The Push

Hosted by Jack Ferguson

Business Entrepreneurship

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Episodes

124

Latest episode

Jun 2026

Language

EN-AU

About the show

The Push is a podcast for senior marketers eager to hear honest perspectives from peers who tell it like it is. We speak directly to your day-to-day reality and don't bother with superfluous tactics you don't need. We understand that senior marketing is uniquely frustrating. You have to sell the 'why' more than any other department. You're held accountable for results beyond your control. You're forever dealing with non-marketers who 'know better than you'. Stakeholder politics, opinions, and “gut feelings” constantly get in the way. You're so busy dealing with stakeholders, there's little time left to conceptualise new strategies and hone your craft. We bring together senior marketers to candidly share stories, analogies, strategies, and mental models they've used. You can use these conversations to: Explain complex concepts to non-marketers. Get more client buy-in. Explore new strategy ideas. Better articulate your existing knowledge. Explain the 'why' behind your strategy. Keep your own team engaged. Better navigate marketing politics (which are inevitable). Remember that you're not alone in your experiences. No empty buzzwords. No listicles. No generic advice. Whether you’re in-house, agency-side, or a consultant, you’ll leave feeling empowered to speak up and lead with confidence. The Push is hosted by Jack Ferguson, a Brand Strategist with 15 years of marketing and brand experience across 20+ industries.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

June 2, 2026Episode 7128 min

S3 E71: Brand Strategy Reddit: Five Companies in a Trench Coat, Brand Drift, and Positioning Problems

Brand strategy is easily derailed. All of a sudden, the whole company invites itself into the room, sales invents three new offer names, the CEO wants the brand to feel “premium”, and nobody can accurately explain what the business does.In this solo episode, Jack Ferguson answers brand strategy questions from Reddit that cover a spectrum of issues that arise within companies.He covers:How to stop brand strategy meetings turning into philosophy clubWhat to do when your positioning, USP, and messaging get a “nobody cares” response from the marketHow to know whether your positioning is effectiveThe impact of changing a brand name on brand equityHow to think of a personal brand vs a company brandWays in which “premium” positioning falls apartHow to know whether you need a rebrand or refreshWhat to do when sales, marketing, leadership, and customer success all describe the brand differentlyBrand Architecture issues after mergers and acquisitionsPrerequisites to altering brand assets like your logoHelpful Links:Find Jack:- On LinkedIn- WebsiteFind The Push:- On LinkedIn- On YouTube Music- On TikTok- On Instagram- Website

May 19, 2026Episode 7052 min

S3 E70: When Great Marketing Execution Still Fails: Understanding Buyers, Markets, and Risk

Most companies blame execution when growth plateaus.So they start doing more outbound, making better ad creative, creating new landing pages, building sharper sales scripts, and tightening the alignment between sales and marketing. But often, the problem isn’t execution, it's market understanding.In this episode, Jack Ferguson hosts Buyer Researcher Ryan Gibson to help you understand when poor growth is an execution problem and when it is a market understanding problem. Using examples from SaaS, enterprise software, startups, and B2B sales environments, they explore how buyers make decisions, why status quo bias is stronger than many realise, and why customer feedback alone is seldom enough to glean broad market insights.They cover:- How Amazon use qualitative data to break the tie of a GTM decision- The % of revenue Salesforce reinvests back into their GTM- How to get feedback from buying committees you don’t ordinarily get access to- How to know if you have a market understanding problem or execution problem? (incl. real examples of each)- The lead and lag indicators that indicate a company lacks the market understanding to effectively grow- The issues with using surveys for quantitative research- How you can use AI to complement your market research efforts- Low cost approaches to doing B2B market research- Ways to get your company to start investing in market understanding- How to get market and buyer truths- What strong resistance to pricing tells you- How qualitative conversations uncover what dashboards and CRM data can’t - The benefits and drawbacks of relying on sales teams for market understanding- What conditions need to be in place for large B2B companies to change providers - The limitations of relying on customers for market insightHelpful Links:Where to find Jack:- LinkedIn- Website Where to find Ryan:- LinkedIn- Content Lift Website Where to find The Push:- LinkedIn - YouTube Music- Instagram- TikTok- Website

