Ged Carroll

Category: media | 媒體 | 미디어 | メディア

It makes sense to start this category with warning. Marshall McLuhan was most famous for his insight – The medium is the message: it isn’t just the content of a media which matters, but the medium itself which most meaningfully changes the ways humans operate.

But McLuhan wasn’t an advocate of it, he saw dangers beneath the surface as this quote from his participation in the 1976 Canadian Forum shows.

“The violence that all electric media inflict in their users is that they are instantly invaded and deprived of their physical bodies and are merged in a network of extensions of their own nervous systems. As if this were not sufficient violence or invasion of individual rights, the elimination of the physical bodies of the electric media users also deprives them of the means of relating the program experience of their private, individual selves, even as instant involvement suppresses private identity. The loss of individual and personal meaning via the electronic media ensures a corresponding and reciprocal violence from those so deprived of their identities; for violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The less identity, the more violence.”

McLuhan was concerned with the mass media, in particular the effect of television on society. Yet the content is atemporal. I am sure the warning would have fitted in with rock and roll singles during the 1950s or social media platforms today.

I am concerned not only changes in platforms and consumer behaviour but the interaction of those platforms with societal structures.

  • April 2026 newsletter – 33rd edition aka ‘dirty knee’

    April 2026 introduction – (33) dirty knee

    This is the 33rd edition of Strategic Outcomes, I had briefly toyed with calling it 33 1/3rd edition – but parked that foolishness as only Jed Hallam and Alec Samways would have half-heartedly smirked at a rather naff DJ dad joke.

    In bingo halls ’33’ was announced as dirty knee. For generations past, this would brought up memories of organised sports like winter football games ad the more real-life social activities of playing outside with friends. According to research conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Save the Children back in 2022, only 27% of UK children now play outside.

    https://flic.kr/p/392Xqw

    However, other data, like the UK government’s own The Children’s People and Nature Survey for England: 2025 update implies that number may be higher than the OnePoll research suggests. The University of Exeter published research which seems to be more in line with the UK government’s research. They found that 34 per cent of children don’t play outdoors on school days, while 20 per cent don’t play outdoors on weekends.

    In Chinese culture 33 is considered to be a good number. 3 sounds similar to birth or life. Two 3s is considered to intensify or double this idea. Which seems an appropriate sentiment for spring and the beginning of the financial year. Bring it on!

    This month’s soundtrack to the newsletter is a sublime 1980s disco mix by Toronto-based Japanese DJ Sakiko Nagai.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    SO

    Things I’ve written.

    A collection of inspiration from Malaysia Airlines mascot Pilot Parker to Sir Martin Sorrell.

    Some thoughts how WPP might deal with its Burson dilemma.

    ICYMI – Top five shares on LinkedIn

    1. Aston Martin issued its third profit warning in a year and sold its Formula 1 naming rights for £50 million to raise cash thanks to internal delays and international tariffs.
    2. Meta is projected to pass Google in digital advertising spend thanks to Reels, Threads and WhatsApp.
    3. The implications of Tottenham Hotspur being relegated from the Premier League has implications beyond the pitch and into sponsor’s boardrooms.
    4. Nike made a bold leap for the UEFA Champions League match ball contract with a bid that doubled the value of the previous Adidas contract.
    5. Tom Roach outlined frameworks that help navigate the transition to more sustained growth once initial performance marketing channels hit saturation.

    Books that I have read.

    My friend Ian lent to me Ikenami Shōtarō‘s book The Killer on The Streets which is part of his Samurai Detectives series. The book follows the adventures of a 60-something retired swordsman and his son as they become embroiled in the hunt for what we’d now call a serial killer.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Supply chained

    Even before the current debacle in the Persian Gulf, globalisation brought logics and supply chains into high focus. Supply Chained is a new podcast with great presenters that provides top quality analysis on different aspects of global supply chains. The first episode looks at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

    Generative AI & cooking

    I first met Rowan Kisby a decade ago this year at 100 Victoria Embankment, back when I was contracting for Unilever on their Family Brands global range of margarines. Rowan worked for what was then MullenLowe Profero. Recently we reconnected on a shared Slack group. Rowan put together a report on the intersection of generative AI use and cooking.

    I found it unsurprising that one of the behaviours consumers are doing is telling the generative AI service what they have in their fridge and asking it for dish / recipe recommendations. Back when I worked for Yahoo! we saw similar behaviours in the search box, particularly amongst US users. Reddit now gave Rowan better qualitative insights on how these results play out.

    More interesting from the point of view of retailers was its ability to create and manage a shopping list for weekly groceries. The idea of a retailer or an FMCG building an AI skill (or Gem on Google Gemini) is just begging to be sold in by agencies to their clients.

    Praykinson

    I got to judge the amazing entries from around the world at Adforum’s PHNX awards. One campaign really stuck with me. A health campaign by Dentsu Creative Thailand and Vajira Hospital in Thailand to help people with Parkinson’s disease was smart, solution-based and had a great insight behind it. More on the project here.

    https://flic.kr/p/2s6adiF

    CHESS

    I was listening to the MM+M podcast interview with Chris Brandow, head of account management at VCCP Health US and came across the acronym / nemonic CHESS. It comes out of thought leadership research ‘Checking the Memory Code‘ that VCCP did in conjunction with Cowry Consulting.

    CHESS looks to encapsulate some of the key attributes that makes marketing creative effective. It codifies marketing science findings that you would be familiar with fromthe likes of, the IPA, System1 and Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and provides it in a list that pharma clients and their agency partners can use as a RAG (red-amber-green) guide to evaluating everything from initial creative concepts through to output.

    • Character – what be called a fluent object elsewhere. It is a mascot or memorable element like Alexandr the meerkat from Compare The Market. It could also be a spokesperson like Tommy Lee Jones’ appearances in Boss Coffee adverts as ‘Alien Jones‘.
    • Humour – the power of humour used to be well known as an advertising device and in recent years has come back on trend at Cannes. It helps create talkability and memorability
    • Emotion – Binet and Fields established the power of emotion over rational advertising. Daniel Kahneman conveyed the power of emotional ‘system 1 thinking’ in Thinking Fast and Slow.
    • Surprise – the unexpected. Our enjoyment of storytelling is the process understanding which story archetype a tale belongs to. If we guess it easily it falls flat like a Dad joke, on the other hand a twist in the tale makes it memorable.
    • Sonic branding – jingles fell out of fashion, yet made ads memorable.

    Chart of the month. 

