System1

Lead System1's global partnership strategy, team and growth. Working with the world's largest media owners, industry bodies and agencies to create thought leadership and help advertisers increase their marketing effectiveness.

Senior Vice President - Global Partnerships

Build and grow global agency commercial and marketing partnerships. Create thought leadership with our research tools and data that provides agencies with a commercial advantage. Grow System1’s global fame. Author of various studies and publications with partners including JCD, Pinterest, Radiocentre and OMD.

Global Partnerships Director

Built an agency network across Europe to grow new business. Worked with agencies and brands to develop effective global and local campaigns, launching successful innovation and measuring brand health. Trained and implemented global effectiveness and marketing capability programmes. Created a £7fig new revenue channel for System1.

Director of Creative & Media Partnerships

Diageo

Johnnie Walker - Grew from 10th to 5th biggest GB whisky brand in under 12 months. Created & executed new TTL national comms & activation campaigns. I lead the culture strategy, creating & executing a new culture platform to live across earned & paid. Also strongly involved in digital media performance, brand tracking and managing the P&L.

The Singleton - The fastest-growing GB single malt. Lead comms & culture strategy & execution. Created a new TTL comms platform with talent.

Brand Team - Johnnie Walker & The Singleton

Bacardi

A mission to scale up future brands. Reporting into the global business, I managed UK on & off-trade shopper marketing and activation for Bacardi's 12 Incubation brands and their single malt portfolio. 

Achieved a world first launching Bacardi on Deliveroo during 1st lockdown with digital cocktail bars. Work won internal awards and marketing awards.

Incubation Brand Activation Manager

On-trade commercial manager for Bacardi Brown-Forman's most influential area, Soho. Tripled profit in 9 months. Joined the accelerated leadership program.

Key Account Manager

R&D role supporting the development of Diageo’s global portfolio. Traveled globally researching & scaling innovation.

Innovation Liquid Technologist

DUSK

Led data; insights & the UK’s largest bar network for digital activation & sampling agency working with global drink brands.

Data and Insights Lead

Founded a large drinks collective working with brands (inc. ab InBev; Jagermeister & OurVodka) to run advocacy & experiential events.

Founder: The Mixology Society

innocent drinks

Activated the brand plan BTL with events, sampling and organic digital.

Brand Ambassador

Life Health Foods Europe

Student Brand Manager

Semifinalist on BBC1's Young Apprentice 2012

The Young Apprentice: Semifinalist

Director of Creative & Media Partnerships @ System1 | Marketing Researcher | Predicting Marketing Effectiveness

I work with the world's largest brands, creative agencies and media owners to put marketing effectiveness at the core of their businesses, advertising and brands. I also research and publish marketing thought leadership with System1 and our partners.

Award-winning marketer with a strong marketing and commercial background working for large FMCGs. I now lead System1's global partnership strategy and growth, unlocking the potential of our world-leading effectiveness database.

Joe Lycett's first poster for Channel 4 breaks all the creative rules. And that's why it works.

After researching hundreds of Out Of Home ads with JCDecaux UK and System1, we found that OOH's general "rules" are pretty straightforward.

Use less than ten words. Use bright, bold, distinct blocks of colour. Brand big and bold at the top of the creative. Feature people, feeling things.

However, as Sir John Hegarty says: when the world zigs, zag.

That's why this ad is getting shared in the press and on socials, which is clearly their objective.

But - If you want #OOH that might work for people walking by it in the street - best to follow our industry-leading creative research. Read more about that in my The Drum piece “7 out of 10 OOH ads don’t work. Here’s why and how to fix them” here: https://lnkd.in/eV-UgEPJ

Also, three cheers for the marketing team. It looks like they actually bought at least one billboard instead of digitally mocking this up 🙌

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily; follow for more. Chris Felton

Andrew Tindall

The best social ad you’ve ever seen is by a dumpling shop in London 🙌

The best thing about algorithms? Anyone can win with creativity. This guy gets it.

📱 Know the platform.
💬 Have one message.
📖 Tell a story with a hook.
🥟 Brand brand brand.

