Christmas is often thought of as a seasonal moment. In reality, it’s one of the strongest examples of brand heritage and cultural embedding ever built. This episode analyses Christmas as a brand system. It examines how it formed, how it survived bans, wars, secularisation, and media fragmentation, and why its relevance continues to compound without central ownership, governance, or constant persuasion. For senior marketers, this offers an opportunity to examine endurance at the system l...

Most brands try to eliminate waste. This episode explains how this approach is limiting. We break down Positive Wastage, how it shows up in practice, and why it repeatedly drives brand growth, marketing outcomes, and long-term relationships, even when not intentionally planned for. Your co-hosts are: - Brand Strategist - Jack Ferguson. - Brand Identity Designer - Tutai Marongere. In this episode: Jack shares how positive wastage shows up when you build things without forcing outcomes inclu...

Building your own personal brand as a marketer matters more than ever. It helps you stay respected, protect your career options, and operate with more authority in workplaces that often default to tactics over strategy. In this episode, brand strategist Jack Ferguson breaks down how to build a personal profile that strengthens your positioning in the job market. Jack shares: • The meeting where he’d finally had enough: The moment his internal positioning collapsed and why it pushed him to ...

In this episode, host Jack Ferguson breaks down the real drivers of revenue growth by going back to first principles. No tactics worship, just the underlying forces that move product. He talks about: - How 28 retail launches helped him isolate the true impact of tactics - You can grow revenue and still lose market share, and why many brands mistake this for promotional success. - The danger of trying to compensate for weak demand with better creative or more advertising. - What marketers ...

Two marketers who never planned to be marketers break down exactly how they fell into the industry. One came through science. One came through life coaching. Both arrived here by accident. Jack Ferguson and Ben Reeves are this episode's co-hosts. Listen in to hear: How and why Jack lost money on his very first client How a podcaster launched Ben’s marketing career How different Jack found the automatic respect given to marketer's vs those with a scientific background The story behind Be...

Every marketer has questioned whether this career’s really for them; especially after getting blamed, burning out, or being abandoned when times get tough. Chanel Clark joins Jack Ferguson and shares stories of being pushed out, made redundant on day one of lockdown, and writing $8 ad copy to survive, before turning it all into The Marketing Club, a 12,000+ strong community that’s kept countless marketers in the game. In this episode: - Jack talks about why marketing becomes the easiest funct...

Every brand wants to stand out, but few are willing to break the rules to do it. In this episode, Jack dives into the world of rogue brand building, the unconventional, often scrappy ideas that make brands unforgettable. He explores how some of the world’s most unconventional brand strategies broke through. He covers: • Bumble’s guerrilla campus campaign that turned curiosity into growth • Red Bull’s early illusions of popularity and how they seeded salience • Jeep’s illegal...

Every marketer has lived through a project that started smoothly and ended sideways. In this episode, co-hosts Jack Ferguson and Ben Reeves discuss scope creep. They share war stories, practical scoping habits, and mindsets that keep you sane when a client says, “Can we just add one more thing?” If you deal with unclear briefs, have underquoted projects before, or work with clients who expect magical turnarounds, this one’s for you. On this episode: Jack shares how instant quotes backfire whe...

Most of us remember Play-Doh from childhood, but few of us realise what makes it truly distinctive. In this episode, Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson explores how a product known for its texture built enduring emotional equity through something far less obvious. He explores: How a brand's strongest assets and true distinctiveness can emerge accidentally, and what that means for youThe overlooked power of non-visual assets like smell, touch, and soundHow brands like Play-Doh, AFL, and Coca...

Friends was a hit sitcom released in the 90s, known for its feel-good humour and iconic characters. The show’s success is a sight to behold, maintaining popularity even to this day. Though not only was it loved by millions, but it's also a case study in superb branding. In particular, its theme song is the perfect distinctive brand asset. In this episode we break this down and discuss why. Evidence-based brand strategist Jack Ferguson is your host. He discusses: How...

