MarketingKind podcast (MarketingKind)

In this episode Steph Caswell, writing coach and author of Dare to Write, shares her advice on how to turn our ideas into great business books.

We are also hugely lucky to have a community filled with authors and in the group discussion we hear from Rory Sutherland, Dr Chris Arnold and Paul Skinner about their own writing and publishing experiences.

Steph's top three tips and some of her reading recommendations include:

1) Read!

Read within your genre and outside of it. Read and explore what makes a good business book.

The Success Principles by Jack Canfield is an example of a book that influenced Steph's journey.

2) Always keep the reader front and centre.

What is the problem that your reader has that will cause them to reach for your book on the shelf? This becomes your reader promise.

Write about an idea that flicks a switch for the reader and helps them to see and do things differently. Eric Nelson, an editorial director, wrote an article on LinkedIn about the secret to coming up with ideas that people get excited about, which is worth reading: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/secret-coming-up-ideas-people-can-get-excited-eric-nelson

Books that Steph mentions include The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins, Atomic Habits by James Clear and Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

3) Make sure to create a sense of momentum for the reader.

When people read non-fiction books they want to be able to take action as a result so give them practical tips. What can you do in your book that could make a difference for your reader?

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux, co-founder of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode Jonathan Gabay shares with us what he has learned about how to create brand trust in an AI world from decades of work in marketing and advertising, creating training course for the CIM and universities and writing 15 books including his latest Practical Digital Marketing and AI Psychology.

The number one question he gets asked when delivering AI training courses around the world, is: "Will AI take my job?".

There is naturally an inherent distrust in AI and when you add that to the high level of distrust in advertising (according to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer), we need to actively work to build brand trust when using AI tools.

Jonathan recommends we use these 3 pillars to create brand trust: 1) Fundamentally we need to demonstrate competence and reliably deliver on our brand promises. 2) We also need to act with integrity and be transparent about our use of AI. 3) And we have to show a genuine benevolence towards our customers or service users in how we use their data and interact with them. And this means integrating the human touch thoughtfully alongside AI tools.

In this episode we also discuss explainable AI, ethical data stewardship, authentic social proof, hyper-personalisation, censorship, the need for critical thinking, and how AI tools will transform the relationship between people and brands over time.

Jonathan has written 15 books on copy writing, marketing, branding and leadership. He regularly comments on major news channels including CNN, ABC, BBC and Bloomberg.

Many educational bodies and institutions, including the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the University of West London, the Oxford College of Marketing, the Cyprus Marketing Institute, and Google, have featured and endorsed his digital psychology and creative courses. Workshops and Masterclasses are delivered at universities across Europe, the Middle East, and America.

In addition to creating and leading graduate-level programmes, Jonathan advises major educational institutions on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their curricula.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux, co-founder of The MarketingKind community.

In this episode we explore how to become a non-executive director with Célia Pronto.

Célia is the perfect person to ask for help with answering this question because in addition to an impressive career, as Managing Director at Love Home Swap, Chief Customer and Digital Officer at Casual Dining Group, Marketing and E-commerce Director at Ford Retail Group and much more, she is a non-executive director at South East Water, Moto Hospitality and Samworth Brothers. 

Together we discuss what drove her and the challenges she faced in getting her first role.

She shares how to get your NED pitch right, create your NED CV and the importance of networking.

Célia says 'it's a contact sport', you have to be ready for rejection and you can't take it personally.

She says it is also vitally important that you make sure that taking on a NED role is right for you. Once you get through the many hurdles to get an offer for your first role you should be prepared to reject it. 

You will need to do your due diligence before accepting any roles. "Meet the whole board, make absolutely sure you meet the audit partner and find out if there is anything in the accounts that you should be aware of. Meet the legal council to find out if there are any skeletons in the closet. And meet enough of the executives to make sure the culture is the right fit for you."

The conversation covers the difference between trustee roles and NEDs, where to look to find roles, understanding remuneration and finding relevant training opportunities. You can find links to many of the references discussed below.

This interview was originally recorded at a live MarketingKind event in April 2022 and since then Célia has taken on two more NED roles at Hostmore plc and Campden BRI. We're sharing this now because her advice is still highly relevant.

This episode was hosted by Bob Boxer, co-founder of the Cafe agency and a Founding Member of the MarketingKind community.

Relevant links:

FT board training

Women on Boards 

Dynamic boards 

For Government roles join the public appointments newsletter 

Nurole - by recommendation only 

This episode's special guest is Rob Harrison-Plastow, CEO of insight agency Source Nine and climate communications and behaviour change expert.

We ask Rob to help us better understand how we can unlock emotional insights in relation to our own lives and our work in marketing.

Rob shares that our emotions are based on our perception of our needs being met at an unconscious level, which shape our experiences and our reality of the world.

This conversation is an important one for every marketer and every human being. This should be taught in schools.

Rob describes how he works to first listen to people and understand their emotions, discover their underlying needs and to then create value through strategies that align a client's products, services and communications with meeting the needs of those people in a positive way.

When this is done right you can truly understand why people act the way they do, you can connect deeply and create human flourishing.