I hope whoever made this is rolling in cash right now.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

The World’s Best Ads & Why They Work | SVP @ System1 | Marketing Effectiveness

It's so rare that these CGI videos are actually creative. Bravo Unilever 👏

Hellmans announcing their official partnership with UEFA EURO 2024. No stale press releases here. Love it Rachel Chambers.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

What other creative campaigns has Unilever done?

How has marketing changed in the past decade?

The KFC Bucket Eclipse. What A Brilliant Reactive Campaign 🐓

Using your most famous and distinct brand assets to keep your brand relevant in culture is genius. You don’t want to be a dusty “icon”. A brand needs to be alive and breathing now.

Which is why I love this work from Wavemaker Canada. They had 24 hours to bring this campaign to life in Out Of Home. Someone even had the genius idea to activate it on The Weather Network app.

Only a few brands are big enough to get away with this. And it pays back. Few ideas are simple enough for OOH to be this effective. Congrats to KFC Canada (Yum! Brands Subsidiary) for realising that and going for it.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily; follow for more.

I wanted to hate this but I can't. It's too creative and the results already speak for themselves. Like everything McDonald's put out.

Just when you think you've smelled it all, TBWA\NEBOKO and Raúl&Rigel have made a billboard with no branding, just the smell of fries, for McDonald's Nederland.

Well - it's not "no branding", is it? Because that colour of red is very famous, and distinctly linked to Maccers. And so is the smell of fries. But would consumers really know walking past? Well, the smell and the distinct colour together, they probably would. As Phil Barden talks about in his book Decoded, brands live in context. Fries + Red = McDonalds. Without the colour it would probably just smell of any old chips.

But very few people will have seen this. Which leads me to think it's for the ol' PR reach. AKA the marketing press. But I was wrong. A quick Google later and the New York Post, Daily Mail, etc. have all picked this very small activation up from the Netherlands.

Obviously we don't have commercial results to measure this by yet but given how little this will have cost and the reach it's got in a day - I think this may be a success. I especially applaud any brand using brand assets beyond audio visual alone.

What do you think? Does McDonald's nose best?

The most creative thing I've seen this week? Crisp parking tickets.

How could this not ruin then make your day. Any agency putting out this kind of thinking can clearly be trusted with your marketing dollars. Nailed it Dylan Hartigan and Tom Snell from The Or.

The marketing books I wish I read when I first started.

Marketing and advertising experts often share a lifetime of experience in a short book for under £20. These are gems that can rapidly increase skills, knowledge and even interest.

After these nine books, I immediately saw my work change for the better.

Here's my go at what order I'd read them in, and the cheapest I could find them for online.

1. 'The Choice Factory' and 'The Illusion of Choice'. A double whammy by Richard Shotton. Such easy reading and so actionable, you feel like you know how humans work and can apply 'hacks' to your marketing immediately after. They also come as a bundle that's far too cheap. https://amzn.to/4dtUcsG

2. Time for some rigour. 'How Brands Grow' by Byron Sharp. Seems obvious, but I often ask people if they've read this (especially in interviews), and you'd be surprised. This is even more useful as it's become the language of marketing globally. https://amzn.to/3JFhNZD

3. It's getting serious now, you have the marketing bug. You want to understand how to apply this to win market share. sarah carter and Les Binet's 'how not to plan' is an enjoyable, actionable guide to brand planning, sprinkled with agency life. https://amzn.to/3QmDDox

4. Next is Orlando Wood's 'Lemon - How the Advertising Brain Turned Sour' with the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising). Orlando shares evidence of how advertising works in the long and short, and how to make both more effective. Also, Orlando shares the language that should be used to connect media and creative planning, the "left and right brain". This book changed my career. https://amzn.to/4dmKV5F

5. You may then wake up in a large FMCG, and your Marketing Manager asks you how your brand is doing in the lift. You should probably read the most robust and innovative guide to brand tracking, Jenni Romaniuk's 'Better Brand Health'. https://amzn.to/4aXNbyw

