How can businesses win with organic marketing when everyone is competing for attention? In this episode of The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing, Sean Makin explores why organic marketing is far from dead, and why shouting louder isn’t the answer. Discover why the most successful brands build trust instead of chasing algorithms, why consistency beats…
Book Review : Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese. Many people in business still believe that creativity is only for designers, writers, musicians, and those with especially colourful socks. John Cleese challenges that idea in less than 150 pages. Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide is not about turning you into an…
There are moments in British public life when you wonder whether reality has quietly wandered off for a cup of tea and forgotten to return. A giant bin wearing a silver cape starts dominating the news cycle. National newspapers can’t stop talking about him. Television crews eagerly chase him down for a news segment. Journalists…
These days, getting a letter in the mail can feel more surprising than anything artificial intelligence can do. There was a time when checking the mail was something to look forward to. Admittedly, it was usually bills and the occasional pizza menu, and maybe you’d get a handwritten birthday card from a relative who thought…
Why do humans continue doing delightfully irrational things like talking about good service twenty years later? Businesses have a strange pattern that economists have tried to explain for years. A company can have the best product. The lowest price. The fastest delivery. The slickest website. Even the most advanced CRM, created by people who love…
Book Review : Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. In marketing, it’s easy to think that any book written before social media, smartphones, or AI is outdated and belongs on a shelf somewhere. Confessions of an Advertising Man politely suggests otherwise. Published in 1963, David Ogilvy’s classic is still one of the most…
Why do some companies grow like rockets while others spend three hours debating the colour of a button? It’s interesting how two companies in the same industry can sell similar products, target the same customers, and have equally smart teams, yet have very different results. Still, one company takes off quickly while the other spends…
Marketing now seems to have more channels than most televisions. There was once a simpler time. If you wanted to market a business, you placed an advert in a trade magazine, attended an exhibition, printed an alarming number of brochures, and hoped someone important wandered past your stand while searching for free pens. Life had…
Book Review : TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson. There’s a particular type of presentation that begins with thirty-seven bullet points, continues with an unreadable chart, and ends with everyone checking their phones while quietly questioning their life choices. TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking is…
Artificial intelligence has quietly entered the marketing world, changed everything around, and now everyone is left wondering how to find their way forward. A question is quietly circulating in boardrooms, marketing teams, agencies, and among business owners: “Is any marketing actually worth the money any more?” It’s a fair question. After all, the rules seem…