MAD Conversations

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MAD Conversations is Ghana’s Marketing Leadership Podcast focused on brand strategy, campaign execution, and marketing leadership.We are building an archive of marketing excellence in Ghana and across Africa.New episodes weekly.Subscribe to stay ahead in marketing.

  1. 4d ago

    The Making - Episode 1

    How do you make work that doesn't just sell, but stays? That was the question. This is where we start finding the answer. In this episode, I sat with a book written by two people who have spent decades inside the African marketing industry, not studying it from the outside, but building it. Prof. Robert Ebo Hinson and Joel Nettey put 150 rules on paper, so the next generation doesn't have to figure it all out from scratch. And here is what those rules are really saying. African marketing doesn't need to borrow frameworks from markets that look nothing like ours. The landscape, the culture, the trust dynamics are different here. And the executives who understand that are the ones making work that lasts. This is Episode 1 of The Making - a series where I go through Rules for the Marketing Communications Executive, rule by rule, and show you what they look like in the real world. This is the beginning of a new dawn. 📖Get the book: Rules for the Marketing Communications Executive by Prof. Robert Ebo Hinson & Joel Nettey Call - 0591343421 Chapters 0:00 inttro 1:03 Why Ghana Finally Has Its Own Marketing Bible 2:41 The Story Behind the Book 5:36 Rule 1: Read the Room Before You Brief It 10:18 Rule 2: You Are an Architect, Not a Decorator 18:17 Rule 3: Communication Doesn't Just Report Value — It Creates It 25:22 Rule 9: Your Work Shapes Culture. Are You Doing It Deliberately? MAD Conversations - Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design.  Ghana’s commercial creativity — documented. Enjoyed this episode?  Leave a review on Spotify — it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku: LinkedIn: /samuel-ad   Follow MAD Conversations: Instagram: /mad.conversations_ Facebook: /14zri1aebdd TikTok: /mad.conversations  X: https://x.com/MADConversation  Listen on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM  Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co

    35 min
  2. How A Few Seconds of Sound Became Decades of Memory | The Closing Argument

    May 19

    How A Few Seconds of Sound Became Decades of Memory | The Closing Argument

    How did a few seconds of sound become decades of memory? That was the question. This is the answer. In eleven episodes, I sat across producers, artists, marketers, regulators, and consumers  each one holding a different piece of the same puzzle. Episode 11 is where I put it together. And here is what I found that none of them said out loud. Ghana doesn't use music in advertising; music is the foundation, not a layer. And it has been that way long before radio, television, or TikTok existed.  This was Season 1. It is just the beginning.   MAD Conversations Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana’s commercial creativity — documented.   Enjoyed this episode? Leave a review on Spotify — it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku: LinkedIn: /samuel-ad  Follow MAD Conversations: Instagram: /mad.conversations_ Facebook: /14zri1aebdd TikTok: /mad.conversations  X: https://x.com/MADConversation  Listen on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM  Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co   Chapters 0:00 The Question That Started It All   2:02 Sound as Authority  4:22 Somatic Engineering & Cultural Identity   7:10 Craft, Sacrifice, and Loss   9:18 The Invisible Artist   11:05 The need for originality   12:44 Does It Actually Land?   15:38 The Numbers That Proved the Thesis   19:21 AI and the Future of Sound   20:48 The Real Answer   26:05 What This Season Was Actually About   27:31 The Industry Goes Undocumented No More

    29 min
  3. The Competitive Weapon: How Ghana's Biggest Brands Use Music to Win Market Share

    May 12

    The Competitive Weapon: How Ghana's Biggest Brands Use Music to Win Market Share

    Evans Kwofie has built brands inside some of the most competitive marketing environments in Ghana. From Diageo Ghana where he worked on Star Beer and Guinness, to Kasapreko where he ran marketing for Alomo Bitters, to Unilever, and now as Head of Marketing at Procus Ghana for Kivo, one thread has run through every campaign he has ever built. Music. In this episode of MAD Conversations, Evans breaks down the science behind why music works for brands, not as a feeling or an instinct, but as a strategic decision rooted in consumer insight, competitive intelligence and deliberate brand building. He takes us inside the research that revealed music as the number one trigger for Ghanaian youth in 2012, the R2Bees collaboration that helped Star Beer fight back against Club Beer, the Alomo Bitters repositioning that used Afrobeats to reclaim a generation, and the philosophy that has made Kivo one of Ghana's most recognized household brands. This is not a conversation about what music does in theory, but about how music actually shapes a brand's identity and leads to capturing the needed market share. MAD Conversations Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana's commercial creativity - documented. Enjoyed this episode?  Leave a review on Spotify - it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku:  LinkedIn: /samuel-ad Follow MAD Conversations:  Instagram: /mad.conversations_  Facebook: /14zri1aebdd  TikTok: /mad.conversations  X: https://x.com/MADConversation Listen on:  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM  Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co Chapters 00:00 Introduction  03:15 Star Beer vs Club Beer: The Battle for the Youth  09:07 The Consumer Research That Changed Everything  11:33 R2Bees x Star Beer: How Music Reclaimed a Generation  19:19 How Club Beer Hit Back  39:31 Alomo vs Adonko: When Music Becomes a Competitive Weapon  50:23 The Kivo Story and the Philosophy Behind the Win  57:20 Why the Most Effective Ad Had No Dialogue  1:20:50 Commission or License: The Case for Owning Your Sound