6. You've nailed the fundamentals. It could be enough to land that senior marketing role. So, appreciating the art and craft of advertising and copywriting will set you apart. 'The Copy Book' is a bible dedicated to advertising legends, their work and how they did it. https://amzn.to/4aRWxf6

7. You'll be in Soho's Groucho Club with that new salary. Where Ad-land will insist on name-dropping anyone they had a cigarette with in the 90s. 'The Mirror Makers' by Stephen Fox is your American advertising history guide. https://amzn.to/3UsvTmi

8. When you get bored of procurement and legal ruining all your fun, you'll eventually quit to run a vegan start-up and need to know how to grow challenger brands. Adam Morgan's 'Eating the Big Fish' is where you start. https://amzn.to/4dhRpCI

Did I miss any gold? If this is useful, I'll share my killer pocast list next week.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

On a mission to make every marketing pound work harder.

Trained, practising & researching marketer with 8+ years of commercial & marketing experience.

Working with media & creative agencies, and their global clients, to produce effective creative advertising; innovation and brand positioning. Also, leading marketing research and producing industry thought leadership.

Experienced in brand management; creative effectiveness; shopper marketing & activation; TTL comms creation & execution; account development; product & digital innovation - including sampling; last-mile delivery & ROS development.

Motivated by breaking free from convention; bringing people together; doing the right thing; understanding why; creating & always growing.

Richard Shotton

We've reached peak 'fake ad'. Marketers have had enough. But here's why you should love them.

I p*ssed off about 200 marketers on Saturday by posting Tom Birts fake easyJet ad. I read through the angry comments and messages. Had a little cry. Then, instead of hiding under the stairs at Chancery Lane (niche agency reference there for the good 'uns), I've taken the six strongest POVs and "bared all" in my latest piece for The Drum.

These things aren't trying to "scam" anybody. But I do love Peter Bray's point that it's essentially cheating. Client buy-in and getting it through legal are often the hardest parts of advertising. So, System1 testing this kind of bold work should help us convince clients to do bolder more effective OOH work. 

And is it bad for Out of Home #OOH as a channel? Really? Millions of marketers were talking about OOH over the weekend and how to use it properly because of this ad concept. No one is briefing in a £5k fake ad PR campaign instead of an OOH buy. Those marketers have different brand sizes and objectives.

But these ads ignoring ASA rules and creatives "borrowing" a brand's IP can't be ignored. So, we all need to get clearer when we share them.

I've even sprinkled in my favourite signalling theory research from Richard Kirk to really drive my point home.

Here it is. How fake ads can help our industry. Chock-full of fake ad examples that you 100% should not appreciate: https://lnkd.in/em7bZhFH

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

thedrum.com • 6 min read

Are ‘fake ads’ helping or hindering the advertising industry?

John McCarthy

HOW TO MEASURE MEDIA EFFECTS

Ben Oliver will never know how useful I find this bit of thinking. Thank you for pulling it together.

Marketing metrics are never perfect. You discover a new flaw for one metric every day. Even MMM can be questionable. It often fails to capture all the great work OOH does.

It all really boils down to incremental sales, but having metrics to guide you along the way is super useful.

A key one to always watch out for is Brand Lift Studies (BLS) and Conversion Lift Studies (CLS). Platforms will do these for you to show the work a camapaign has done. If you are comparing truly comparable groups (this stuff is often full of Rosser Reeves effects), then doing meta-analysis on this type of data is often a gold mine of insights. It's how I build a lot of the publications I work on.

Note the metrics on the left. Don't place too much weight on them; they rarely correlate to the effectiveness metrics on the right. And ROI is always better when it's measured over longer periods. Hence why 'Profit ROMI' is often better as it tends to look at whole campaigns.

Fantastic research can also help predict these metrics. For example, an ad with a higher-than-average System1 Star Rating gets x6 more brand lift on Pinterest.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

Yorkshire Tea is one of the best examples of what effective broad-reach advertising can do for a brand.