May 5, 2026Episode 6933 min

S3 E69: The Ontology of Brand (Pt 3): Building Distinctive Assets and Smashing Your Brand

In Part 3 of this series, the rubber hits the road.After breaking down brand diagnostics and strategy in the previous two episodes, this episode moves into what gets built: brand assets, how to prioritise them, and how they compound (or don’t) over time.Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson is your host.He discusses:Which brand asset is the most important, and whyWhat Asset Hierarchy is and how to think about itThe trade-offs between ease of consumption and distinctivenessWhen a name change is strategically justified, and when it’s notWhat separates a strong brand name from a weak one How to think about building vs identifying distinctivenessHow to maintain equity during brand refreshesWhat it means to “smash your brand”Helpful Links:Find Jack:- On LinkedIn- At His Personal WebsiteFollow The Push:- On LinkedIn- On Instagram- On YouTube Music- On TikTok- At The Push Website

April 7, 2026Episode 6830 min

S3 E68: The Ontology of Brand (Pt 2): Strategy Outputs, Decision Infrastructure, and Scenario Modeling

A Brand Strategy is often dismissed as ‘fluff’ because it’s poorly defined, inconsistently applied, and confused with tactics, communications, advertising, or visual identity.In Part 2 of this series, we move beyond the theory of brand as a function of memory and why buyers buy to define specific strategic outputs, explain how they’re informed, and model scenarios in which they’re used. This episode presents a unifying idea of brand strategy that holds up for marketers and remains accessible to non-marketers.This episode covers:How brand strategy operates as a set of outputs that shape decisions across an organisation Scenario modelling across two distinct operating environments: a B2B accounting firm and a high-urgency B2C retailer How an effective brand strategy aligns incentives, operating models, and capability, not just communications and advertising outputs Why most competitive advantage comes from structure, not messaging or creativity A practical test to determine whether something is strategic or tacticalThe core outputs of brand strategy, how they’re informed, and how they’re used The role of memory, association, and expectation in reinforcing or violating brand strategy Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson hosts this episode.Helpful Links:Where to find Jack:- Find Jack on LinkedIn- Find Jack at his WebsiteWhere to find The Push:- Follow The Push on LinkedIn- Subscribe to The Push on YouTube Music- Follow The Push on TikTok- Follow The Push on Instagram- Visit The Push WebsiteResources Mentioned:- RSPCA Commercial- Budweiser + Jay Z Commercial- 2013 Budweiser Super Bowl Ad

March 24, 2026Episode 6733 min

S3 E67: The Ontology of Brand (Pt 1): How It’s Measured, First Principles, and Why Buyers Buy

Most definitions of ‘brand’ focus on what a company produces, like logos, names, and design systems, but fail to explain what brand is, how it drives commercial outcomes, and how it is measured. In Part 1 of this series, we define brand comprehensively while keeping it accessible to marketers and non-marketers alike. From that foundation, we break down how brand shows up in real buying situations, how it influences decision-making through different memory systems, and how it can be measured through awareness, salience, distinctiveness, and risk. In Part 1, we discuss:What is happening in the mind during a purchase decisionThe role of working memory in evaluation vs long-term memory in reducing riskWhy most brand interactions never make it past sensory filteringThe relationship between brand building (long-term memory) and activation (working memory)Sensory, working, and long-term memory, and how each shapes brand outcomesThe commercial implications of brand: awareness, perception, and risk reductionBrand Distinctiveness vs Brand DifferentiationHow category entry points trigger brand recall in real-world situationsThe practical discussion of how brand heritage affects commercial outcomesWhy diagnostics are the foundation of any credible brand strategyThe difference between internal (team/founder) and market diagnostics, and why both matterWhy most definitions of brand are incomplete, and what is commonly missedA unifying definition of brand grounded in perception, memory, and behaviourThe ontology of brand: its tangible existenceHosted by Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson.Where to find Jack:- LinkedIn - WebsiteWhere to find The Push:- The Push on LinkedIn- The Push on YouTube- The Push on TikTok- The Push on Instagram- The Push Website

