Embracing Marketing Mistakes

Prohibition PR
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Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the world’s leading irreverent podcast for senior marketers who are tired of the polished corporate b*llshit.  Join Chris Norton and Will Ockenden, founders of the award-winning Prohibition PR, as they sit down with industry leaders to dissect the career-ending f*ck-ups they’d rather forget. The show moves past any pretty vanity metrics to uncover the brutal, honest truths behind marketing disasters, from £30,000 SEO black holes and completely failed companies, to social media crises that went globally viral for all the wrong reasons. We don't just celebrate the f*ck-ups; we extract the tactical blueprints you need to avoid them yourself. If you are a business owner, or a CMO looking for a competitive advantage that only comes from real-world experience, this is your weekly masterclass in resilience and strategy. Listen for: Raw stories from top brands, ex-McKinsey strategists, and industry disruptors.Learn from: The errors that cost thousands and the recoveries that saved careers.Get ahead by: Turning other people's nasty disasters into your unfair market advantage. If you have a story to tell and would like to appear on the show, tell us your biggest marketing mistake and drop us a line.

  1. 9h ago ·  Video

    EP 126: Why She Says You Could Swap Your Logo With A Competitor's

    Most B2B brands are interchangeable, and Talia Wolf built a career proving it. In this episode, Talia Wolf, founder of GetUplift and creator of the emotional targeting framework, explains why most products test identical on every measurable feature, and the two emotional clusters, self-image and social image, that drive buying decisions. She tells the story of the book cover mistake she caught before print, when beta readers including Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds told her the professional, generic design was missing her own voice, and how the comic-book redesign became a number one Amazon bestseller in its category. She also explains why she won't let AI write client copy or synthesize research, and why conversion optimization now has to happen everywhere a buyer forms an opinion, not only on a company's own website. You will learn the real reason people buy from you, why hypothesis-free A-B testing wastes budget, and why authenticity beats polish once your market looks the same. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 126: Why She Says You Could Swap Your Logo With A Competitor's

  2. Aug 25 ·  Video

    EP 125: The PR Launch That Cleared The Building

    A CIPR fellow with nearly six decades in PR says the industry still protects itself from its own scandals. In this episode, Robert Minton-Taylor, a CIPR fellow recognised at the institute's 70th anniversary and a 24-year PR lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, argues that no PR professional has ever been sanctioned for their industry's complicity in Grenfell, the Post Office Horizon scandal, the infected blood scandal, or the NHS maternity scandal. He tells the story of the former intern who says he failed her over the Hillsborough police statements, then shares four named mistakes from his own agency career: a grunge band that cleared a client event with a power drill, a hotel bar that served the wrong soft drink to a client, a spelling mistake that nearly cost him his job at one of the world's biggest PR agencies, and a pitch document typo he still gets asked about. You will learn why the PR industry still has an accountability problem, and the specific checks he says every account handler needs before anything goes out the door. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 125: The PR Launch That Cleared The Building

  3. Aug 18 ·  Video

    EP 124: He Built His Own AI Company Then Shut It Down

    A toxic hire nearly cost him his agency. Then he made a similar mistake again, this time trying to build his own AI instead of renting one. In this episode, Roger Hurni, founder and Chief Brand Strategist of Off Madison Ave, whose client roster includes Nike, Wells Fargo, PetSmart, and P.F. Chang's, breaks down the culture-first hiring lesson he learned the hard way, why his team abandoned an in-house AI build for an off-the-shelf tool, and the AI philosophy he wrote for his own staff: expand your options, never let AI replace your judgment. Trained in behavior design under Stanford's BJ Fogg and the author of Outthink, Outperform, he also explains why he believes 90% of LinkedIn is now AI-generated content, and the test he runs on every new hire to separate real thinkers from people who copy and paste AI output. You will learn why culture fit can matter more than raw talent, when renting beats building with a new technology, and how to use AI without letting it think for you. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 124: He Built His Own AI Company Then Shut It Down

  4. Aug 11 ·  Video

    EP 123: Why I Recommended the Man Who Fired Me - John O'Keeffe

    He ran creative for the world's biggest advertising group. Then his own recommendation to the board cost him the job, and he sold every share he owned the same week. In this episode, John O'Keeffe explains how he took WPP from a "creative desert" to seven straight years as Creative Holding Company of the Decade, why recommending Mark Read to succeed Martin Sorrell as CEO turned out to be his biggest mistake, and what happened when Read undercut him in front of the entire company. He also makes the case for why AI can execute a creative idea at any scale but cannot originate one, using Compare the Market's meerkat campaign as proof, and reflects on the campaigns he's most proud of, including Keep Walking for Johnnie Walker and an Audi ad voted best in the world. You will learn why creative leaders sometimes cost themselves their own jobs through the people they vouch for, what AI can and cannot do in marketing right now, and why standing for a specific idea beats chasing every trend. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 123: Why I Recommended the Man Who Fired Me - John O'Keeffe