For years, Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate have consistently outspent their competitors to achieve positive Extra Share of Voice. This has moved the brand from a small regional tea to the largest in the UK.

It's not just their media planning that's been effective. Lucky Generals have been delivering creatively brilliant work that's grown brand equity whilst delivering sales.

This is one of my favourite ads. It uses humour and a celeb to deliver a right-brained masterpiece. It's in the top few % for long and short-term creative effectiveness in System1's database. 95% of consumers rapidly correctly spot the ad is for Yokrshire Tea due to the incredibly strong tone of voice and use of famous distinct brand assets. Here's the full report for free: https://lnkd.in/eeJ-NVjs

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily. Follow for more.

Marketers have too much data to know what to do with.

I spoke at London Business School yesterday, as part of their Marketing and Strategy Club, to students from different backgrounds. I wanted to establish a simple media principle: new does not always mean better.

As a 28-year-old marketer, I feel like people expect me to come out swinging for digital all the time. Digital media can be incredibly effective (when a brand finally accepts they are competing with creators and an algo that feeds people the most dopamine-rich content they've ever experienced), but an effective marketer knows the power of "traditional" media as well.

So, I pulled a slide together. It took me a while. Not because there is a lack of data on this. I see data on this most days. But because there's TOO much data. It's hard to understand which to use or believe anymore.

That's what makes the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) TouchPoints research so impressive. Cross-media channel research is tough, and they've been doing it well for years. To paint a quick view of effectiveness and efficiency, I also included additional newer data from Thinkbox, RAJAR and Radiocentre.

I thought this would be useful to share. A reminder that traditional media can obviously still really deliver for brands. Although I hate calling it traditional media - a lot of radio, TV and OOH is now digital. But you catch my drift.

If you have any useful media planning resources or decks that help cut through the noise, please do share them below!

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

Don’t Forget The Day Job

Viral ad mock-ups on LinkedIn can stir the passions, but The Marketing Scientists know what’s up. Can they really help us reach consumers more effectively?

This week’s marvellous cartoon by Dhananjay reminds us that, at the end of the day, what the consumer sees is what counts.

We can either write “fake ads” off as award fodder, call them a disgrace or use them to bring a little more creativity into work that consumers will actually see. 

Read more in my latest column here: https://lnkd.in/em7bZhFH

I share a weekly marketing cartoon to make the day job a bit more bearable; follow for more.

LinkedIn trains AI with collaborative articles. All Mark Ritson’s solutions involve a pint and a kebab. Here’s my favourites.

The best has to be him claiming he’s a thought leader in claiming to have given up smoking, then hiding by the garden shed and finishing a whole pack of cigarettes.

I can’t wait for LinkedIn’s AI marketing chatbot to launch and kebab prices to go through the roof 😂

Human creativity wins again. This needs to be a keynote.

American marketers keep more effective ads on air for longer. UK marketers keep backing the wrong horse.

We are seeing more and more negative chat about American marketing. It's true, in the System1 database the average Star Rating (long-term creative effectiveness of ads) is slightly lower than the UK average. But making a broadly appealing ad in America is so much harder given how many markets the US is made up of.

Which is why I love this data. American marketers keep more effective ads on air for longer. Yet the more effective an ad is in the UK, the less time it spends on TV.

Part of this will be due to Christmas advertising. UK christmas ads take a LOT of resource and spend. They are often incredibly effective. But some only air for 3 weeks.

Understanding that an ad is working harder and backing it with media spend is a key marketing skill. It's one way pre-testing can help advertisers be more effective. American marketers can clearly teach the industry a thing or two here.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

When your company's annual conference is a podcast episode.

Jon Evans, our CCO and Uncensored CMO, just grilled System1’s CEO, James Gregory, as part of our annual get-together. What a way to share our growth plans!

When you're a business that believes in emotion and entertaining for commercial gain, it’s good to see we take our own medicine.

The Perfect Example Of Marketing Myopia

One of the fundamental principles you get taught in any formal marketing training is Marketing Myopia. It’s the idea that brands shouldn’t limit themselves to just their industry but, instead, truly understand who they are competing against.