March 10, 2026Episode 6624 min

S3 E66: Where Marketers Contribute the Most Value: Identifying Demand and Innovation

Most revenue growth actually comes from rising demand, and brands that recognise early can move to service it.In this episode, Jack Ferguson breaks down where marketers create the most value inside a business: identifying emerging demand and helping organisations innovate to meet it.Drawing on Mats Georgson’s Demand Point Constellation Theory, and using examples from Uber, McDonald’s, Intuit, Swiffer, and others, Jack explains how marketers can uncover these demand points through real-world observation and customer insight.This episode covers:• What a Demand Point Constellation is and why it matters• How Uber won with the Demand Point Constellation• How McDonald’s discovered the real job of a milkshake• How Intuit and P&G watched customer behaviour to drive product innovation• Why marketers should think like demand detectors inside organisations• Practical ways to uncover demand through social listening, ethnography, and customer conversationsHelpful Links:Jobs to be Done Framework Where to find Jack:LinkedIn WebsiteWhere to find The Push:LinkedInYouTubeInstagramTikTokWebsite

February 24, 2026Episode 6547 min

S3 E65: Why Costco Engineers Against Impulse Purchases, How Honey Collapsed in One Video, and the Quantum Shift Marketing Needs

Buyers don’t experience brands as funnels. They encounter them mid-scroll, mid-conversation, mid-doubt, mid-purchase, to name a few examples. So why does marketing still plan as if people move predictably from awareness to purchase?This episode's guest Jelena Veselinovic joins host Jack Ferguson to rally against this phenomenon while drawing on 25+ years of marketing experience, including 18 years at Coca-Cola and 3.5 years as Head of Brand Marketing at Miro. Now operating as a fractional Head of Brand, she blends classical marketing science with a philosophical background to challenge the deterministic assumptions still embedded in boardrooms. If the world behaves probabilistically, effective marketing must evolve accordingly.We cover:How Honey’s overnight collapse is the best case study on brand promise riskWhy Costco removes marketing traps and caps marginsHow Coca-Cola institutionalised product as their brand coreHow Newtonian cause-and-effect thinking misreads buyer behaviourWhy marketing is better understood as shaping conditions rather than controlling behaviourHow brands lost narrative authority to reviews, creators, and AIWhy deterministic marketing is both disrespectful and ineffective How to build brands that thrive upon contact with realityHelpful Links:- Determinism - Quantum Mechanics - The Quantum State of Branding Article- Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam VideoWhere to find Jack:- LinkedIn- WebsiteWhere to find Jelena:- Rewire Your Mind Substack - LinkedInWhere to find The Push:- LinkedIn- YouTube- Instagram- TikTok- Website

February 10, 2026Episode 6428 min

S3 E64: Using AI to create Audio Brand Assets, Magnum ASMR, and Sonic Spillage

In this episode, Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson discusses sonic branding and the new opportunities that are emerging for marketers with AI.Jack recently created a song for his own brand using AI which sparked a bigger conversation about sonic branding, accessibility, and audio ownership. Sound is one of the most underused brand assets available today and smaller brands have more access than ever.Jack discusses:- AI-generated music and the associated considerations for brands- How AI can be used to make broader auditory assets- Why hearing is one of the most stimulus-efficient channels humans have- How audio is becoming more accessible for smaller brands- Magnum’s ASMR strategy - Why the opportunity is with hearing compared to the other “always-on” senses- Many real-world brand examples and case studiesJack’s Links:- LinkedIn Profile - Jack’s Personal WebsiteThe Push Links:- Follow The Push on LinkedIn - Find The Push on YouTube - Follow The Push on TikTok- Follow The Push on Instagram- Visit The Push WebsiteResources Mentioned:- Pizza Before The Hut- Dominos Phrase- Keno Jingle - Microsoft Startup Sounds - Magnum ASMR- Rivers Advertisements- Toyota's Sonic Branding Guide- AO, Let’s Go Jingle- McDonald’s I’m Loving It Jingle- Suno