It should feel obvious when you achieve this. It is simple.

We discuss understanding three main buckets of negative emotions and how to use them to achieve quick wins. Emotions such as sadness, anger and fear serve a purpose and they can be navigable.

We delve into the ethical considerations involved and Rob's goal of helping people to flourish.

Rob references Manfred Max-Neef's Fundamental Human Needs and Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner and Anna Mullenneaux, co-founders of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode Gaia Vince, award-winning broadcaster, journalist and science writer, shares how we can migrate our way to a more sustainable future.

This discussion is an important one for anyone interested in climate change, migration and how the two are inextricably linked.

It covers why Gaia wrote her latest book Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval, the importance of cities in leading the way on climate migration and examples of how large number of migrants can integrate effectively with the host population.

Gaia encourages us all to do our part by "normalising the conversation about climate migration and human mobility".

Nomad Century is her third book and her first two are Adventures in the Anthropocene (for which she was the first woman to win the Royal Society Prize for Science Books) and Transcendence (which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books).

In addition to her books she writes articles, including for the BBC, The Guardian, New Scientist, Australian Geographic, Science. She makes and present science documentaries for radio and television, presents BBC Inside Science, and gives talks around the world. Previously, she has held senior editorial positions at the science journals Nature, Nature Climate Change, and New Scientist magazine. She has won awards for her work, most recently, the 2024 European Geosciences Union Angela Croome Award for excellence in Earth, space and planetary science journalism.

Gaia is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at UCL’s Anthropocene Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce (RSA), and a founding member of the Climate Migration Council, and proud to be a National Oceans Centre Ambassador.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner founder of ⁠the MarketingKind community⁠, director of Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

This episode's special guest is Philippa White, author of Return on Humanity: Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World, and together we discuss a people-first approach to leadership.

Philippa is a global thought leader, social innovator and the Founder and CEO of UK-based company TIE Leadership and host of the TIE Unearthed podcast. For over 20 years she has been dedicated to unlocking the potential of corporate leaders and their companies by igniting the power of a people-first approach to business.

Philippa shares what she considers the three pillars of being more human as a leader: self-awareness, interdependence and interconnectedness.

1) Self-awareness means knowing who you are, what you are good at, what your purpose or compass is and what makes you happy.

2) We are interdependent, because we can't make decisions on our own. We need other people, we can't make decisions in a vacuum, we need other sectors and other regions of the world. We need voices from outside communities to help us find solutions. And to create an environment where the people needed can collaborate in a cohesive way, we need human competencies such as empathy and understanding how to gain trust from people who are very different to ourselves.

3) Our interconnectedness means business can't be only about shareholders, it needs to be about all stakeholders. There needs to be an understanding of our place in the community and how what we do impacts all other aspects such as our customers, civil society and the environment.

The more human a business culture is, the happier people are and the more successful it becomes and this is a 'Return on Humanity'.

We learn about her aunt and uncle's activism in apartheid South Africa and how it motivated her to create her leadership programmes at TIE and to write the book.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux and Paul Skinner, co-founders of the MarketingKind community.

This week's special guest is Tam Hussey, founder of Halo by Design, which is a strategic consultancy creating and delivering strategies to shift customers, employee, partner behaviours to meet company’s sustainability goals.

Tam leads a discussion about how marketing can be used effectively to create more sustainable behaviours.

She says, "If you're told to do something, even if we know it's the right thing to do, the healthy thing to do, it's not something that humans are very good at doing. So if brands want to close the sustainability Say-Do gap they need to make it easy for us to take action with them, rather than just telling us what to do."

Tam shares four important reasons why businesses should be allocating budget to take sustainable action:

1) The status quo is no longer feasible - extreme weather and flooding is already impacting many businesses in the UK and conditions will only get worse

2) Avoid greenwashing and greenhushing by doing something meaningful

3) Protect brand loyalty - 88% of people want brands to help them take action

4) Avoid the risk running foul of regulation and litigation (New York recently sued Pepsico over plastic pollution)

Tam explains that to successfully change behaviours we have to make it easy for people to participate, use social pressure to reinforce and it has to be done at the right time and place (and digital makes it very easy to do this).

She mentions many great examples of businesses that are doing this well including REI's Opt Outside campaign, which sees them close their stores on Black Friday and help their staff and customers to go enjoy the outdoors.

Tam refers to Zak Gottlieb, co-founder of bank.green, which is a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to make sure their bank isn't funding fossil fuels.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux, co-founder of MarketingKind, a community of marketing, business and charity leaders who come together to make marketing mean more.

In this episode Dr Chris Arnold encourages us to 'Think outside the tick-box' and 'Supercharge the "S" in ESG'.

Chris says, "We often talk about a climate crisis, but I want to talk about the social crisis. If you look at the social crisis we have, slavery is massive. We're talking about well over 50 million people in this world in modern day slavery. It's one of the biggest criminal factors. We also have crises in housing, poverty, hunger and unemployment."

1. Chris advises businesses to start by defining their social purpose. And to make sure there is a strong values alignment between their brand and their stakeholders.