It takes a company to take a consumer-first view. What goals are they helping a consumer achieve? A classic one is trains. They’ve largely failed (in the UK) as they’ve been too focused on trains and not … travel. When comparing the benefits of getting a car or flight vs a train, a train often makes little sense.

Which is why I love this Sky campaign. Some could argue that cinema is the competition. Sky competes with far more than cinema trips. Days out. Eating out. Even Monopoly with the family. By understanding this and building a better offering to compete - they win.

Marketing myopia. Knowing who the competition really is.

If you want to read more about this - google the Harvard Business Reviews classic Marketing Myopia article. It’s core reading on any marketing course.

I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

‘Digital Marketing’ implies the existence of ‘Analogue Marketing’.

Genuine question. If you have “digital” in your title, would your boss tell you to stop if you had a great print media idea? 😂

Every media channel is now digital. OOH is primarily screens. Connected TV is HUGE. 80%-ish of the UK listens to digital radio every week. Even on the off chance that you find yourself in the cinema or your Nan’s making you watch Bake Off on her TV - you have your phone in your hand.

Yet you still see “digital” in people’s titles. Do we mean performance marketing? But some of the best performance marketing is paper posted through peoples’ doors?

Surely, it’s time we admit that you can’t do a marketing job without digital. The only people winning here are consultants paid to try make maps of the “digital TV landscape”.

I’ve now made myself sad because an analogue marketing role sounds pretty awesome.

Price Promotions - The Drug Your Brand’s Hooked On

Les Binet has launched a brilliant series of free YouTube videos teaching some of the critical principles of marketing effectiveness.

As you’d expect from the author of key marketing publications, they are amazing. We are especially fond of his episode on price promotions. So, Dhananjay had drawn him into The Marketing Scientists as our special guest. 

I worked in alcohol FMCG for years. Some of your favourite spirit brands are sold on price promotion over 80% of the time. The category’s sad reality is that most spirit brands are hooked on price discounts.

When a brand price promotes, and they get that dopamine-rich bump in sales, you’d be mistaken for thinking that’s all incremental profit. It rarely is.

Some consumers were going to buy anyway; they just paid less. Others were going to buy it next week, but they just brought it forward and paid less. Others were going to buy it at Tesco, but they paid less at Sainsbury’s instead. But when you start this dangerous game, it’s hard to stop.

You can catch Les’ entire video series for free here: https://lnkd.in/eYvn9zUf

I share a weekly #marketing cartoon and #advertising insights daily; follow for more.

A Small "Ad Tweak" Can Make Your Campaign A Success

I'm speaking at the Marketing Society of Ireland "Health of Creative" event at 430pm today w/ Amy Rodgers and Ger Roe. I'm going to be proudly talking about the power of getting your audio creative right.

The research from Radiocentre and System1 looks at the in market effects caused by radio ads. Using data collected from 50,000+ respondents. It's the largest publication into audio creative effectiveness...ever.

It's full of evidence that "ad tweaking" is well worth our time. 

Including, radio campaigns with high Fluency (those that cause high brand recognition) see DOUBLE the media-weighted brand trust gains in market. That's the differennce between throwing in one more famous disntict audio asset at the right time or not. Such small changes can make or break campaigns.

The full 100 page book I wrote is a deep dive into how radio ads work, and how to make them more effective. We have made it fully FREE here: https://lnkd.in/eiwG-cTU

Come say hi if you're at the event later, or join me for a Guinness after. Or I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

Such a pleasure working on this research with: Donna B. Mark Barber MBE Steve McGoldrick

Taplio

Andrew Tindall's Linkedin Analytics

Andrew Tindall

Andrew Tindall's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Taplio

.css-1jgreyo{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39,43,72,1) 0%, rgba(33,47,183,1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Andrew Tindall's Linkedin Analytics

Andrew Tindall

Andrew Tindall's Best Posts .css-qqfgvy{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);}(last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Andrew Tindall's Linkedin Analytics

Andrew Tindall's Best Posts (last 30 days)