January 27, 2026Episode 631 hr 4 min

S3 E63: How 150 Brands Achieved Disproportionate Growth, Making Bluetooth a Household Name, and The Category Fallacy

In this episode, Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson hosts Strategic Growth Architect Mats Georgson, former Global Brand Director at Sony Ericsson, to discuss how brands achieve large, sustained growth and how most category-based thinking caps it.Mats was the first marketer to work on Bluetooth, giving him deep, practical insight into rapid global adoption, and years later completed a research project analysing how 150 brands achieved disproportionate growth. Together, Jack and Mats explore why some brands defy gravity, while others struggle to break free of their category constraints.Jack and Mats discuss:- How brands grow via Demand Point Constellations- How the iPhone leveraged demand points to grow- Launching Bluetooth and the story behind its overwhelming success- How Mats saw a client quickly jump 20% in revenue without advertising- Uber’s Demand Point Constellation- How to escape the gravitational pull of a category- Why innovation is hard for marketers and what can be done about it- Why few brands grow primarily through gaining market share- The problem with comms and advertising being asked to do things they can’t do- Why marketers need to think like detectivesHelpful Links:Mats’ Demand Point Constellation Thesis Links to Jack:Jack's LinkedIn ProfileJack's WebsiteLinks to Mats:Mats’ LinkedIn ProfileMats’ WebsiteLinks to The Push:The Push LinkedIn Page The Push on TikTokThe Push on InstagramThe Push on YouTube MusicThe Push WebsiteReferenced in Episode:Blue Ocean Strategy Ehrenberg Bass Institute Apple losing its App Store trademark caseCategory Entry PointJobs to be Done Framework

January 13, 2026Episode 6235 min

S3 E62: Play-Doh’s former VP of Marketing, Leigh Anne Capello, on the brand’s distinctive scent, future thinking, and sensory branding

In this episode, Jack Ferguson hosts Leigh Anne Cappello, former VP of Marketing for Play-Doh and one of the leaders during its 50th anniversary period, to discuss how scent, memory, and brand DNA combined to create one of the most recognisable brands.From the Play-Doh perfume release to prescience calendars to the penetration of the brand's scent, this episode is an exploration of what it takes for a brand to stick.In this episode Leigh Anne discusses:Why the Play-Doh perfume product was createdThe considerations that went into Play-Dohs 50th AnniversaryThe numbers behind Play Doh’s distinctive smell penetrationA product that didn’t have the desired commercial impact because Brand DNA wasn't consideredHow marketers can use prescience calendars for stronger cultural relevance Moments of failure are often the strongest opportunities to build lasting customer relationships. Design Thinking and its benefits to marketersHow Play Doh started off as an accidental innovationHow to utilise Brand DNA and Brand Essence to improve commercial outcomesHow large organisations can create safe spaces for real innovation (without betting the company)Why prototyping, learning in public, and “getting it wrong” often leads to better brand outcomesHer unique business model and why she operates that wayLinks to Leigh Anne and Jack:- Leigh Anne's Blog- Leigh Anne's LinkedIn Profile- Jack's LinkedIn Profile- Jack's WebsiteLinks to The Push:- LinkedIn Page- Website- YouTube Page- Instagram Page- TikTok PageReferenced in this Episode:- Brand Sense by Martin Lindstrom- Watts Wacker- Georgina Melone- Gary Serby