2. Then look at their social impact strategy, including the causes they want to support, employee engagement and well beyond. And decide how they will achieve this strategy through partnerships or campaigns.

3. Once they have an action plan, they also need a plan for measuring impact.

4. And finally they need to communicate their impacts.

Chris Arnold is a Dr of Business, author of Ethical Marketing & The New Consumer, founder of My Social Impact and was Brand Republic’s Ethical Marketing blogger for 10 years. An expert in ethical marketing and social impact, he has worked with top brands on social impact campaigns, including Diageo, Sainsbury’s, Heineken, Brewers, Hackney Council, London Community Arts and over 25 charities.

In addition to being a member of the MarketingKind community, Chris is a member of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability (ICRS), NetworkOne Sustainability Think Tank and an Investors in Community Ambassador.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux and Paul Skinner, founders of the MarketingKind community.

This episode covers everything from Solitaire's childhood growing up on a council estate and her early career working in social justice, to her current work at Futerra and helping Hollywood scriptwriters to better incorporate climate narratives.

Solitaire is an entrepreneur, sustainability expert, TED speaker and author. She co-founded the change agency Futerra in 2001, now one of the leading sustainability agencies in the world, working with the world’s most influential organisations to activate social justice and environmental restoration.

She Co-founded the She is Sustainable events and also Co-founded the Climate Optimist movement.

Solitaire was named ‘Ethical Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2008 and Chair of the UK Green Energy Scheme between November 2009 and July 2015. She was trustee of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy from May 2012 until December 2016. Solitaire was a member of the United Nations Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce and was a London Leader for Sustainability. She was part of a working group contributing to the Race to Zero’s 2022 Criteria Consultation for the UNFCCC’s Climate Champions and Expert Peer Review Group.

Solitaire is Chair and Trustee for the Futerra Solutions Union – an independent charitable foundation of ‘culture hackers for sustainability’ which aims to use the power of culture and public education campaigns to accelerate the transition to a low carbon, socially just future.

S​he is author of ​two books The Solutionists: How Businesses Can Fix the Future ​(2023) and​ The Happy Hero: How to Change Your Life By Changing the World (2017).

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of the MarketingKind community, director of Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode we explore with Kian Bakhtiari, founder of The People, how we can restore collective imagination in order to better solve society's biggest challenges.

Kian believes we have a crisis of imagination and we need to use marketing and communications to create a shared sense of language and vision to help us imagine a better future.

In the discussion Kian inspires us with his work at The People, which is a is an award-winning Gen Z Insights and Strategy agency powered by 150+ diverse young changemakers.

He gives advice for helping to breakdown the notion that the world is fixed and unbending and suggests we should:

- Nurture the beginner mindset

- Evoke the power of play

- Take people out of their usual setting to give them a new perspective

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux and Paul Skinner co-founders of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode we explore how we can narrate our way to a safer world with Dr Malka Older, humanitarian, academic and best-selling author of Infomocracy. Just like when reading Malka's novels, this discussion helps us differently about how we structure our lives, our work and our politics.

The narratives that guide us have an enormous effect on how we respond to, address and recover from our most profound problems, even including our disasters and emergencies. So in the face of changes in technology and divisive societal trends how can we ensure that our cultural narratives are helping us to be prepared, responsive and resilient?

She says, 'As a disaster researcher...we see again and again in personal experience and in literature that if you have no money but you have both community and organisation you are far better off than the other way around, than having a lot of money and a community where people are very divided and hate each other and no organisation in terms of what to do with the money.'

As wealthy western democracies are being hit by more and more disasters will we be able to come together to rebuild our divided communities to become more resilient? Or will we continue to think that our money and technology will be enough protect us?

The discussion covers everything from how no one in real life reacts like they do in disaster movies, to the incredible importance of hearing all voices from all corners of the world and in all languages (not just the ones that we are familiar with).

Malka’s science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post, and shortlisted for the 2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award. With the sequels Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018), she completed the Centenal Cycle trilogy, a finalist for the Hugo Best Series Award of 2018. Links to her short fiction, poetry, and essays can be found here.

Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than a decade of field experience in humanitarian aid and development, ranging from field level experience as a Head of Office in Darfur to supporting global programs and agency-wide strategy as a disaster risk reduction technical specialist. She has responded to complex emergencies and natural disasters in Sri Lanka, Uganda, Darfur, Indonesia, Japan, and Mali, in the last three as Team Leader.

Her doctoral work on the sociology of organizations at the Institut d’Études Politques de Paris (Sciences Po) explores the dynamics of multi-level governance and disaster response using the cases of Hurricane Katrina and the Japan tsunami of 2011.

In September 2024 Malka took on the role of Executive Director of Global Voices.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of the MarketingKind community, director of The Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

"We're just being outplayed when it comes to narratives about all of this. The devil has often had the best tunes..."

This episode with Sir Jonathon Porritt, CBE, co-founder of Forum for the Future and author of eleven books including Hope in Hell, is both starkly honest and galvanizing.