  5. Aug 4 ·  Video

    EP 122: The Sales Funnel Is a Hundred Years Old and Wrong

    KFC and Weetabix both threw away the most famous slogans in their category, and had to fight their way back to them. In this episode, Tom Roach explains how "Finger Lickin' Good" and "Have You Had Your Weetabix" both got dropped while each brand chased fresher creative, and the research and internal persuasion it took to bring them back. He also breaks down why the standard marketing sales funnel misreads how people actually buy, why the von Restorff effect explains why distinctive brands get remembered, and how a hundred-year-old rule about creative quality (95% of everything has always been rubbish) applies directly to the AI content panic gripping the industry today. You will learn how to audit your own brand's forgotten assets, why B2B brands default to sameness and how to break out of it, and why "share of model" is becoming the new battleground for brand visibility in an AI-driven search world. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 122: The Sales Funnel Is a Hundred Years Old and Wrong

  6. Jul 28 ·  Video

    EP 121: I Invented a Category, Sold to Diageo, and Almost Lost It All

    Ben Branson invented an entirely new drinks category from his kitchen. Then a £1 million hole nearly took it all away. In this episode, Ben explains how Seedlip, the world's first non-alcoholic spirit, grew twice as fast as the industry standard, and how that growth hid a working capital gap that surfaced mid-flight to Australia. He breaks down how the team traded their way out of the crisis in six months through relationships rather than financial engineering, why he launched straight into Selfridges instead of starting small, and why he chose to publicly embrace a review that called his product "witch's piss." You will learn how to spot the hidden financial risk behind fast growth, why polarizing feedback beats indifference when you're creating a new category, and why genuine relationships with customers and suppliers are the real safety net in a crisis. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 121: I Invented a Category, Sold to Diageo, and Almost Lost It All

  7. Jul 21 ·  Video

    EP 120: We Fired 30 People and Nothing Changed

    A growth lead at a fast-scaling startup admits the truth: his old company cut a 30-person marketing and sales team, and sales didn't change at all. In this episode, Hector Hughes explains why a year of growth work, SEO, conversion rate optimization, and endless website testing achieved almost nothing, and how that failure led him to build Unplugged, a digital detox retreat business now serving thousands of guests across the UK and Spain. He breaks down why "tracking everything results in tracking nothing," why most companies never answer the one question that matters, and how stepping away from constant distraction became the foundation of his marketing philosophy. You will learn how trackable tactics replace the harder work of positioning without anyone noticing, what happens to your mind and body after three days offline, and why authenticity beats competing on someone else's terms. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 120: We Fired 30 People and Nothing Changed

  8. Jul 14 ·  Video

    EP 119: Moz Founder: 'I Was Making $50M a Year and Miserable'

    Rand Fishkin built Moz into the biggest name in SEO. Then he raised $30 million in venture capital and watched it nearly break him. In this episode, Rand explains why raising venture capital was his biggest mistake, how it led to a battle with depression and his resignation as CEO, and why he is happier, healthier, and making more money today running SparkToro, a company a twentieth the size of Moz. He also breaks down why traffic has always been a vanity metric, how to build a new analytics framework for the AI and zero-click era, and why your boss is wrong to give Google credit for your branded search traffic. If you're interested on  how to track marketing influence beyond click-based analytics, why website traffic is dropping while revenue holds steady for many businesses, and why brand and positioning remain the most durable marketing assets in the AI era, then this episode is for you. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

    EP 119: Moz Founder: 'I Was Making $50M a Year and Miserable'
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Trailers

About

Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the world’s leading irreverent podcast for senior marketers who are tired of the polished corporate b*llshit.  Join Chris Norton and Will Ockenden, founders of the award-winning Prohibition PR, as they sit down with industry leaders to dissect the career-ending f*ck-ups they’d rather forget. The show moves past any pretty vanity metrics to uncover the brutal, honest truths behind marketing disasters, from £30,000 SEO black holes and completely failed companies, to social media crises that went globally viral for all the wrong reasons. We don't just celebrate the f*ck-ups; we extract the tactical blueprints you need to avoid them yourself. If you are a business owner, or a CMO looking for a competitive advantage that only comes from real-world experience, this is your weekly masterclass in resilience and strategy. Listen for: Raw stories from top brands, ex-McKinsey strategists, and industry disruptors.Learn from: The errors that cost thousands and the recoveries that saved careers.Get ahead by: Turning other people's nasty disasters into your unfair market advantage. If you have a story to tell and would like to appear on the show, tell us your biggest marketing mistake and drop us a line.

Information

  • Creator
    Prohibition PR
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    190
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Embracing Marketing Mistakes
  • Show Website
    Embracing Marketing Mistakes

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