    1h 29m
  4. How Jingles Create Brand Recall: Lessons From Campaigns That Have Worked

    May 5

    How Jingles Create Brand Recall: Lessons From Campaigns That Have Worked

    Three product-spec jingles. Three failures. Less than five people participated in the last one. And then one decision, to stop selling the phone and start selling the feeling produced 200 million impressions, 5,000 dance entries, and 240% of a sales target. In this episode of MAD Conversations, Awurakua, a marketer with an unlikely foundation in psychology, English, and theatre arts, sits down with Abeiku Dadson to walk through one of the most instructive brand music case studies in recent Ghanaian advertising. She co-wrote the song. She briefed Stonebwoy on it. She built the TikTok dance challenge. And she watched Techno go from a brand influencers quietly avoided to one consumers lined up for. She has since moved on to use AI ( Suno, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Higgsfield) to develop original brand music for Bruhm and Electromart, with the same emotional precision she learned from failing three times first. In this conversation, she breaks down why specs never stick but feelings do, what it actually takes to write a song brief for an artist without diluting their brand, how she onboards AI the same way she would onboard a brand ambassador, and why she believes fan love is the real premium in music marketing, not the artist's name on the brief. You have five seconds to make someone remember your brand name. She has done it with a human being and with AI. This episode tells you how. MAD Conversations Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana's commercial creativity - documented. Enjoyed this episode?  Leave a review on Spotify - it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku:  LinkedIn: /samuel-ad Follow MAD Conversations:  Instagram: /mad.conversations_  Facebook: /14zri1aebdd  TikTok: /mad.conversations  X: https://x.com/MADConversation Listen on:  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM  Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co Chapters  0:00 Intro  0:55 From Psychology, English & Theatre to Marketing  3:50 How Her First Marketing Career Started  6:43 What Marketing Is Really Supposed to Do  7:37 Growing Up on Jingles: The Brands That Never Leave You  11:10 The Tecno Jingles That Failed Woefully  16:05 Writing the Song That Changed Everything  30:55 200M Impressions, 5,000 Entries & 240% of Sales Target  45:43 Using AI to Create Brand Music  58:33 What Will Always Be True About Music in Advertising

    1h 8m
  5. The Digital Sound Revolution: How Technology Is Transforming Music in Advertising

    Apr 28

    The Digital Sound Revolution: How Technology Is Transforming Music in Advertising

    The rules of music in advertising have changed. The question is whether brands, agencies, and artists are ready. In this episode of MAD Conversations, Abeiku Dadson sits down with Eli-Daniel Wilson, a digital strategist and marketing leader whose career has taken him from building one of Ghana's first influencer marketing platforms to leading brand strategy across West Africa at Publicis Groupe. They go deep on what it really took to launch Whoopro alongside Kelvyn Boy's Black Star album, why that campaign was years ahead of its time, and what it tells us about how music and digital marketing have converged. Eli-Daniel also breaks down the thinking behind the award-winning Mikakrawa campaign for Prudential Bank, how to decide between riding a trending sound and commissioning an original one, and what the rise of AI-generated music means for the advertising industry. This is not a conversation about theory. It is a conversation about decisions, strategy, and what it means to build something in a market that is still figuring itself out.   MAD Conversations Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana’s commercial creativity - documented. Enjoyed this episode? Leave a review on Spotify - it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku: LinkedIn: /samuel-ad Follow MAD Conversations: Instagram: /mad.conversations_ Facebook: /14zri1aebdd TikTok: /mad.conversations X: https://x.com/MADConversation Listen on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co   Chapters    0:00 Intro 4:00 Building an influencer marketing platform in the heart of COVID 14:00 Partnering Kelvyn Boy 24:00 Measuring Success 32:00 The Mikakrawa Campaign 41:00 Trending Sounds vs. Original Music 49:00 TikTok-Ready Jingles and the Fight for Attention in a Scrolling World 56:00 AI Is Coming for the Jingle 1:03:00 Brands and Agencies in the Age of AI 1:08:00 Music in Ghanaian Advertising by 2036

    1h 12m
  6. What Happens When A Brand Song Becomes a Cultural Asset (The Case of Club Beer’s Pata Pata Jingle) | Michael Gordon

    Apr 21

    What Happens When A Brand Song Becomes a Cultural Asset (The Case of Club Beer’s Pata Pata Jingle) | Michael Gordon