We cover everything from carbon pricing, climate migration and the failures of CSR to direct action, the battle of narratives and what the economy of the future could look like.

We learn that Jonathon is currently focused on campaigning for the Green Party and supporting youth-led direct action groups such as XR and Just Stop Oil, because he feels political pressure is the only way forwards. He is disappointed with business, many of which are taking steps backwards.

We dig into his frustration with Unilever, why marketing and advertising are part of the problem and why Jonathon avoids terms such as degrowth and Net Zero.

And Jonathon reminds us that things most likely need to get much worse before they will get better and he hopes that that will happen very quickly (so watch out Miami!).

At MarketingKind we will continue this important discussion including through our work with Bank.Green in our May 21st Coffee with a Cause and in our July 2nd xChange with Mike Berners-Lee and Lord Deben on how we can increase truthfulness in public discourse.

This episode was hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of the MarketingKind community, director of the Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode we welcome the former global CEO of The Body Shop, David Boynton.

We explore his perspective on The Body Shop's journey and the leadership challenges of growing a purposeful business in a crisis-prone environment.

We discuss the process of creating the 'fight for a fairer, more beautiful world' purpose statement and how it was implicitly used as the glue in tough times and the decision-making tool in growing the business.

This is both exit interview and fascinating exploration of how purposeful enterprise can prevail in our turbulent times.

The live event also happened to take place on the day The Body Shop changed hands from Brazilian B corp Natura to global private equity group Aurelius in November 2023.

In addition to his leadership at The Body Shop David previously held senior positions at a number of major high-street retailers and most recently was CEO of menswear company Charles Tyrwhitt. Prior to that he spent ten years at French beauty brand L’Occitane, where he was based in the US and part of a small global leadership group that took the company from 200m to over 1.2bn euro during that period. He has also held a number of senior management roles with A.S. Watson in Asia and supermarket group Safeway Plc in the UK.

He is known for creating challenging but supportive environments where talent can develop and flourish and for being a thought leader on sustainable brands and a keynote speaker at other major conferences around the world.

This episode was hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of the MarketingKind community, director of the Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode Manda Scott, bestselling novelist, explores how Thrutopian narratives can give us 'a road map through' our current polycrisis existence to one we would be proud to leave to future generations.

We discuss how Manda used the concept of Thrutopia in writing her recently published novel Any Human Power, which is described as a mytho-political thriller and which includes a surprisingly timed general election. *** So a special thank you to Rishi Sunak for calling a general election the week before the book came out, helping to make the book feel even more prescient and needed. ***

Manda says we need to change our mindset and our value system away from 'see, want, take' to one where we don't see ourselves as separate from nature or each other.

Her top three practical recommendations for changing politics in the UK:

1) Read Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy by Audrey Tang
2) Change from First Past the Post voting to Proportional Representation
3) Give 16 year-olds (or younger) the right to vote

Manda is the author of 18 books including the hugely popular Boudica: Dreaming series and the Times ‘Book of the Year’ Into the Fire​. She hosts the Accidental Gods podcast where she and guests explore how we can create a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us.​ And she is a contemporary shamanic teacher and offers courses in Thrutopian writing.

​This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of ⁠the MarketingKind community⁠, director of the ⁠Agency of the Future⁠ and author of ⁠The Purpose Upgrade⁠ and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode Dennis Yi Tenen explores what the history of machine learning can tell us about the future of how AI technologies will impact storytelling and culture.

Together we discuss Dennis's book Literary Theory for Robots: How Computers Learned to Write, why he wrote it and what he has learned in the process.

He shares how the challenges that arise with AI are social problems, similar to the challenges we've seen throughout history with each technology change. And as marketers we are well places to help society to adapt in useful ways.

He argues that AI is better understood as a social or collective intelligence rather than a single entity. AI is more representative of an aggregation of human knowledge and technological capabilities rather than an independent godlike character. Dennis says that humans have been automating the writing process throughout history and AI is just the next step.

Dennis suggests it is more useful to focus on specific, actionable issues rather than abstract existential threats of AI. He says that Europe has often been better than the US at getting the balance right between regulation and innovation and we should make sure that we continue to protect information in the public domain.

When asked about the dangers of commoditising the outputs caused by the drive for efficiency in the creative process with AI, Dennis says: "Your body needs to go through the experience of exercise to derive the benefits. Let's extend this to intellectual capacities... Maybe we need to get to the mental gym".

Dennis is an associate professor of English at Columbia University, where he also co-directs the Center for Comparative Media. His research happens at the intersection of people, text, and technology. A long-time affiliate of Columbia’s Data Science Institute, formerly a Microsoft engineer in the Windows group and fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, his code runs on millions of personal computers worldwide.

Here is the link to the ChatGPT generated sequel to Literary Theory for Robots, which Paul mentions in the conversation and Dennis comments on.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner, author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage and founder of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode Lotte Jones, Chief Commercial Officer of The News Movement, helps up to explore the future of media and how new media is pushing traditional news media to innovate.

She introduces us toThe News Movement, which is a modern media company, born on social providing factual content aimed at engaging Gen Z.