    Ofcom released their 2026 Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes  report, more here. I went back through past reports to look at smartphone only internet access, households with no access to internet and claimed usage of generative AI services.

    • Internet access is now at a point comparable to where broadcast television was previously.
    • The digital divide is now about the mode of access, with smartphones on mobile internet providing a poorer service.
    https://flic.kr/p/2s69P1v

    Things I have watched. 

    My internet went down on April Fool’s Day, so I revisited Wong Ka wai’s back catalogue. I watched the films the first time after I got a portable DVD player and there was a massive surge in video labels including Artificial Eye and Tartan publishing arthouse titles. This provided a great way to explore and experience world cinema and I gravitated towards Japanese and Hong Kong cinema.

    I was familiar with traditional martial arts films and the ‘gun fu’ of John Woo. Wong Ka wai was Hong Kong’s answer to French new wave auteurs. Around the same time, I ended up going out with someone who lived in Hong Kong when we bonded over Faye Wong’s performance in Chungking Express. In a moment of delicious irony, I got to watch Wong Ka wai’s ‘western’ film My Blueberry Nights while staying in Hong Kong.

    This time around I was working my way through Curzon’s Wong Kar wai boxset which was bought for my birthday during COVID time. It contained

    • As Tears Go By
    • Days of Being Wild
    • Chungking Express
    • Fallen Angels
    • Happy Together
    • In The Mood For Love
    • 2046

    More on my time watching The World of Wong Kar wai boxset here. You can enjoy most of the films listed at the Prince Charles cinema ‘The Films of Wong Kar wai season‘.

    After all that I needed something a bit lighter, so I watched the Japanese film Supermarket Woman. It is a light hearted comedy caper about a middle aged woman, a poorly performing supermarket, business rivalry and a bit of skullduggery. Nobuko Miyamoto plays Hanako Inouse who brings her customer eye view to revitalising the Honest Goro supermarket. The film was written and directed by Jûzô Itami, better known for Tampopo. Supermarket Woman was made a decade after Tampopo, but both feel of the same time. Itami-san was often compared to the French new wave directors of the 1960s and I can see why.

    OSS117 is a series of books and films written from the late 1950s onwards. The films were made in 1963 onwards, with a reinvention and reboot in the 2010s.

    • OSS 117 is Unleashed – is a French film about an American agent with French heritage who works for the CIA. Compared to the Bond franchise, its French new wave. No gadgets but a dollop of guile. It’s notable for its underwater scenes, scuba diving was new thing opening up a new world under the waves thanks to Jacques Cousteau.
    • OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok – is the first colour film in the series. Our hero goes to Bangkok to investigate a dead colleague who looked into ineffective vaccines.

    Useful tools.

    PopChar – PopChar is an old but good utility app that has been supporting Mac users since the late 1980s. You are trying to find the right emoji or symbol to type, in each font.

    Beats Studio Buds + – while I usually use Shure wired earphones for most applications there are some times that wireless is handier (like reducing wired clutter on a busy desk, or listening to podcasts while cooking or folding laundry).

    I was leery of the Beats brand because of their reputation of having a muddy bass sound with a poor sound stage. I was pleasantly surprised by these. They are as balanced sound as a pair of AirPods. They have reasonable noise cancellation, comparable to my old Bose earbuds. They charge on the USB-C cable as my iPhone and MacBook Pro. They are less noticeable than a pair of AirPods and still integrate into Apple’s ‘Find My’ service seamlessly.

    Google Gemini app for Mac – I hope that this will help with my current tab and window juggling in Safari. I will let you know how I am getting on in a few months once I have given it a full shakedown.

    The sales pitch.

    I am a strategist who thrives on the “meaty brief”—the kind where deep-tech or complexity, business goals, and human culture collide.

    With over a decade of experience across the UK, EMEA, and JAPAC, I specialise in bridging the gap between high-level strategy and creative execution. I was embedded within Google Cloud’s brand creative team, where I helped navigate the “messy steps” of global pivots and the rapid rise of Gen AI. And have recently been helping out agencies and startups in various sectors from narratives and new business pitches to sports partnerships.

    My approach is simple: I use insight and analytics to find the “surprise” in the strategy. Whether it’s architecting an experiential event or defining a social narrative for a SaaS powerhouse, I focus on making complex brands feel human and high-velocity businesses feel accessible.

    The Strategic Toolkit:

    • Brand & Creative Strategy: From B2B infrastructure to luxury travel.
    • AI-Enhanced Planning: Deeply literate in Google Gemini and prompt engineering to accelerate insights and creative output.
    • Multi-Sector Versatility: A proven track record across Tech & SaaS (Google Cloud, Semiconductors), Consumer Goods (FMCG, Beauty, Health), and High-Interest Categories (Luxury, Sports Apparel, Pharma).

    I am officially open for new adventures with immediate effect. If you have a challenge that needs a all-in, hit-the-ground-running strategic lead, let’s talk.

    now taking bookings

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my April 2026 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the May bank holiday. 

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful as this helps other people and the algorithmic gods of Google Search and the various LLMs that are blurring what web search means nowadays.

    Get in touch and if you find it of use, this is now appearing on my blog,  Substack as well as LinkedIn.

  • The Burson post

    Disclosure: a long time ago I worked for a forerunner of Burson and WPP’s dedicated agency for Colgate; Red Fuse. During that time I was based out of Hong Kong.

    IMG0032

    Later on, I won the Huawei consumer devices AOR business from my old colleagues in Hong Kong.

    I know Burson’s current CEO Corey duBrowa from even further back in my agency life, we share a love of the Wu Tang clan. 

    What’s news?

    Ok, now that’s out of the way, let’s get into what you’re really here to read. The Times ‘news‘ that Burson is a possible candidate for sale isn’t really news. It had been eluded to previously in coverage. Coming in as a new CEO to WPP, it was inevitable would take an all-up strategic review.

    Executives in the group have also discussed potential disposals as part of the new strategy, with some suggesting that Burson, its PR agency, would be the easiest to consider for sale given it sits separately from the three other divisions. – WPP to overhaul creative agency structure in strategic rethink | Financial Times (February 9, 2026)

    The real news was that WPP appointed Goldman Sachs to do the work and that Burson reported a 6% decline in revenue in 2025.

    The shape of the new WPP has been becoming clear for a number of months.