    The Club Beer Pata Pata jingle has been in Ghanaian living rooms and airwaves for over three decades. It outlasted agencies, survived a legal dispute, was blocked by the FDA, and is still the first thing most Ghanaians think of when someone says the word beer. In this episode of MAD Conversations, Adman and Creative Director, Michael Gordon sits down with Abeiku Dadson to give the most detailed account of this campaign ever put on record. Michael has worked on the ABL Club Beer account since 2015, and every iteration of the brand from Club at 85 to Together We Are Gold.  In this conversation, he breaks down the real origin of the Pata Pata recording used in the ad, the difference between inheriting a brand asset and inheriting a cultural one, what it actually takes to steward a legacy creative asset without breaking what makes it work, and what he believes modern Ghanaian advertising is losing in the age of fast content and short attention spans. Beer dier enoa ne club. After this episode, you will know exactly where that line lives — and why nobody, not even the people who built the campaign, can fully explain how it got there. Chapters 0:00 Intro  3:19 From KNUST to Origin8  9:19 The Origin8 Legacy  11:09 How the ABL Account Found Michael Gordon  13:43 The Real Story Behind the Pata Pata Recording  20:10 Inheriting a Cultural Asset  29:01 Bridging the generational divide  38:11 The Charlie Spelling Incident  46:15 Gen Z and the Future of Music in Advertising  1:09:06 What Ghanaian Advertising Is Losing MAD Conversations Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana’s commercial creativity — documented. Enjoyed this episode? Leave a review on Spotify — it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku: LinkedIn: /samuel-ad Follow MAD Conversations: Instagram: /mad.conversations_ Facebook: /14zri1aebdd TikTok: /mad.conversations X: https://x.com/MADConversation Listen on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co

    1h 18m
  7. After The Jingle: The Truth Nobody Expected

    Apr 14

    After The Jingle: The Truth Nobody Expected

    For five episodes, MAD Conversations has heard from the composers, the producers, the sound engineers, and the regulators. The people who built Ghana’s most iconic jingles and the people who approved or rejected them. This time, we hit to the streets. We stopped real Ghanaians and asked them one question: do you remember the jingle? Most did, some didn’t. And what they said on those streets led us straight back to the studio, where we brought in two of them to take the conversation further. Mawunya (Gen Z) and Raymond (millennial) sit across from Abeiku Dadson to dissect the question every brand manager, advertiser, and creative director wants answered: Did the jingle actually work? They talk about the ads they still remember word for word. The ones that annoyed them into muting the TV. The ones that followed them to the supermarket shelf. And the ones they sang at parties; long after the campaign had ended. What they say is not from a focus group. It is not from a research report. It is the unfiltered consumer perspective - two generations of it - and it will change how you think about your next campaign brief. MAD Conversations - Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana’s commercial creativity - documented. Enjoyed this episode? Leave a review on Spotify — it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku: LinkedIn: /samuel-ad Follow MAD Conversations: Instagram: /mad.conversations_ Facebook: /14zri1aebdd TikTok: /mad.conversations X: https://x.com/MADConversation Listen on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co

    1h 33m
  8. After The Jingle: The Rules Nobody Told You

    Apr 7

    After The Jingle: The Rules Nobody Told You

    Ghana's advertising industry generates billions each year and operates with almost no legal framework to protect brands, agencies, artists, or consumers. In this episode of MAD Conversations, Andrew Ackah, CEO of Dentsu Ghana and President of the Association of Advertisers in Ghana, breaks down everything the industry won't say out loud. The Ghana Advertising Bill that has been stuck since 2012, the FDA regulations that kill campaigns before they launch, the celebrity alcohol ad ban that makes no sense, the charlatans on digital TV that no one can legally stop, and the billions flowing through influencer marketing that nobody is taxing. This is the conversation Ghana's creative economy needs. This is MAD Conversations. Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana's commercial creativity - documented. Enjoyed this episode? Leave a review on Spotify, it helps more people find the show. Connect with Abeiku:   LinkedIn: /samuel-ad Follow MAD Conversations:  Instagram: /mad.conversations_  Facebook: /14zri1aebdd  TikTok: /mad.conversations  X: https://x.com/MADConversation Listen on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1M5ojvM Website: https://adverbemedia.com/shows/mad-co  Chapters 0:00  Intro  12:20  Ghana's Advertising Regulatory Framework Explained  14:31  How the FDA Approves and Rejects Ads in Ghana  21:41 What Gets an Ad Rejected  49:53 The Celebrity Alcohol Advertising Ban  54:31 Digital Advertising and the Regulation Gap  1:00:18 FDA's 8-Second Rule  1:05:39 Charlatans on Digital TV 1:11:06 Ghana vs Nigeria 1:21:22 The Bill's Journey Through Parliament  1:29:49 Ghana's Billboard Problem and the Wallpaper Effect  1:37:21 Disrupt and Inspire 1:39:26 Consumer Loyalty, Competition, and How Brands Must Adapt  1:47:28 What Keeps Andrew Up at Night  1:52:32 The Future of Music in Advertising: AI, Copyright, and Original Scores

    1h 53m
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MAD Conversations is Ghana’s Marketing Leadership Podcast focused on brand strategy, campaign execution, and marketing leadership.We are building an archive of marketing excellence in Ghana and across Africa.New episodes weekly.Subscribe to stay ahead in marketing.

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  • Creator
    The Adverbe
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 MAD Conversations
  • Show Website
    MAD Conversations