We discuss the challenges The News Movement faced in building their commercial offerings for brands while growing organically (they now reach 100M views per month), of balancing the rigour of traditional journalism with the creativity of social media, and finding the right ways to support the creator economy.

Lotte reminds us that:

- Building community and engagement makes our organisations more resilient

- When we're overwhelmed by the state of the world we need opportunities to take meaningful action

- When working with clients don't be afraid to alter the brief!

If you are not yet following The News Movement, Recount and Capsule, you can find them onInstagram, TikTok andYouTube. 

The episode was hosted by Tom Hadley, aMarketingKind member and founder ofExodus 25.

This episode's special guest is Jon Miller, author of The Activist Leader: A New Mindset for Doing Business.

Together we explore how we can all use an activist mindset to make businesses more of a force for good.

Jon takes us through the 5 types of Activist Leader:

• Campaigner
• Path-finder
• Mobiliser
• Bridge-builder
• Fixer

And a quick poll of participants shows that over 50% of MarketingKind members identify as Path-finders.

Jon shares many examples of businesses that are leading the way such as the largest shipping company in the world, Mærsk, which has created a new design for ships that produce half of the carbon emissions of a standard cargo ship.

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, endorsed The Activist Leader calling it, ‘A must read for all current and aspiring leaders’.

The Activist Leader is the second book that Jon has written. The first is Everybody's Business and both were co-authored with his business partner Lucy Parker.

In addition to his writing, Jon is a partner of the Brunswick Group, where he co-founded the Business & Society team in 2011, working with many of the world’s largest companies on their critical societal issues – from climate change and biodiversity to human rights and inequality.

In 2015 he founded Open For Business, a coalition of global companies advancing LGBTQ+ equality, with live programmes in East Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and South East Asia.

With this event taking place live in London (and online) we have an extended Q&A resulting in our longest episode so far!

This episode is hosted by Caroline Bates, Founding Partner of Citizen Good and a member of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode we explore 'life after the big job' in a very open, honest and engaging conversation with Mark Evans, former Managing Director of Marketing and Digital at Direct Line Group.

"A big part of moving out of executive life is finding a way to move away from (or maybe reframe) one's ego, so I do have a bit of a problem with the word 'portfolio'. I describe my existence as having a fruit salad."

Whether you are still in 'the big job' or you have struck out on your own, the world needs a lot more ‘fruit salad’ thinking.

Mark shares advice given to him at a curry house dinner celebrating his university graduation in 1995 which has shaped his career ever since.

Mark currently aims to learn more, enjoy more, and contribute more. He has raised over £900,000 to help beat cancer quicker through the Sprintathon. And he shares the many other incredible roles and initiatives that make up the current mix in his fruit salad.

We learn about the importance of building a 'board of advisors' rather than relying on the expertise of one mentor. And Mark's top four tips for anyone wanting to diversify their career interests with the potential for creating a portfolio or fruit salad life.

This episode is hosted by Elaine Roberts, B2B marketing expert, coach and strategic change consultant. And Mark and Elaine are both members of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode special guest Jon Alexander, author of Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, shares why we need to change our 'consumer' culture to a 'citizen' one and what we can accomplish if our businesses and institutions work to empower active citizens rather than continue to drive consumerism.

For a decade Jon worked in advertising, until he realised that he was a part of the problem. He was selling a the story of consumerism, which he no longer believed in. So in 2014 he left to co-found the New Citizenship Project to support organisations interested in involving people in the decisions that affect their lives as citizens. NCP has partnered with organisations and institutions including the Co-op, National Trust, BBC, European Central Bank and many more.

Jon discusses the frameworks from the book including the 3 principles of participatory organisations, which are Purpose, People, Prototype. And why he believes that a citizen mindset 'can meet the world where we are, but also take us where we need to go'.

This episode was hosted by Claire Eades, founder of Marmalade Film and Media, and Paul Skinner, founder of MarketingKind, Director of The Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode we explore with Nathalie Nahai, expert in psychology, persuasive tech and human behaviour, how humans can flourish in an age of AI.

Nathalie is the author of Webs of Influence and Business Unusual as well as the host of the Hive podcast.

We delve into Nathalie’s journey from musician to painter, behavioural science expert, marketer and author.

She shares her take on what it means to be human in an age of tech turbulence and transformation and the implications for us as marketers and change makers. And you won’t want to miss Nathalie's memorable analogy between sexual consent and the use of marketing data.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner founder of ⁠⁠the MarketingKind community⁠⁠, director of Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode Neil Davidson shares what he is learning as part of his doctoral research on GenAI and creativity. In addition to his studies Neil is CEO of HeyHuman and a Founding Member of the MarketingKind community.

When speaking about generative AI, Neil says, 'This is going to change at an individual level, a team level, an organisational level pretty much everything we do in time as creative agencies. It will change jobs, it will change processes and it will change revenue models.'

His research includes investigating questions such as 'what defines creativity? How do you measure it? And how do you nurture it in organisations?'.

Neil explores why there are a lot of talented and accomplished creatives who believe that generative AI threatens their identity. And we cover how AI is already changing the creative process.