    • WPP Production was basically the same direction of travel as Hogarth with a new brand. Hogarth was a new brand in itself, and didn’t have the depth of brand equity that Young & Rubican (Y&R Brands) or J Walter Thompson (JWT) had.
    • WPP Open – AI stuff. Some of which is ‘self-service’ to tap into smaller clients and some of which seems to sit in WPP Production.
    • WPP Media – which seems to be a rebrand of GroupM, like WPP Production it makes complete sense.
    • WPP Creative – puts the creative brands under one line item where it used to be under Y&R Brands, JWT, Ogilvy etc. The past structure was as much down to WPP’s history of acquisition as it was to strategy. Much of this work had been done under Mark Read, this seemed to be as much about cleaning up the accounting processes as anything else. PR agencies would nominally fit underneath.

    Why would WPP sell Burson?

    A successful sale of Burson would provide WPP with funds to use elsewhere. This could fulfil two purposes; reducing debt or reinvesting in WPP’s business and technology transformation. Burson is a business that could be packaged up, sold to the right buyer or floated in a public offering.

    The downsides would be a loss of integrated pitch power, and a smaller global footprint for back-office resources.

    Obviously a few questions come up about who would be a buyer and would WPP want to spend the time listing Burson as a separate business?

    It also makes strategic sense

    When I worked at WPP, the PR agencies outside of Ogilvy weren’t integrated very tightly to their creative agency counterparts. You had a similar distance between the likes of Golin and McCann Erickson at IPG too. So the loss of integrated pitch power less than it would at first appear.

    PR is an umbrella term for two broad functions, marketing communications and management functions. Management functions would include:

    • Internal communications including around change management.
    • Legal and compliance, for instance around financial communications for a public company.
    • Stakeholder engagement including the investor community, local communities and government.

    That isn’t an exhaustive list but it covers the major areas. There is more synergy between these areas and management consultancies than there are with WPP’s offerings. WPP has already sold FGS last year. FGS is a financial communications specialist.

    The ‘management functions’ is more of a boutique offering and can come with risks as Bell Pottinger found out to their cost.

    It’s arguably even more risky in a volatile political environment that yo-yos between different forms of political populism.

    The other side of PR: marketing communications is earned media. That side of PR has been shaken up by several factors:

    • Decline in the mainstream media.
    • Search, generative AI and social algorithms as tastemakers.
    • The creator economy.
    • Brand media: led by the technology industry who published their news directly via blog posts.

    In the past creative agencies thought about talkability, which was earned impact from advertising creative. Now creative agencies think about campaigns even more in terms of earned impact, including earned first approaches and WPP agency Ogilvy has managed to integrate its PR function into this process.

    Specialist agencies tap into the creator economy and it’s been well documented by senior leaders in PR like Stephen Waddington how the PR industry missed the SEO opportunity.

    PR agencies have looked to redefine themselves. The world’s largest PR firm, Edelman calls themselves a ‘global communications firm’ to help it position itself against management consultancies and advertising agencies.

    The question WPP would have been asking themselves would have been: do they really need Burson when a lot of its function is now being done by media and creative agencies?

    What does Burson gain or lose from leaving WPP, one way or the other?

    Burson and its previous constituent agencies have been part of a conglomerate for the past quarter of a century that wasn’t focused on their business. WPP’s former CEO Sir Martin Sorrell used to talk about WPP primarily being a ‘media investment’ business for its clients. Helping them make the most effective, efficient investments in advertising for its clients.

    Burson could be allowed to chart its own course, with less constraints put upon the business.

    Burson would lose access to shared services over time, having to reorganise:

    • IT support
    • Offices
    • Time-tracking
    • Finance
    • Employee and at least some client contracts
    • New business prospecting
    • Client contracts where the work is shared with WPP agencies

    Over time Burson could rebuild partnerships and capabilities that it would have previously had through WPP.

    There is a bigger question about whether the natural consequence of the structural bifurcation of modern PR into ‘management’ and ‘marketing communications’ specialists leaves room for a large full service generalist agency like Burson.

    The industry itself is splitting rapidly between highly specialised management consultancy style operations handling the C-suite, and earned-first creative shops driving marketing communications. The traditional, full-service generalist model that Burson and its ancestors helped invent is finding it harder to operate in the middle ground. For example, Edelman, the PR industry’s bellwether fell below the $1 billion fee income mark in 2024, a 5% global decline. 

    If the world’s largest PR firm is struggling to make the integrated generalist model work, it may be that the model itself might be broken?

    Who may want to buy Burson?

    Private equity (including supporting a management team buyout)

    I think that Burson would be a tough sell for an informed private equity (PE) firm. PE firms tend to look for business with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over 10%.

    Here are some estimates that are why I came to this conclusion and I may be wrong.

    Global Industry CAGR (2024–2030) is projected at 6.1% to 6.4%, although some aggressively optimistic estimates suggest up to 10.5%. That is based around assumptions on digital transformation and AI-driven services being fully integrated.

    Looking at historic data from PRovoke Media’s global top 250 PR firms (2015 – 2023), CAGR was typically between 3.5% and 5%. These numbers maybe a bit optimistic due to currency fluctuations. (During CoVID, 2020 was flat and there was a sharp rebound in 2021.)

    Burson’s constituent agencies BCW and H+K were running somewhere around 3.5 – 4% CAGR.

    The outliers are AxiCom and ASDA’A who are Burson’s tech specialist brand and its Middle East agency presence – both operating in high growth sectors. They had CAGR somewhere between 12 – 14%.

    This is the reason why PE has focused on specialists in the healthcare area or financial communications like FGS Global where the growth rate and margins are higher than normal.

    Given the length of time that Burson has been within WPP, the consolidation that the business has been through merging:

    • Burson-Marsteller
    • Cohn & Wolfe
    • Hill and Knowlton (H+K)
    • JeffreyGroup

    WPP likely trimmed out any organisational ‘fat’ which leaves little if any efficiency gains to be made by an acquiring PE firm.

    When these firms were all separate it’s not like WPP were generous at the best of times. I heard allegations of bonuses either cancelled , or like pay rises constantly pushed out as aggressive cash management and cost reduction with junior and mid-level staff taking the brunt of this process.

    Another PR agency network

    Another PR agency network purchasing Burson may gain some operational efficiencies by de-duplicating the back office business processes from finance to HR departments.

    But given that Burson is the world’s number two agency by fee income according to Provoke Media and PR Week; it is unlikely to be acquired by another PR network.

    If the current number one Edelman bought them, they would run into antitrust issues and this would put them on the radar of the Trump administration in the US. Given the progressive leaning content of their Trust Barometer research, Edelman may end up creating its own business crisis.

    Omnicom are likely too wrapped up in consolidating their purchase of Interpublic to attempt it. Even if they did make an offer, WPP may not be inclined to sell to a direct rival.