The Push has hit Episode 50 for Season 3! With 99% of podcasts not making it past Episode 20, we thought this was a great opportunity to stop and reflect. Listen in as your host Jack Ferguson shares 50 lessons from producing 50 episodes! He covers: Our podcast tech stackHow much it costs to produce and promote the podcast every yearWhat the season’s most downloaded episodes areThe number of views Season 3 podcast content has on YouTubeHow the podcast has attracted clientsTactics th...

Marketing careers don’t stall by accident; they stall because the way agencies hire, reward, and manage talent leaves a lot to be desired. This episode is co-hosted by: - Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson and - Fractal Marketing Agency Owner Gerard Doyle Here’s what the episode covers: Gerard shares a story of how a prominent brand fired an agency in the midst of a talent shortage, only for it to backfireGerard explains why the best marketers are often the first to leave when agen...

With 2 million businesses in Australia and most brands blending into a sea of sameness, is uniqueness even achievable, or worth chasing? In this solo episode, Jack Ferguson unpacks what the data says about meaningful differentiation (spoiler: only 5–10% of brands get there), explores why most brands blur together, and introduces the idea of “demand point constellations” as a pathway to true brand growth. If you’re a senior marketer wrestling with strategy, stakeholder persua...

Building a brand is hard enough; but when you’re a marketer, the challenge intensifies. You feel the pressure to be perfect, and every misstep feels like you “should’ve known better.” Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson and Founder of the Marketing Club Chanel Clark co-host this episode. In this episode, Chanel shares how leaning into authenticity and vulnerability, rather than perfection, built her credibility, grew the Marketing Club to 10,000 members, and turned simple diary-style LinkedI...

Every marketer knows the value of objectives, they help you prioritise, decide what to push, and what to park. But here’s the paradox: the very objectives that keep you focused can come back to bite when stakeholders grip too tightly to the promises baked into them. This episode is hosted by Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson. In this solo episode, Jack unpacks a story of working with a professional services client where well-intentioned objectives turned into “but you said we’d have sales ...

Every marketer has faced it, clients convinced marketing should be a quick fix or a single big idea. In this episode, we discuss challenges with non-marketer persuasion, and why alignment and expectation management matter more. This episode was co-hosted by Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson and E-commerce specialist Ben Reeves. They discuss: How Ben’s client claimed his one “big marketing idea” worked, and whether his claim stands up to scrutiny How Ben missed out on hiring a top UX designer ...

For small and medium sized brands, referrals feel like the holy grail of growth; no acquisition cost, easier conversions, and a compounding return on past work. But what if you’ve done everything right and they still aren’t coming in? In this solo episode, Jack shares how a referral drought in his own consultancy forced him to look beyond promotion and into service portfolios. This episode discusses: How to calculate the odds of referrals based on your customer base size and buying cycles ...

When you’re paying your agency big money, how much of that is productive? And how much is pastries, drinks trolleys, and middle-management ticket clipping? In this episode, Gerard Doyle joins Jack to share the hidden economics of Marketing Agencies. We explore: Why glass-walled meeting rooms, front-desk greeters, and “free” pastries aren’t really freeHow bloated hierarchy and made-up titles inflate your bill without improving outcomesThe silo problem: when the SEO and Google Ads special...

Differentiation vs. Distinctiveness. It’s a debate that’s been looping in marketing circles for years; so what’s our take? In this episode Jack discusses the effectiveness of both concepts and shares how he talks about it with non-marketers. In this episode Jack covers: The "Laptop Bag Story" that simply explains category entry points, distinctiveness, and differentiation How Uber could have theoretically used differentiation in the beginning of their growth, before utilising distincti...

In this episode, Jack and Chanel discuss burnout, how marketers are susceptible to it, and how tying your identity in a high-growth brand can be addictive, but unsustainable. We cover: How running 2 sold-out events in 1 day was a burnout breaking pointWhat it’s like to go from high-functioning to non-functioning overnightJack’s experience with burnout after launching 14 restaurants for a brand in a yearHow being “the face” of a breakout FMCG brand can blur every boundaryWhat happens when ambi...