Advertising Agency Leadership Insights: Humanity and transparency are fundamental in creative relationships (episode #81)

How I Made it in Marketing

In 1957, Vance Packard wrote a book called ‘The Hidden Persuaders,’ about the mysterious arts of advertising, and how advertising agencies research ways to manipulate people.

I don’t know about you in your career, but I don’t want to be that guy. The way I see it, companies create value. And in a capitalist society of choice, they need to communicate that value to the ideal customer in a way that helps the customer perceive it.

So when I read a lesson like ‘authenticity is fundamental’ in a podcast guest application – with a real advertising story behind it – it resonates with me.

That lesson comes from Tom Ghiden, Managing Director, JOAN London (https://www.joancreative.com/), and he joined me on How I Made It In Marketing to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories.

JOAN Creative was named Small Agency of the Year by Adweek, at which point the magazine reported JOAN had $20 million in projected revenue for 2022 – an 80% year-over-year increase. The agency has been in business since 2016 with the New York office, and Ghiden opened the London office six months ago.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Some lessons from Ghiden that emerged in our discussion:

• Authenticity is fundamental
• Keeping a brand modern helps to drive longevity.
• All sorts of brands can benefit from humor
• Lessons (with stories) from people he collaborated with
• Trust in failure
• How to embrace empathy and authenticity in leadership – set boundaries and stick to them
• Humanity and transparency are fundamental in creative relationships

Related content discussed in this episode

Create advertising messages based on the results of 10,000 marketing experiments with MECLABS AI. Get a free trial to MECLABS AI and the AI Guild at MECLABS.com/AI (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

An Effective Value Proposition: What it is, why it is so important to business and marketing success, and how to use it (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/value-proposition-business-marketing%20success)

World-Class Consumer & Retail Brands: What right do we have as a brand to be in that business? (Podcast Episode #15) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/consumer-retail-brands)

Innovation Leadership and Coaching: You should almost always do less than you think (podcast episode #46) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/innovation)

Creative Marketing: Does it all make sense? (Podcast Episode #19) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/creative)

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This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

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