    Publicis and Havas both have their focus on larger growth opportunities elsewhere and PR are much smaller parts of their business.

    Most of the rest of the largest global agencies in the PR industry are either industry specialists like Real Chemistry and Invizio Evoke (health), FGS Global, APCO and Brunswick (financial communications) or national champions like Germany’s mc Group.

    Conducting a leveraged buyout (LBO)of Burson would be unattractive due to the cost of debt servicing versus Burson’s CAGR. So this would make financing for a management buyout (MBO) challenging too.

    Spin out or spin-in

    From a PR agency perspective Burson has a good quality management team at the top. Someone like Corey duBrowa, who has previously worked at major corporates like Google and Starbucks. If the business was spun off or floated like Next15 Group, it could make sense on the London Stock Exchange.

    Retail investors would be likely to give the best return for WPP. However, an IPO would take a major effort and a good deal of time to make happen that doesn’t feel like the kind of cadence that the WPP Elevate28 plan / platform wants to move at.

    A spin-in might make some sense. Merge Burson with a publicly listed company (for instance Next15 or Stagwell) and then WPP sell down their shares over time. WPP maybe able to securitise its shares in such a way that it gets its (diminished) return upfront and a financial partner gradually sells down the shares with a view to making a profit on the money it paid WPP versus the price it gets on the stock market.

    Clients get a vote too

    Clients get a vote too. If the future of Burson affects client team morale, capacity or make-up they are likely to head for the door. The agency intellectual capital is their practitioners.

    We saw a client exodus happen during the protracted acquisition of IPG by Omnicom with 3.5 percent drops in year-on-year revenue and peaked as high as 10% on a quarterly basis in markets like Australia.

    Maintaining the client base will require a swift disposal process that doesn’t have Burson people keeping one eye on LinkedIn and the jobs section of PR Week or Ragan PR Daily.

    Omnicom is desperate to rejuvenate its business and stealing unhappy Burson clients would be an easy win. Publicis is a high-performing group of agencies already and boutique shops live for ‘giant-killing’ new business pitches. Havas had a healthy PR business that would provide an alternative for any unhappy Burson clients.

    The Human Cost of Structural Change

    The current speculation surrounding Burson reflects a broader structural shift across the industry. For the professionals within the agency, many of whom have spent years managing complex briefs for major clients, this period of uncertainty will be unsettling.

    Burson’s current position is not a reflection on the capability of its staff. It is the logical outcome of the continuing bifurcation of modern PR.

    The sector is dividing between specialist management consultancies advising the C-suite and agile creative shops leading marketing communications.

    The traditional generalist model, is finding the middle ground smaller and tougher than it used to be.

    WPP’s wider strategy is now firmly anchored in technology and integrated creative solutions.

    Operating independently or with private equity backing, Burson would have the operational freedom to determine its exact shape in this new market. Stepping away from a holding company structure is sometimes the clearest route to finding the necessary focus. The talent remain in place; the immediate requirement is a business model aligned with current market realities.

  • Anthropic + more things

    Anthropic and the US Department of Defense defined the debate about AI for the start of March. Trying to understand the truth is murky.

    DSC_2843

    The media pitches a clash of personalities between Pete Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

    Anthropic’s Claude LLMs have a number of points of expertise from helping programmers develop software code more quickly to assisted decision making and automation.

    Anthropic had concerns about weapons with no humans in the loop, but you could consider ‘fire-and-forget’ weapons are already the same thing. This would include the FGM-148 ‘St’ Javelin anti-tank missile successfully used by the Ukrainians or the British Brimstone air-to-ground missile.

    Fire-and-forget saves lives, autonomous vehicles in areas like casualty evacuation and supply runs could save more lives. The Anthropic breakdown seems to be down to trust. Anthropic felt that its models weren’t ready for full autonomy of operation and there were also concerns about facilitating mass surveillance of Americans.

    There seems to be undertones of taking action against a ‘woke’ company. Why Anthropic seemed to have been able to double down is the limited impact they claim it will have on their business.

    And yes the term ‘seem’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting due to difficulty in discerning what is going on.

    China

    China: Quieter, more fretful than I remember – by Whipling – it’s immediately obvious there is a current vibe in China. It isn’t frantic. It isn’t charged. It appears to be a collective sigh. Pride at what’s been achieved; acknowledgement that things are going to stop improving at the speed they forever have; resignation that life will be a little bit harder hereon in; and gratitude that there are messier places around the world to live. Many terms have been thrown at interpreting elements of this current behaviour in China. “Involution”. “Lie Flat”. I’ll add another: “Eh, fine.”

    Why Everyone Is Suddenly in a ‘Very Chinese Time’ in Their Lives | WIRED – As is often the case with Western narratives about China, these memes are not really meant to paint an accurate picture of life in the country. Instead, they function as a projection of “all of the undesirable aspects of American life—or the decay of the American dream,” says Tianyu Fang, a PhD researcher at Harvard who studies science and technology in China.

    At a moment when America’s infrastructure is crumbling and once-unthinkable forms of state violence are being normalized, China is starting to look pretty good in contrast. “When people say it’s the Chinese century, part of that is this ironic defeat,” says Fang.

    As the Trump administration remade the US government in its own image and smashed long-standing democratic norms, people started yearning for an alternative role model, and they found a pretty good one in China. With its awe-inspiring skylines and abundant high-speed trains, the country serves as a symbol of the earnest and urgent desire among many Americans for something completely different from their own realities.

    ‘Hermès orange’ iPhone sparks Apple comeback in China | FT

    Alibaba’s Qwen App Commits ￥30B to Chinese New Year AI Giveaway Campaign | Pandaily – China’s tech giants are using the Lunar New Year — the world’s largest annual migration — to turn niche AI assistants into household names. They are betting billions that “Red Packet” marketing can do for AI what it did for mobile payments a decade ago.

    Former Alibaba Executives Join Robot Leasing Platform BotShare as President and CSO – Pandaily – Li Liheng, former head instructor of Alibaba’s renowned B2B sales force known as the “China Supplier Iron Army,” has joined robot leasing platform BotShare as President. He will be joined by Wang Mingfeng (Tianxiang)—another Alibaba veteran previously responsible for management training under Alibaba’s “Three Axes” leadership framework—who will serve as Chief Strategy Officer.