Neil shares 5 examples of where AI is going creatively: 1) Keyboard warriors who don't think AI will change their jobs (but remember this is the worst AI will ever be and it's only as good as its prompting) 2) Elite creatives who make AI part of their craft like Anton 3) Midjourney gurus like Sherry Horowitz, who is poet and fine artist moving into using AI in film 4) AI has the biggest effect on the least skilled - Carl doesn't have years of creative experience, but is using AI to create effective corporate comms films 5) John with decades of film editing experience believes he will likely receive 10% to 20% of the work in future and he will become the human finesse after AI has done most of the editing

AI is already an effective thinking partner, adaptive author, futurist, creative augmentor, media architect, insights synthesizer, compressing time consuming tasks and content creator.

And Neil leaves us with an important reminder... 'it won't be the AI that takes your job, it will be the creative using AI that takes your job.'

In this episode we explore inclusive economics with Arunjay Katakam, digital payments expert, social entrepreneur and author of Generation Hope: How Inclusive Economics Can Help Us All Thrive.

Arunjay tells us of his personal journey from chasing wealth to becoming a social entrepreneur finding ways to help the poorest in the world access digital payments systems.

He was inspired to write the book when during the pandemic he was interviewing gig workers and discovered what he calls 'algorithmic dehumanization', when businesses lure people in and then decide how much they should earn, even though they are technically self employed.

Steve Cook from The Undaunted also contributes significantly to this discussion.

Arunjay is the author of two books Generation Hope and The Power of Micro Money Transfers. He is a digital payments expert, who until recently consulted for the United Nations. He is the founder of Inclusive Action Lab and has previously co-founded several start ups, one of which sold to Twitter.

All profits from the sale of Generation Hope go to the non-profit Acumen, which is working to change the way the world tackles poverty.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux, co-founder of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode we learn from Zak Gottlieb, co-founder of Bank.Green, how they are influencing banks to support a more sustainable future rather than continuing to fund fossil fuels.

The fight for a habitable planet is the fight for our lives. But while we look at ways to make our own lives more sustainable, most of us are also funding environmental catastrophe.

During the 7 years following the Paris Agreement, the world’s top 60 private-sector banks pumped $5.5 trillion into fossil fuels.

In honour of Earth Day 2024 Bank.Green launched a new league table and methodology so that we can all find out if our bank (and therefore our money) is funding fossil fuels. And if we’re not happy with our bank's ranking then Bank.Green makes it easy to find and switch to a better one. 

Zak joined the climate movement in 2019 after feeling the world was sleep-walking towards catastrophe and wanting to use his knowledge of digital marketing to do something about it. At Bank.Green, he is responsible for their growth and partnerships, while liaising with banks about how they represent them.

This conversation was part of a MarketingKind Coffee with a Cause session where members work together to support the growth of a pioneering charity.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux, co-founder of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode we are joined by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, to better understand the purpose of a mayor.

We explore Andy's role as Chief Marketing Officer of Manchester, the role of a mayor in galvanising change, devolution and how best to cooperate in tackling our most important challenges.

Andy was elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester in May 2017. Under his leadership Manchester has the mission to be a healthy, green, socially just city where everyone can thrive, with the ambitious target to become a zero carbon city by 2038.

Prior to this Andy was MP for Leigh from 2001.

In government, Andy has held Ministerial positions at the Home Office, Department of Health and the Treasury. In 2008 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, before returning to Health as Secretary of State in 2009.

In opposition, Andy has served as Shadow Education Secretary, Shadow Health Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary.

Andy mentions his new book Head North: A Rallying Cry for a More Equal Britain, which he co-authored with Steve Rotherham, Mayor of Liverpool City Region.

This episode was recorded at a live event in September 2023 and is hosted by Paul Skinner founder of ⁠the MarketingKind community⁠, director of Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode Tom Fishburne, The Marketoonist, breaks down how humour can be used to bring people together, to overcome barriers and to hold a mirror up to more accurately reflect and hence be able to better address sensitive or difficult topics.

At the beginning of the interview Lauren shares her top 4 favourite Marketoons, which you can view here:

1) https://marketoonist.com/2023/03/ai-written-ai-read.html

2) https://marketoonist.com/2014/06/brand-guidelines-2.html

3) https://marketoonist.com/2016/12/brand-loyalty-3.html

4) https://marketoonist.com/2017/09/owningthepandl.html

Tom explores his creative process, how he thinks about humour and why he believes affiliative humour is the most appropriate type for a business context.

This conversation will make you think differently about how you can bring humour into your organisation and use it more intentionally to create bonds between colleagues, with customers and with the communities we support. And how we can use it to build a more engaging culture where colleagues can bring their whole personalities to work.

You don't want to miss hearing about the feedback Tom receives on his weekly cartoons such as, 'It feels like you're spying on me at work'!

Towards the end Tom shares his top Marketoons, which you can view here:

1) https://marketoonist.com/2015/01/shinyobject.html

2) https://marketoonist.com/2016/03/trojanhorse.html

3) https://marketoonist.com/2020/04/digital-transformation-2.html

Tom has been connecting and elevating the marketing community around the world with his insightful cartoons for decades. And if you're not yet receiving his weekly cartoons you should sign up here.

