Bob’s LinkedIn profile with details on his company, Type A Group

Association of National Advertisers

Stephane Hamel

Oxford philosopher James Williams

Throughout  our youth we are subtly encouraged to fit into our surroundings, staying on the expected path of taking our studies as far as we can before getting a job. Today’s guest didn’t do that, dropping out of high school to go work in the retail sector. 

Because she was a go-getter, she was recruited in 1997 to join in a retail experiment by a telecom carrier. At that time, cellphones were exclusively a corporate thing; they were seeing whether there could be a consumer market for them. That turned out to be a great money-making opportunity. 

That led to her owning her own physical store called Parlez Wireless, that operated as an authorized dealer for that carrier. She sold the franchise six years later and since then she has been providing consulting support to other businesses in Service and Retail sectors, as well as Speakers, Consultants and Authors.

After hearing the unconventional path she took, you can see why her philosophy on marketing isn’t the same as everyone else. She believes using those old tired ways yields merely mediocre results, and she wants companies to do better than that. So  she teamed up with Alan Weiss  in 2022 to write her second book. “Masterful Marketing” 

I first met her a dozen years ago at a Podcasters Across Borders conference and I’m so glad to have you join me to hear from Lisa Larter.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Lisa Larter Consulting

Lisa on LinkedIn

Colleen Francis

Greta Bloskie

Small-to-mid-sized businesses make up half of the economy. When surveys are done on why one company is chosen over another, buyers most-commonly cite the people as the main factor why they buy from them. 

It’s great that the founders or select team members are known by those buyers. But what about those who don’t know them? How can they get a wider circle to know about their expertise and how excellent they are at what they do? 

The vehicle that my guest believes does this better than anything else is public speaking. 

Majeed Mogharreban is a professional speaker, world traveler, and founder of ExpertSpeaker.com. Holding professional speaking status for 10 years, Majeed has worked with the United Nations, Fairtrade, celebrities, politicians, Olympic medal winners, CEOs, and top entrepreneurs to give speeches and tell stories that change the world. 

He is the author of the international best-seller  “Expert Speaker: 5 Steps To Grow Your Business With Public Speaking”

He is the highest-rated trainer in the world at Learning Tree International. Majeed resides in Quebec, Canada.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Majeed on LinkedIn

Majeed on Twitter

Majeed on Instagram

Majeed is on TikTok

Expert speaker podcast

Episode Reboot. 

Get the free Expert Speaker Book or get time on his calendar

As my eldest son has been in university, he’s worked part-time at a sporting goods store. The section he works in is the category-leader in the store – as you can probably guess – it’s shoes.

Need to admit that I’m not that into shoes. 

I am fascinated by the conversations my son has with customers when it comes to shoes. They not only talk about the design features of a specific shoe. They also chat about the athletes who’ve worn it or collaborated with the  brand to design it. They bring up details about how that athlete signed with the shoe company, the battling that went on between that brand and other companies to win the athlete’s endorsement. 

Clearly when people buy shoes for exercising or training for something, they aren’t just going after ergonomics.   

This back-story on the brand’s struggles matters to them, as if they’ll only wear a brand that works as hard as they do in staying fit or competing in sports. 

This bond clearly applies to shoes, but it obviously reaches to many other types of brands too. 

It’s good for products to have a strong brand message and proof-points of their value, but the true winners are those that connect their story to the customers’ internal values, or that give the customer a transformational experience. 

Today I’m talking with someone who works with what he calls  ‘meaningful’  brands, producing their media creative in a way that resonates with buyers. Fittingly, the name of his London-based boutique agency is ‘Way’

My  guest is a public speaker, an ultra marathon-runner, podcaster, skydiver and minimalist.  In 2021, he released the book we’re talking about today: “Not Another Pair of Shoes”

Let’s talk with Alexander Novicov. 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Seth Godin

Dyson

EpictetusAlexander’s link to obtain a Free Chapter of the book.

For several years running, noted marketing expert David Meerman Scott would access all the corporate press releases captured by major wire services. These covered product launches, major client signings and other moments when companies would talk about what distinguished them from their competitors. He posted his analysis of all this data and, without fail, almost all of them chose the same words to describe themselves. They made matters worse by, in David’s words, by “using gobbledygook-laden phrases that are so overused to have become meaningless”

We know we must try to embed our brand’s personality into our writing – my last episode featured an expert talking about that. But that’s not all we can do. 

We’ve got to change the way we talk about ourselves, to cut through people’s cynicism. If we’re ever going to be believed by our prospective buyers, we’ve got to own what customers say in reviews of our products or services, and make claims about ourselves that duly represent what they could experience by buying from us. 

Though noble, pulling this off sounds like a ton of work. But the premise of the book I’m covering today is that it’s doable, if you make it part of your normal marketing workflow.  The book which came out in 2022 is called,  “Prove It.“

It’s the second book by Melanie Deziel, whose first book was “The Content Fuel Framework” She is an award-winning speaker and content creator. She has worked at various media companies, including The New York Times and Time Inc. In addition to her professional experience, Melanie has also taught courses on content marketing and digital marketing at universities such as Fairleigh Dickinson, Syracuse, and the City University of New York. 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

One brand that proves it: Patagonia

Melanie’s Linkedin profile

Melanie’s Twitter profile

Book Contributor Phil Jones

Melanie’s agency, Storyfuel.co