    BotShare officially launched in December 2025 and disclosed its seed funding round on January 15, 2026. The round was led by Hillhouse Ventures, with participation from Fosun Capital and other investors. According to Qichacha data, Agibot (Zhiyuan Robotics) holds a 55% stake in BotShare, while Feikuo Technology owns 15%. Founded in 2024, Feikuo focuses on deploying and operating robots in real-world scenarios such as cultural tourism, commercial performances, and guided exhibitions.

    As a robot leasing platform, BotShare aggregates robots from multiple brands and models, offering rentals for scenarios including corporate annual meetings, livestreaming, store openings, and promotional events.

    Available brands currently include Accelerated Evolution, Unitree, Zhiyuan, Zhongqing, Lingchu Intelligence, and Zhujie Dynamics, among others. Robot delivery, retrieval, and maintenance are handled by local leasing partners across different regions.

    Platform data shows that within three weeks of launch, BotShare surpassed 200,000 registered users, with daily rental orders stabilizing at over 200.

    Consumer behaviour

    One Third of Consumers Resist AI on Their Devices | Circana

    Culture

    AESTHETIC SYSTEM #2: TECHNO SURREALISM

    Hong Kong

    Hong Kong’s Sogo mall operator seeks $1 billion loan refinancing | Jing Daily – Sogo malls, especially the flagship Causeway Bay one, have long been among Hong Kong’s prime retail destinations. However, traditional retailers like department stores have been facing even more pressure from the mainland’s growing e-commerce penetration, the rise of low-end stores and weak domestic consumer sentiment.

    Lifestyle International was taken private by its chairman, Hong Kong billionaire businessman Thomas Lau Luen-Hung, in a HK$1.9 billion deal after the company warned of an at least 80% plunge in profit in the first half of 2022.

    Still, Hong Kong’s retail landscape has shown signs of stabilizing. Government data indicates that retail sales rose 6.5% year-on-year in November 2025, citing improving local consumption amid sustained economic growth and increasing visitor numbers.

    From Rolex to Naoya Hida: East Asia’s role in the secondhand watch boom | Jing Daily – Hong Kong leads, Taiwan sustains, Southeast Asia emerges. Across the auction house’s East Asian markets, collector behavior differs sharply.

    “Hong Kong continues to drive the strongest demand in the region,” Perazzi says. As a global gateway, the city draws international bidders competing for trophy pieces — particularly Rolex and Patek Philippe — and increasingly, independents.

    Taiwan, meanwhile, reflects consistency rather than spikes. “Taiwanese collectors are renowned for their long-term approach. Compared to Hong Kong’s appetite for headline-grabbing lots, Taiwan is characterized by quieter but reliable demand,” Perazzi adds.

    A surprise force is Southeast Asia. Vietnam and the Philippines are now producing first-generation collectors with expanding wealth pools and few legacy constraints. “Southeast Asia has emerged as a dynamic growth region,” Perazzi says, citing a younger collector profile and faster adoption of new independents.

    62% of Hong Kong Zoomers fear they can’t compete with AI: Chinese YMCA survey

    Ideas

    The Singularity Is Always Near – by Kevin Kelly – KK

    Indonesia

    Indonesian woman collapses after 140 lashes for sex and alcohol | South China Morning Post – A woman in Indonesia’s Aceh province collapsed after being caned 140 times last week for extramarital sex and drinking alcohol in one of the harshest sharia punishments on record.
    The woman and her partner were struck with a rattan cane in a public park in Aceh province on Thursday as dozens watched, Agence France-Presse reported. Each received 100 lashes for extramarital sex and another 40 for consuming alcohol, according to Banda Aceh sharia police chief Muhammad Rizal.     – the move to more Gulf-orientated interpretation of Islamic rule is likely to cramp globalisation in Indonesia by western firms, despite it being the most populated Muslim country and will affect service industries such as tourism

    Innovation

    Unorthodox ‘universal vaccine’ offers broad protection in mice | Science | AAAS

    On’s Greatest Innovation Isn’t a Sneaker. It’s a Robot. | Sportsverse

    Japan

    Japan’s AI Affinity – Matt Alt’s Pure Invention

    4 Yakuza, 4 Livers, 100+ Dead Americans; No problem. The UCLA Report You’ve Never Seen | Jake Adelstein

    Luxury

    What are premium Chinese brands doing for Spring Festival 2026? 🧨 | Following the Yuan

    Luxury’s Overexposure Is Biting – Matter

    The Wait List for a Birkin or Rolex Is Getting Shorter – WSJ – Falling resale values show that even makers of the world’s most popular luxury goods are feeling a slowdown

    Marketing

    Tymbals : The Agency of the Future (Circa 2026) – Nigel Scott looks at the impact of LLMs on the creative output of agencies and Kering got it wrong using AI as a creative tool: Gucci’s AI experiment is what happens when luxury forgets it’s luxury – Intern Pierre

    Materials

    The Cell That Didn’t Catch Fire – by Howard Yu

    On’s Greatest Innovation Isn’t a Sneaker. It’s a Robot. | Sportsverse

    Media

    When Real Beauty Met Reddit | LBBOnline – Reddit is very underestimated, interesting to see Dove using it in this way. Also worthwhile noting that Reddit is a key training source for LLMs.

    WPP Media launches framework for evaluating AI advertising capabilities – The Media Leader

    Listening to “The Joe Rogan Experience” | The New Yorker – the lineage from 1960s weird fringe late night medium wave radio to the mainstream media of The Joe Rogan show

    Online

    Chinese internet reacts to Bad Bunny – by Beimeng Fu

    Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being | PNAS Nexus | Oxford Academic

    America must follow China in treating data as an asset – In 2024, China became the first country to allow enterprises to classify data as intangible assets on their balance sheets. Beijing had already declared data a “factor of production” alongside land, labour, capital and technology. The National Data Administration now oversees dozens of data exchanges. China Unicom, one of the world’s largest mobile operators, reported Rmb204mn ($29mn) in assets in its first filing under the new rules.

    Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell – CIA

    Security

    Russia targets Telegram as rift with founder Pavel Durov deepens | FT

    ‘Honeypots’ and influence operations: China’s spies turn to Europe | FT

    Pentagon is embracing Musk’s Grok AI chatbot as it draws global outcry | C4ISRnet

    Taiwan’s Tron Future unveils AI-guided anti-armor rockets | C4ISRnet

    AI-powered military neurotech: Mind enhancement or control? | C4ISRnet

    The DJI Romo robovac had security so poor, this man remotely accessed thousands of them | The Verge

    Economic Espionage and Innovation Restrictions by Andrew Kao & Karthik Tadepalli (University of California, Berkleley, Harvard University)

    Flickr moves to contain data exposure, warns users of phishing | Security Affairs

    PRC Targets NATO Frontline States | RealClearDefense

    iPhone and iPad are the first consumer devices cleared for NATO ’s ‘RESTRICTED’ classification | SecurityAffairs

    Technology

    Apple Does Fusion. – On my Om – the architecture move is more interesting than the products.

    iPhone and iPad are the first consumer devices cleared for NATO ’s ‘RESTRICTED’ classification | SecurityAffairs

    Most of the major AI players went to Davos, though they weren’t the main focus due to the Trump administration. Google Deepmind founder Demis Hassabis admitted that the current AI market is ‘bubble-like’.