This episode is hosted by Lauren Cooper, Senior Marketing Manager at Amplifi Captial and a member of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode Polly Mackenzie, Chief Social Purpose Officer at University of the Arts London, explores how we can mainstream social purpose in enterprise.

We discuss everything from why Polly took on her current role, to how we might rethink free markets, taxes and regulation, the challenges of embedding values throughout a large organisation, how the creative industries are needed more than ever in our crisis-prone world and the need for a new national story in the UK.

Polly shares what it is like working with Peter Mandelson on the How to Win an Election podcast and why she is not planning to run for elected office herself.

Polly is an experienced broadcaster known to many of us for her frequent contributions on BBC Questions Time and Politics Live.

Prior to joining UAL she was Chief Executive of Demos, the UK’s leading social value think tank, bringing citizen voice and lived experience into public policy discussions. 

Polly's previous roles include founding CEO of the Money & Mental Health Policy Institute, founding CEO of the Women’s Equality Party, and Policy Director to the Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2015. 

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of the MarketingKind community, director of the Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

Joe Kenner, CEO and President of Greyston Bakery, shares the incredible story of their award-winning social enterprise and how it is transforming how we view employment.

Although many of us may not have heard of Greyston Bakery, we are all almost certainly familiar with their products (they make the brownies that go into Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream).

But as incredible as their brownies are, it's not their most important export.

They are working to create 40,000 job opportunities and $3 billion of economic impact through open hiring by 2030.

Businesses such as The Body Shop and IKEA are using their open hiring model to overcome the hiring challenges of attracting and retaining talent, while creating social impacts.

If your organisation might be a good fit for open hiring I encourage you to reach out to Joe and his team to explore the possibility of how you could give people hope.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner founder of ⁠⁠the MarketingKind community⁠⁠, director of Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode we hear from Will Hutton, one of the UK's most influential economics commentators, former editor-in-chief of The Observer, author of six major books on political economy including The State We're In and co-chair of The Purposeful Company.

Will shares his honest assessment of Labour's first 6 months in office and together we explore the ideas and solutions from his latest book This Time No Mistakes.

We discuss the importance the 'we society', of living our values and national pride (where it can be genuine), being honest about wicked problems, why fairness matters and the possibility of social media in public ownership.

The episode is hosted by Paul Skinner, founder of the MarketingKind community, director of The Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode we learn from Kate Goldman-Toomey, Executive Director of Partnerships at Open Planet, how they are creating a library of high-quality climate and nature footage, free to use for educational, environmental and impact storytelling.

She said, "the climate and nature crisis is also a communications crisis.​ We're not going far enough or fast enough so in order to collectively shift the dial and to accelerate action we need to supercharge storytelling at an exponential scale."

She tells us about the incredible work Open Planet is doing to democratize climate video content. Their library contains over 12,000 clips of documentary video content contributed by over 60 filmmakers and in the next year they aim to expand their library to over 150,000 clips.​

​K​ate shares their upcoming projects including a new feature documentary with David Attenborough on the Ocean, a feature documentary and impact campaign on Biodiversity, and a recent project on health x climate with Wellcome. And how they are building a global network on content creators who are telling their local climate stories and making them available through the Open Planet platform.

I encourage ​everyone to explore Open Planet's library at OpenPlanet.org, share it with the climate educators, non-profits and anyone looking to tell better climate stories.

​If your organisation may be interested in partnering with Open Planet please reach out to Kate.

Together we can all empower better climate storytelling​.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux, co-founder of the MarketingKind community.

In this episode Charlotte Hollins, manager of Fordhall Farm, shares the amazing story of how she and her brother Ben saved their family farm by making it the first community-owned farm in England.

Charlotte talks about the benefits of community ownership. She encourages us all to get involved with community projects near us, to consider becoming a member of Fordhall Farm and to support the We’re Right Here community power campaign.

She explains that once people become a member of Fordhall, their behaviour shifts and they are much more likely to start engaging with other local community projects, creating a ripple effect.

She says one secret to their success is "holding a strong vision, but being really flexible as to how we achieve that vision."

You can sign the We're Right Here community power pledge here.

And learn more about Fordhall Farm here.

This episode is hosted by Paul Skinner founder of the MarketingKind community, director of Agency of the Future and author of The Purpose Upgrade and Collaborative Advantage.

In this episode we learn from Parisa Wright, founder of Greener & Cleaner, how their charity is tackling the loneliness epidemic, the cost of living crisis and the climate emergency all at once.

Their innovative Community Hub in The Glades shopping centre in Bromley has turned a vacant space into a thriving place for a diverse range of people to learn from each other how they can live more sustainably, while saving money, learning new skills and building a more resilient social network.

People come to the Hub to learn new skills such as sewing, to borrow equipment from their Library of Things, to volunteer or to meet new people in a supportive environment.

Greener & Cleaner also use their Hub to test and learn. They are building a ‘Blueprint’ for success to help other community groups and charities to replicate this model in vacant spaces in shopping centres and high streets around the UK.

Our members are working with Parisa to help grow the charity by strengthening and diversifying their funding streams, particularly through their work with businesses. And if you would like to join us in supporting their work please get in touch at anna@marketingkind.org.

This episode is hosted by Jackie Marshall, former Head of Marketing at Fairtrade, MarketingKind member, volunteer at Climate Ed and Business Engagement Lead at the Food Foundation.

In this episode Gemma Butler and Michelle Carvill explore some of the most high profile environmental and sustainability challenges facing businesses and the most practical solutions from the world of marketing.

We discuss everything from our role in narrating a better pathway to sustainability, to shifting how we live, achieving environmental and social growth and recognising Earth a key stakeholder.

Gemma and Michelle are the authors of Can Marketing Save the Planet?: 101 Practical Ways to Use Sustainable Marketing as a Force for Good, are also hosts of the podcast by the same name and authors of Sustainable Marketing: How to Drive Profits with Purpose.

Gemma is the former Marketing Director of the CIM and a sustainable marketing trainer, guest lecturer and an ideas-driven leader.

Michelle is a sustainable marketing champion, agency founder, consultant, speaker and has written six books.

COM1 - Conference of Marketing, which is mentioned in the discussion will be taking place on March 14th in London and ⁠you can learn more here⁠.

This episode is hosted by Caroline Taylor, OBE, former CMO of IBM Global Markets, chair of Oasis Community Learning and a founding member of the MarketingKind community.

Our guest this episode is Shana Gavron, founder of Endangered Wildlife OU.

Shana explains, "Biodiversity could be our greatest employer, our greatest employee and our greatest trade partner. And it doesn't ask for anything except to be allowed to do what it has to do."

Shana is leading the way in creating a new universal system for measuring biodiversity by calculating reliable financial values of biodiversity and helping businesses to integrate biodiversity into their reporting and decision-making.

Biodiversity often provides the most efficient solutions to our business challenges, so why don't we maximise our ROI by letting it do what it's support to do? For instance the best way to keep elephants from crossing over into farm land is to put in beehives (rather than use land mines). And in some areas with deforestation tarantulas are moving onto football pitches and if they are left there (instead of being eradicated) you can naturally reduce the number of scorpion related deaths and injuries to the people who use the pitch.

Shana shares a simple way to quickly measure the biodiversity in our areas - check your windscreen for insects after a long drive. By this measure the UK's biodiversity is definitely going down significantly.

Shana is in the unique position of being able to perceive biodiversity from a financial and environmental perspective with 15+ years’ investment banking experience as a sell side institutional equity analyst for leading Scandinavian and Baltic banks. She has combined this knowledge with her expertise in financial modelling and her academic background in wildlife management to drive the development of the Endangered Wildlife OU’s Biodiversity Valuator.

She completed undergraduate studies in behavioural psychology and neuroscience, holds an MPA in Public and Economic Policy from the London School of Economics & Political Science. She specialises in innovation and systems dynamics for inclusive economic development.

This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux and Paul Skinner, founders of the MarketingKind community.

This September MarketingKind members and guests came together at Citizen Good in London to explore how we can encourage greater truthfulness in public discourse on the climate emergency.

Paul Skinner, founder of MarketingKind, interviews Professor Mike Berners-Lee and The Rt. Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben to get their advice on what we can all do as business leaders and citizens to support meaningful action.

Caroline Bates, founding partner at Citizen Good, hosted the gathering and three of her top take-aways are: 1. Insist on Truthfulness: Demand high standards of honesty from politicians. It’s our duty to challenge untruths and hold leaders accountable for climate impacts, especially at the local level. Organisations like Friends of the Earth provide resources to monitor MPs and their responses to climate issues. 2. Shift the Narrative: We need a cultural shift. Let’s redefine what it means to care for others by promoting sustainability in our social circles and professional environments. Changing this narrative can inspire collective action. 3. Leverage AI for Good: AI holds potential in solving climate challenges, but regulation is crucial. We must ensure its development aligns with our climate goals, rather than detracting from them.

As Paul mentions that best way to thank our incredible guest speakers is to take action on their advice. Please get in touch (anna@marketingkind.org) if you would like to join the MarketingKind community as part of your commitment to creating meaningful change.

Lord Deben is the founder and Chair of Sancroft International, a consultancy that advises both businesses and investors on all areas of Sustainability and ESG. Between 2012 and 2023 he was chair of the UK’s Independent Climate Change Committee. And he was also the UK’s longest serving Secretary of State for the Environment (1993-97).

Mike Berners-Lee is a leading expert in carbon metrics for organisations and the author of two books, There is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years, How Bad Are Bananas? The carbon footprint of everything, and co-author of The Burning Question.

Mike is a professor at Lancaster University’s Environment Centre, where his research includes carbon metrics and sustainable food systems. And he is also the founder of Small World Consulting (SWC), an associate company of Lancaster University, which works with organisations from small businesses to the biggest tech giants.