    Beyond the Bubble: Why AI Infrastructure Will Compound Long after the Hype | KKR

    Does China care about AGI? – by Kyle Chan – High Capacity

    Yahoo Japan and LINE to build combined private cloud • The Register – Japan’s take on sovereign cloud

    TMTB: Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) at MS TMT Key Quotes & Dario’s Choice and Anthropic’s Future | Big Technology

    Web-of-no-web

    Chinese robotaxis beat U.S. rivals to the Gulf – Rest of World

    Wireless

    Orbital geopolitics: China’s dual-use space internet MERICS

  • February 2026 newsletter – get up & run edition

    February 2026 introduction – (31) get up & run edition

    I am now at issue 31, or as a bingo caller would put it ‘get up & run’. In Cantonese 31 isn’t a famous lucky number, it could considered to mean ‘life first’ implying an importance of vitality. On the plus side, it doesn’t have negative connotations of say 14 – which sounds similar to definitely die.

    https://flic.kr/p/2mLcp75

    I was sent a mix by an old friend of mine done by Frankie Bones at Amnesia House in August 1990 – as aural history its a fascinating treasure trove and occurred a pivotal time with several genres about to fragment from the original UK scene. Now we have our soundtrack let’s get into it.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    SO

    Things I’ve written.

    I appeared in the What’s In My Now newsletter talking small wallets, cheaper alternatives to Apple Studio monitors and making better use of LLMs. More here.

    I gave a presentation for Outside Perspective on my Dot LLM era paper. Here is my speaking notes that I prepared as I got the presentation ready, complete with the slides at the relevant points.

    I spoke to the WSJ about my dot LLM era thinking and was name-checked on their Take On The Week podcast. And I compared my research with Marc Andreessen’s of A16z 2026 AI outlook here.

    I wrote a letter to the FT about Sony surrendering its home entertainment business (TVs, home audio) to Chinese TV maker TCL. While Sony’s current involvement in sectors such as elder care and insurance are worthy endeavours – what does it mean when they are more core to Sony’s identity than the home entertainment equipment that the brand built its empire on?

    As well as being a concerned Sony customer, I was also thinking about what it means to a brand when it gets rid of its core raison d’être? You can read my letter here.

    I was talking to a friend about classic films and suddenly Matthew Frank’s newsletter dropped in my inbox and started me down a rabbit hole exploring the idea of forgettable cinema as part of the modern public zeitgeist.

    I pulled together a collection of adverts and campaigns celebrating lunar new year from across Asia and a couple aimed at the wider diaspora. As brands look to benefit from the year of the fire horse.

    ICYMI – Top five shares on LinkedIn

    1. Publicis widening the business gap versus its rivals. A decade spent preparing their data and foundational technology for machine learning.
    2. WPP’s big pivot to adapt to market conditions for the large holding companies.
    3. Dentsu’s change of leadership to better control strategy and manage global capabilities.
    4. What Google’s AI bet means for advertisers.
    5. Michael Farmer on why reorganisation isn’t strategy, instead strategy should drive any reorganisation to meet the strategic objectives. This one proved a bit controversial, I’m not sure why.

    Books that I have read.

    While I have been looking forward for David McCloskey’s latest book The Persian to come out, I managed to finish The Seventh Floor. On one level The Seventh Floor is about espionage and feels very now given the new cold war. But it’s also about friendship, loyalty and personal betrayal. McCloskey doesn’t only bring expertise from a past career at the CIA, but also a deep love of the espionage novel as an art form and this novel gives a nod and a wink to the works of John Le Carré.

    While the agency world is focused on the rise of AI, I decided to revisit Michael Farmer’s Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profit-Hungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies. Ten years after it has been published, the diagnosis and the lessons from Farmer’s research seem to have been ignored by clients and the c-suites of holding groups. One thing I picked up on my revisiting the book was the challenge in defining strategic contribution and effort to campaigns. With creative output, Farmer managed to break down creative tasks into fixed ScopeMetric® Units (SMUs). But Farmer admitted that he couldn’t define strategy outputs in the same way because the context changed account-by-account. This makes sense given the difficulties I have had in the past when strategists were way oversold by the project management function within agencies.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Insularity was the watch word of this year’s Edelman’s Trust Barometer. It was a pretty dark vision of the future. There is a huge delta between top income quartile of the population and their trust of authority and the bottom income quartile. In the lower quartile group there is little to no trust in authority figures (business, journalists, government). They only trust people like them.

    Andrew Tindall published a new book for System1 based on their research and Effie data which reinforces previous publications by Orlando Wood, Les Binet, Peter Field and Byron Sharp at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. It also reinforces the importance of context as part of creativity when media and creative functions are co-joined at the hip. It’s very readable and available for free here.

    Chart of the month. 

    The surge of US measles infections turned into a politicised debate about vaccinations, competence, why Canada’s rates were even higher and whether things were as bad as experts would have you believe?

    The chart only tells part of the story.

    Wine Pull 09.18.25-001

    The US CDC cites a general hospitalisation rate of about 20% (1 in 5 cases), recent years have seen significant fluctuations depending on the specific age groups and regions affected by measles outbreaks.

    The “Age Factor”: The high rates in 2022 and 2024 were largely due to the virus hitting children under five—the age group most likely to develop severe complications like pneumonia.

    • 2022 – driven by an outbreak in Ohio, which had a high paediatric hospitalisation rate.
    • 2024 – remained high throughout the year with nearly half of cases affecting children under 5.

    Outbreak Size vs. Severity: In 2025, even though the total case count surged, the percentage of people requiring hospital care fell. This often happens when an outbreak moves beyond high-risk “pockets” into a broader, sometimes older, population.

    • 2023 – outbreaks in unvaccinated high-risk clusters.
    • 2025 – hospitalisation rates dropped because the virus spread to older demographics and larger, but less severe clusters
    • 2026 – infections in January had few children under 5 affected. Cases were able to be managed at home.

    Vaccination Impact: Across all these years, the vast majority (over 90%) of hospitalised patients were either unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.

    Canada’s rates are high because the population has a significant amount of unvaccinated immigrants and refugees from conflict zones and the developing world.

    Things I have watched. 

    Thomas Harris’ Silence of The Lambs still has legs in culture. Which is why Amazon Prime Video has gone back to the universe with Clarice. The story takes place in the aftermath of the buffalo Bill killings which drove the plot of Silence of the Lambs. The storytelling is top notch with a fantastic plot twist in episode 1. It is well worth your time to at least give the first few episodes a chance.

    It started off in an unpromising way, several years ago a friend left a DVD with me. They said something along the lines of they liked a number of Werner Herzog films, but that this was too weird for them. I finally got to sit down and watch Fata Morgana.

    It doesn’t have a story, but is beautifully shot footage of the Sahara and Sahel in 1969 with a focus on near horizon mirages (from which the film gets its name) and features the human effect on it from vistas of oil processing equipment to barbed wire and crashed planes.

    There is a poetic narration in German over the top with a range of music to flt the landscapes. It feels like a forerunner of Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi made a decade later. It’s easy to watch.

    I spent a weekend with my Dad going through old VHS cassettes and on one of them we found Four Fast Guns. It is a surprisingly good Hollywood western. While not a John Ford film, it has a grittiness due to superior character development and tight storytelling reminiscent of the very best spaghetti westerns. The film was produced by an independent studio and featured three well recognised character actors as its star performers.

    • Edgar Buchanan acted alongside the likes of Clint Eastwood, James Garner, John Wayne, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott he went on to appear in several TV series that I remember watching on repeat as a child in Ireland including The Beverley Hillbillies and The Twilight Zone.
    • Martha Vickers had appeared in The Big Sleep alongside Lauren Bacall.
    • James Craig had acted alongside everyone from John Wayne to Boris Karloff.

    This gave the director much more creative freedom to make the performances pop on-screen. The climatic plot twist is very good.

    I was inspired by watching Reflection in a Dead Diamond last month to watch Danger: Diabolik. The psychadelic motifs of and dream sequences of Reflection in a Dead Diamond seemed to draw from European cinema’s brief flirtation with super spy and super villain films during the 1960s. Danger: Diabolik was Mario Bava’s and Dino DeLaurentis’ take on the French Fantômas film series.

    Bava’s expertise in genre films and special effects gives Danger: Diabolik a more sophisticated look than you would give it credit. Add in the film’s 1960s modernist aesthetic, James Bond type action sequences and you have a winning film. The humour-heist plot is very of its time but still entertaining and cried out for a remake. Terry-Thomas’ character performance as a government minister in the film is one of brilliance.

    Useful tools.

    I was saddened to read of the demise of The World Fact Book published by the CIA. I found it invaluable as a starting point when getting up to speed on international campaigns on parts of the world that I hadn’t visited. It even helped me win some work with Telenor Myanmar back before the current military regime got back into power. According to this post on the CIA website the World Fact Book is going away.

    This personal productivity playbook by CJ Casseili was interesting to read and some of you may find tips and tricks that you can apply in your own work and personal life.

    Ilina Scott’s quick guide to AI tools for strategists is worth a read if you are just dipping your toe in the field.

    Occasionally software comes along what doesn’t become a mainstream success, but is well loved and much missed when it disappeared. Apple’s HyperCard was one, another was Yahoo! Pipes. The idea behind Pipes has been resurrected and in its latest iteration is very useful, even in a time of AI-with-everything.

    The sales pitch.

     i am a strategist who thrives on the “meaty brief”—the kind where deep-tech or complexity, business goals, and human culture collide.

    With over a decade of experience across the UK, EMEA, and JAPAC, I specialise in bridging the gap between high-level strategy and creative execution. I was embedded within Google Cloud’s brand creative team, where I helped navigate the “messy steps” of global pivots and the rapid rise of Gen AI. And have recently been helping out agencies and startups in various sectors.

    My approach is simple: I use insight and analytics to find the “surprise” in the strategy. Whether it’s architecting an experiential event or defining a social narrative for a SaaS powerhouse, I focus on making complex brands feel human and high-velocity businesses feel accessible.

    The Strategic Toolkit:

    • Brand & Creative Strategy: From B2B infrastructure to luxury travel.
    • AI-Enhanced Planning: Deeply literate in Google Gemini and prompt engineering to accelerate insights and creative output.
    • Multi-Sector Versatility: A proven track record across Tech & SaaS (Google Cloud, Semiconductors), Consumer Goods (FMCG, Beauty, Health), and High-Interest Categories (Luxury, Sports Apparel, Pharma).

    I am officially open for new adventures with immediate effect. If you have a challenge that needs a all-in, hit-the-ground-running strategic lead, let’s talk.

    https://flic.kr/p/2qK3o4T

    More on what I have done here.

    https://flic.kr/p/2pjXZRc

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my February 2026 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and good luck with your new year’s resolutions. As an additional treat here is a link to a presentation I gave to the Outside Perspective crew, in Adobe Acrobat format. 

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful as this helps other people and the algorithmic gods of Google Search and the various LLMs that are blurring what web search means nowadays.

    Get in touch and if you find it of use, this is now appearing on Substack as well as LinkedIn.

  • Brand building for B2B PRs

    Brand building for B2B PRs is a write up of an interview that I did with Miles Clayton of Agility PR. We talked about the importance of brand building, client challenges and techniques.

    Participants:

    • Miles: Host (Agility PR)
    • Ged Carroll

    Miles: I’d like to welcome Ged Carroll, a guru on brand building and advertising working with major tech and consumer brands. He offers insight into the world of proper advertising: campaigns we know and love, and, where the industry is leading today.

    Welcome, Ged. Could you talk through what you’re doing at the moment and your current challenges?

    Ged Carroll: Thank you, Miles. I am currently wrapping up an engagement with Google Cloud, working with their internal creative agency as a temporary vendor contractor.

    My work focuses on brand building: out-of-home advertising, video advertising, and events. We look at how those creative experiences come to life through major trade shows and Google-hosted events. There is also sports sponsorship; for instance, the Formula E activation. Even though it’s a B2B brand, many tactics are exposed to a broader audience than just direct customers.

    Miles: That’s fascinating. Regarding brand building, something many brands under-invest in, could you explain why it is important and how it differs from brand activation or performance marketing? I’d argue performance marketing is the obsession in B2B, but why should brand building weigh higher?

    Ged Carroll: I’ll first address why brands focus on performance marketing, then explain brand building’s importance. Brands focus on performance marketing because they are measured on 90-day periods. They can simply say, “Here’s the money spent, here’s the result.” Measures include customer acquisition cost or engagement metrics along a marketing funnel. These seem like concrete measures.

    Why do brand building? Smaller B2B brands often hesitate because of what Professor Byron Sharp calls “Double Jeopardy”: smaller brands have less market penetration and less loyal customers. Consequently, small enterprise software companies have a harder time moving the needle than larger ones. The bigger you are, the better you do; it has a flywheel effect.

    What helps sell product is “mental availability.” If I think B2B PR, you want me to think “Miles.” For chocolate, you think Cadbury. For B2B software, most developers now think AWS. Fifteen years ago, that would have been Microsoft.

    Miles: I sympathise. I’ve worked with brands famous in particular markets that struggled to break into adjacent markets because they hadn’t built the brand there.

    Ged Carroll: That creates a ‘chicken-and-egg’ situation: do you invest, or, try a “cargo cult” approach replicating past success? Past success was likely a confluence of luck, timing, and good practice. Many overnight successes are decades in the making.

    Huawei seemed to spring from nowhere but is four decades old. Breaking one customer, BT, made them famous. That fame cracked the market.

    Miles: Brand building is critical. You mentioned that in a typical SaaS subscription business, you should invest about 70% in brand building?

    Ged Carroll: Heuristically, for a subscription business, about 70% should go into brand building and 30% into brand activation.

    Brand building includes PR. I ask: how can we make this idea work for earned media as well? Does the campaign scale to generate “talkability”? People discussing it at the water cooler, in trade magazines, or on social media? Paid media works harder if you have talkability around it.

    Miles: Is that what is now called integrated campaigns?

    Ged Carroll: Integrated campaigns have been around for over 30 years. People used to discuss “media neutral” strategies. The core idea is that your paid media works significantly harder if the campaign generates conversation.

    Miles: That starts with great advertising principles. The book Look Out focuses on “right brain” thinking. Can we discuss the right versus left brain tussle in advertising and how to address it?

    Ged Carroll: Marketing has changed, but our thinking is hardwired by evolution. Analytical procrastination creates cognitive load. If our ancestors sat thinking, “Do I want this or this?”, a predator would have eaten them before they decided.

    Miles: By the time you selected the next iPhone, you’re dead.

    Ged Carroll: Exactly. Logical “System 2” thinking is a difficult construct, yet B2B marketers often communicate rational benefits this way. However, we evolved instantaneous “System 1” thinking, which emotions tap into. If I feel something sharp, I instantly move. That is why we don’t remember a commute unless something significant happens.

    Current advertising often treats us as rational decision-makers, but feelings have a longer-term impact. If I feel sharp stones, I build longer-term thinking to wear sandals next time. Traditionally, advertising tapped into this. Brands like Accenture or Google Cloud attach themselves to emotional events like sports, or consumer ads use storytelling to build memory structures and automatic association.

    Miles: Absolutely.

    Ged Carroll: Procurement processes try to force a rational view, but organisational load often short-circuits this. Do you care where you buy paper clips? No, you go to the fastest place. Brand building gets you onto that procurement shortlist. Furthermore, people aren’t in the mood to buy 95% of the time. Unless you build memory structures while they are inactive, you won’t be considered when they are in the market.

    Miles: Smaller companies can’t afford TV or billboards. What do you advise? I offer thought leadership and education. Tech businesses often say, “You aren’t buying now, but do you want to learn about prompts?” Is that brand building?

    Ged Carroll: It could be. But whose brand is it building? It might just build the LLM model’s brand. My mum asks me to “Ask Google” about crochet patterns. She blames the specific websites for bad patterns, not Google. She associates Google with getting what she wants.

    With thought leadership, are you building the person’s personal brand, or the company brand?

    Miles: That’s an interesting question. I often do personal brand building for the CEO or CTO to express the business vision. But below the C-suite, say a VP of Sales, is it their brand you’re building rather than the company’s? Especially given high turnover.

    Ged Carroll: Exactly. Founder-managers are different; they stay longer. Professional CEOs shipped in by VCs might only stay a few years. B2B marketers face dilemmas, not just choices. It’s about making the best choice within those dilemmas.

    Miles: There are parallels between advertising and B2B marketing, but also budget challenges. Media has changed; 15 years ago, clients bought display ads to build brand. Now, the digital tendency is toward content and performance marketing. Is business stuck in short-term goal-orientated thinking?

    Ged Carroll: It’s not strictly a B2B or B2C problem. We measure what can be coded. Ad-tech stacks are based on interactivity, not marketing science. We assume if someone does X, Y will happen—the sales funnel concept. The sales funnel is an interesting mental model, but it comes from century-old door-to-door sales construct and assumes rational decision-making and perfect memory through the process.

    Miles: You’re saying consistent brand building short-circuits the funnel, leading straight to the sale.

    Ged Carroll: Yes. When you want a beer, you choose Heineken because it’s in your mind. The consideration process shrinks. Brand building gets you into that consideration process much faster. Regularity is vital to reach people the 95% of the time they aren’t ready to buy.

    Miles: Look Out  discusses the narrowing and fragmentation of attention. Are there ways through that?

    Ged Carroll: We have more media opportunities now, but fragmentation occurs because we have smaller gaps of consumption time to fill—like checking a smartphone on the tube. Unless you have repetition within those small gaps, you won’t build memory structures. It’s hard to make a six-second spot emotional.

    You need an integrated approach: emotion and storytelling in long-form content (like a documentary), supported by short content that directs people to it. In B2C, this is easier using brand cues: music, mascots, fonts, colors. Build those cues and stick with them. Marketers often get bored of a campaign and change it, but the audience hasn’t seen it enough. Stick with it.

    Miles: Stick with it.

    Ged Carroll: Many consumer adverts run for years. My dad’s favorite Twix advert is from 2022. Flash has used the same dog and music for five years. Great brand-building campaigns “burn in” rather than “burn out.” Performance marketing might focus on a new feature, but it relies on the brand association already built.

    Miles: It’s been a fascinating discussion crossing advertising, brand building, and B2B marketing. My big takeaway is to encourage more right-brain thinking. Thank you for your time, Ged.

    Ged Carroll: Thank you, Miles. I look forward to chatting again.

    You can watch the interview on video here.

    I gave Miles a reading list in advance of us chatting. Here it is: