Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast

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Oct 2026

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Ready to rethink business strategy and supercharge your marketing game? Join hosts Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros as they break down big questions at the crossroads of strategy, marketing effectiveness, and creative impact. From real-world case studies to hot-off-the-press business news, each episode dives deep into how modern companies navigate complexity. Plus, interviews with global thought leaders bring you fresh insights and actionable strategies to drive growth and build unforgettable customer experiences. This is your backstage pass to smarter thinking and better business results.

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October 29, 2026Episode 24818 min

SBP 248: The PostPod - Lessons from Jo Lepore, Foresight Doesn’t Get a Free Pass

Send us Fan Mail Marc and Vassilis debrief their foresight conversation with Jo Lepore: why foresight isn’t futurism, how backcasting reshapes brand planning, and why brand, like foresight, doesn’t get a free pass. Marc and V went into the interview as skeptics (“what is this voodoo magic?”) and came out convinced foresight is one of the most practical disciplines they’ve covered all year. In the debrief they dig into why it keeps getting typecast as insights, risk, or crisis comms, and what makes it its own thing. V keeps circling back to WestJet during COVID, an industry stuck in pure short-termism, and where a foresight function might have shortened the runway to recovery. From there: backcasting (plant your brand ten years out and work back to what would have to be true), why a forecast nobody believes is still worth running, and the line that stuck with both of them, foresight doesn’t get a free pass. V’s reframe: neither does brand. Stop defending it on the back foot, and start arguing where the business should invest to build the future demand that drives tomorrow’s cash flows. Plus the Monday move for 2027 planning (write down your assumptions), Roger Martin’s “what would have to be true,” and why they’re already building a foresight co-pilot. New here? Start with the full interview, SBP 247 with Jo Lepore, then come back for the debrief. Enjoy the show! Chapters 00:00 Cold open: creating the future, not cutting cost 01:00 PostPod: debriefing the Jo Lepore conversation 01:30 Futurist vs foresight, and where the confusion lives 02:37 Getting typecast: insights, risk, or crisis comms 03:00 WestJet, COVID, and the runway that might’ve been shorter 04:40 “We don’t get a free pass” 05:00 Why run a 10-year forecast nothing will hold to 05:50 Backcasting: work back from ten years out 06:40 Foresight practices without a foresight team 07:00 Going agentic: building a foresight co-pilot 07:30 Pockets of foresight, Rethink, and cultural relevance 08:00 What makes a scenario realistic 08:30 The Monday move for 2027 planning 09:24 Brand doesn’t get a free pass either 10:51 Measurement, shareholders, and the revenue question 11:40 Roger Martin and “what would have to be true?” 13:30 Start small: adjacencies and existing fires 15:40 Write down your assumptions 17:00 Antifragility, black swans, and the close The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 27, 2026Episode 24755 min

SBP 247: SBP Interview - Foresight Doesn’t Get a Free Pass, with Jo Lepore.

Send us Fan Mail Marketing science says buyer behaviour barely moves. Futurists sell the opposite: change, disruption, the thing nobody saw coming. Can both be true? Marc and Vassilis brought in someone who can referee it. Jo Lepore built the foresight function inside Mars Wrigley and then McDonald’s, co-founded a network for people doing that work at some of the world’s biggest companies, and now leads foresight at Dig Insights. She also hosts the podcast Looking Outside. Her starting point is refreshingly blunt: foresight doesn’t get a free pass on proving its value, and neither does marketing. In this one: → Foresight isn’t futurism. It’s not a crystal ball or a dart at the board. It’s throwing the dart toward where you want to go, then rehearsing multiple paths to get there. As Jo puts it, rehearse for every future rather than bank one. → “Isn’t this just market research with a longer horizon?” No. You can’t ask a future consumer anything, they don’t exist. Insights are past-based facts; foresight is weak signals and carefully weighed assumptions. → Nobody gets rewarded for preventing a fire. How foresight earns buy-in by helping put out the fire that’s already spreading, with the GLP-1 work Jo’s team ran at McDonald’s six months early as the proof. → The pandemic test. Jo’s Mars work found the big shifts were accelerated, not caused, by COVID, and those were the ones they were already tracking. → The bridge to marketing. Backcasting and innovation roadmaps (the three-horizons model), plus why foresight should sit as a capability across the business, not trapped in one team. Plus three things any marketer can do Monday morning, and a Big Mac No Meat dare that becomes a real-world experiment. Enjoy the show! Our Guest: Jo Lepore Global Foresight Strategist, Dig Insights | Host, Looking Outside LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannalepore/ Chapters 00:00 Cold open: foresight should prove its value too 01:40 Meet Jo Lepore, and “double lucky” 02:30 What foresight is, and why it isn’t futurism 04:50 Is this just market research with a longer horizon? 09:00 Vitamin vs painkiller: earning buy-in 11:50 The GLP-1 call at McDonald’s, six months early 12:58 WestJet, COVID, and planning in crisis mode 15:30 The Mars pandemic work: accelerated, not caused 18:00 Horizon scanning: bringing the pockets together 19:30 Canada, OCAD, and where foresight lives today 20:30 Beyond chicken little: anticipatory leadership and antifragility 25:00 Does a business actually need a foresight function? 28:00 The bridge to marketing: backcasting and three horizons 34:00 “Foresight doesn’t get a free pass” 37:00 Creative vs effectiveness: let the teams battle it out 41:00 Cultural foresight, and layering in the whole business 45:30 Victim of your own success, and getting typecast 47:00 Building McDonald’s generative AI Center of Excellence 48:56 Three things to do Monday morning 53:40 Big Mac No Meat: the experiment 54:30 Thanks and close Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical - https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Personal Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: http:s//www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a show. The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 22, 2026Episode 24621 min

SBP 246: The Sharp Cut: Who Actually Buys on Sale?

Send us Fan Mail Marketing runs on comfort blankets. The Sharp Cut cuts them up to see what’s inside. This week, with Black Friday five weeks out and someone already writing the 40% off email: the idea that a discount wins you new business. Here’s the spine. A discount rents you this week’s sales, mostly from your own customers. When the price goes back up, the rental’s over. So every promotion has to pay for itself while it’s running. This week: → Who actually buys on the deal. Ehrenberg-Bass looked across 18 categories: 77% of promo buyers had already bought the brand in their last five trips, against 81% at full price. Basically the same people, paying less. → How long the bump lasts. Soup and yogurt promotions faded in about two weeks, and in only 1 of 29 cases did a deal change sales for good. Then the dip, and people learning to wait for your price. → The math nobody runs. At 20% off with a 50% margin you need two-thirds more sales just to stand still. A German retailer celebrated a 19%-off sale that needed triple the traffic to break even. → Three people, three kinds of math. The store, the supplier, and the salesperson are each optimizing something different, and the brand on sale is usually renting its own buyers back. → What actually works. You can’t quit cold (ask JC Penney). McCain pulled promotions back slowly and moved the money into brand, and nine years later sells more chips at a higher price. Plus the one takeaway: a discount gives the people who already buy from you a cheaper week, and you often pay for it twice. Enjoy the show! Stories & evidence this episode: Which? Black Friday investigation: https://www.which.co.uk/policy-and-insight/article/dont-believe-the-hype-most-black-friday-deals-the-same-price-or-cheaper-at-other-times-of-the-year-which-finds-a3TbD5x5KADs Ehrenberg-Bass / John Dawes, price promotions and buyer mix (SSRN): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2199169 McCain, “When the chips are down, margins matter” (IPA): https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/case-studies/when-the-chips-are-down-margins-matter-how-a-focus-on-long-term-emotional-brand-building-reduced-price-elasticity-and-increased-profits-for-mccain The Evidence Line (180+ models): https://quatical.com Chapters 00:00 What the Sharp Cut is, and this week’s comfort blanket 00:50 Black Friday five weeks out, and the Which? study 02:18 How Black Friday became Black Friday month 03:50 Hermann Simon, BMW, and who really sets price (ep 18) 04:57 Who’s actually buying on the deal (Ehrenberg-Bass) 06:10 But explain P&G: the coupon cut and the share loss 06:50 How long the bump lasts, and the margin math 07:55 The 19%-off sale that needed triple the traffic 08:40 Soup, yogurt, Coke, and learning to wait 09:15 When the coupon becomes the price (Bed Bath & Beyond) 09:50 Loss leaders, pocket price, and a rebate that expired 11:58 B2B: value sellers vs price sellers, and commission math 14:49 Why not just stop? Walmart, good vs bad market share 15:40 JC Penney cold turkey vs McCain’s slow pullback 17:20 Honest pricing, anchoring, and the law 18:32 The one takeaway: you pay for it twice 19:00 Recap and what to change on Monday Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical - https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Personal Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 20, 2026Episode 24529 min

SBP 245: The Barber's Brief - Apple Built a Kill Switch for Ad Tech

Send us Fan Mail Marc and V are back with the Barber’s Brief: the good, the bad, and the overhyped from the last couple of weeks, with data, a few opinions, and Great Creative getting the last word. This week: → Apple built itself a kill switch for ad tech. iOS 26’s Safari can quietly block hundreds of identity and data vendors, the list lives in a private repo, and only Apple knows the rules. Everyone’s calling it a privacy story. It’s a power story, and the real lesson is one we keep coming back to: stop renting your audience. → Phantom Reach. Ritson and Lumen clocked the same ad getting 16 seconds of attention on a living room TV and about 1.5 seconds in a web video player. Both count as one impression on your plan. So ask your agency for attentive seconds, not impressions. → Jaguar is finally coupled with a product. The rebrand tested with more 1s and 2s, and more 9s and 10s, than anything in its history. Polarizing is right for a six-figure niche. It’s a terrible lesson for a mass-market brand to copy. → Mbappé leaves Nike for On, part cash, part equity. The Jordan playbook, run against Nike, while On climbs and Nike slides. Plus Ad of the Week: Robitussin hires a deadpan cough hitman named Robby Tussin, and turns the brand name into the character, the joke, and the mnemonic all at once. Coming up: Joanna Lepore of Dig Insights on foresight and strategy. Enjoy the show! Chapters 00:00 Intro: welcome back to the Barber's Brief 00:51 Story 1: Apple's kill switch for ad tech 04:53 Why is so much of the industry built on rented land? 08:20 Story 2: Phantom Reach, attention vs impressions 10:48 Selling attentive seconds instead of impressions 13:18 How the platforms are moving (Meridian, Andromeda, MMM) 14:34 Story 3: Jaguar, finally coupled with a product 16:43 Polarization as a scalpel, not a strategy 17:48 Controversy with a product vs controversy for its own sake 20:47 Story 4: Mbappé leaves Nike for On 23:08 Do challenger-brand signings change how retailers buy? 25:35 Ad of the Week: Robitussin's cough hitman, Robby Tussin 28:03 Why the one-character platform beats weekly fresh creative 29:09 Coming up: Joanna Lepore, Dig Insights Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical - https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Personal Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Stories this week Apple’s ad-tech kill switch (AdExchanger): https://www.adexchanger.com/privacy/apple-has-far-reaching-plans-to-block-hundreds-of-programmatic-data-companies-from-ios/ Phantom Reach — Mark Ritson (The Drum): https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/why-the-reach-of-one-rule-is-built-on-ads-nobody-ever-actually-sees Jaguar’s rebrand meets its product (Marketing Week): https://www.marketingweek.com/jaguars-rebrand-product/ Mbappé leaves Nike for On (Yahoo Sports): https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/kylian-mbappe-drops-nike-sponsorship-045914241.html Ad of the Week Robitussin’s “Take Care of Your Cough” / Robby Tussin (MM+M): https://www.mmm-online.com/news/meet-robby-tussin-robitussins-jacket-clad-cough-hitman/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop. The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 13, 2026Episode 24458 min

SBP 244: SBP Interview - If You’re Not Selling Hours, What Are You Selling?

Send us Fan Mail Everybody in this industry is arguing about what AI does to an agency. Almost all of it is agencies talking to themselves about their own cost structure. Clients are asking something else entirely. So Marc and V put the real question to two of the people growing Canada’s agency business while the ground moves under it: if you are not selling hours, what are you selling? Mélanie Dunn is President of Plus Company Canada and CEO of Cossette. Karine Courtemanche is EVP of Plus Company Canada and President of its media group, Strategy’s 2024 Media Leader of the Year, Chair of the Canadian Media Directors’ Council. Inside the conversation: why clients now buy a connected system of tools rather than time, and why the shift off billable hours is being stalled by clients, not agencies. The biggest myth in the business, and the KPI guarantee they sold three times out of hundreds of clients. Why your agency’s tech stack is now a reason to hire them. In-housing done for the right and wrong reasons. Rethinking talent when the pyramid is gone and a junior can mentor a senior. And a genuine cry for help on supporting Canadian media, where the gap between an ethical placement and a cheaper one is often marginal. The through line: agencies are being pushed to stop selling time and start selling judgment, and nobody has solved how you build judgment at scale. Enjoy the episode! Our Guests: Mélanie Dunn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dunnmelanie/ Karine Courtemanche: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karine-courtemanche-64896330/ Chapters: 00:00 The best time to be in this business 00:46 Barbell or pyramid? Setting up the debate 02:43 What is the role of a modern agency? 06:51 What clients actually buy now: a system, not hours 09:25 If you're not selling time, what are you selling? 12:51 The biggest myth: agencies do want outcomes 15:15 Why outcome models stall: predictability and risk 17:45 Attribution as the missing accountability layer 19:16 Choosing an agency on its tools, not just its people 22:05 Three conditions for integration that actually works 23:57 In-housing, for the right reasons 27:08 Why there is no single agency model 29:22 Building operational platforms, not just media tools 31:36 AI, governance, and building the same tool twice 34:19 Rethinking talent when the pyramid is gone 36:44 Hiring now: references, soft skills, hard questions 45:30 Monday takeaways: governance as an enabler 49:13 A cry for help on Canadian media 57:02 Calgary, and the centre of the world The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 8, 2026Episode 24326 min

SBP 243: The Sharp Cut - Let's talk about brand love

Send us Fan Mail Marketing runs on comfort blankets. The Sharp Cut cuts them up to see what's inside. This week: brand love. Start with motorcycles. In 2015, the happiest owners in the entire category rode Victory, ahead of Harley. Two years later, Polaris shut Victory down. The happiest customers in the category could not keep the brand alive. That should bother anyone who spent a career being told marketing's job is to make people love you. So Marc and V take the believers at their word and run three tests on lovemarks, raving fans, and brand love. Are the most loved brands the biggest? Are they growing the fastest? Does the love come first, before the buying? The evidence, from the ACSI to double jeopardy to ten years of Ehrenberg-Bass data, keeps pointing the same way. Then they own up to it. Marc's Heinz loyalty that is really just shelf placement. V's Golf Town thank-you notes, where every bit of love showed up after the money was already in the books. The conclusion is not that love is worthless. It protects you, and losing it hurts. It just is not what grows a brand. Plus what to do with all of this on Monday. Chapters 00:00 What the Sharp Cut is 00:45 Today's comfort blanket: brand love 00:50 Victory vs Harley: the happiest owners, gone in two years 02:36 Where the idea came from 05:43 The money angle, and the JC Penney lovemark 06:28 The case for love, taken seriously 08:33 Three tests for the believers 08:59 Test 1: are the most loved brands the biggest? 10:20 Double jeopardy, and why loyalty is everywhere 12:04 The Apple challenge 12:45 Test 2: do loved brands grow the fastest? 15:12 Test 3: does love come first? 18:17 Confessions: Heinz, Matouk's, and the Golf Town tees 22:04 So is love a moat? The Kroger debate 24:14 Do people even want a relationship with a brand? 26:31 What to do Monday The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 6, 2026Episode 24229 min

SBP 242: The Barber's Brief - Sydney Sweeney Is Famous. Novig Isn't.

Send us Fan Mail Marc and V are back with the Barber's Brief: the good, the bad, and the overhyped, with data, a few opinions, and Great Creative getting the last word. This week: Your marketing team already got smaller. Nearly half of B2B teams have shrunk because of AI, almost none of it through layoffs (Wynter). Meanwhile most execs who cut roles for AI now regret it (Orgvue) and plenty are quietly rehiring (Robert Half, Klarna). If the cuts and the reversals are both invisible, how would anyone know it worked? Ads aimed at robots, not people. Brands are now buying ads to influence the AI agents that shop for us. V's take: feed the machine clean facts, sure, but "converts higher, further down the funnel" is the last click song all over again. The agent harvests demand, it doesn't create it. Tariffs, margins, and pricing power. Lose a market overnight and no ad fixes it. For everyone else it's margin pressure, and brand strength decides how much you can pass on. Meta is grading your creative on how different it looks, and reporting more clicks for it. The problem: memory is built on consistency. Plus Ad of the Week: Sydney Sweeney made Novig famous overnight. But did anyone remember the brand? Coming up: Brand Love and Lovemarks, and the agency model with Cossette. Enjoy the show! Chapters: 00:00 Intro: Welcome to the Barber's Brief 00:52 Story 1: AI is quietly shrinking marketing teams 03:17 If the cuts are invisible, how do we know it's working? 05:47 Story 2: ads aimed at AI agents, not people 08:02 The two-audience problem, and last click rebuilt for robots 10:31 Story 3: tariffs, margins, and brand pricing power 12:57 Why the reason for a price increase beats the size 15:25 Story 4: Meta's creative diversification best practices 17:47 More clicks, or Meta's win? Distinctive assets at risk 20:18 Ad of the Week: Novig x Sydney Sweeney, "Just Sports" 22:54 Famous, but not famous for you 24:15 The shortcut, and whether it pays off 27:31 Coming up: Brand Love, and the agency model with Cossette Links: AI Cut the Marketing Team. Then Came the Rehires. https://martech.org/ai-is-powering-the-loss-of-marketing-jobs/ https://www.orgvue.com/news/55-of-businesses-admit-wrong-decisions-in-making-employees-redundant-when-bringing-ai-into-the-workforce/ https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/01/employers-who-laid-off-workers-for-ai-are-reversing-their-decisions.html https://www.cioandleader.com/why-replacing-employees-with-ai-backfired-for-enterprises/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-service Some companies are using ads to influence AI agents https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/optimizing-for-ai-agents-time-magazine-wayfair-strategy Tariffs Are Squeezing Margins. Your Brand Decides How Much You Can Pass On. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2026/08/list-of-products-from-the-united-states-subject-to-counter-tariffs-effective-september-8-2026.html https://www.npr.org/2026/08/22/nx-s1-5941584/us-canada-tariffs https://www.abfjournal.com/the-middle-market-manufacturing-squeeze-tariffs-supply-chains-the-dealmaker-ecosystem-in-2026/ https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/brands/how-to-make-pricing-work-for-your-brand https://www.marketingweek.com/creativity-pays-les-binet/ https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/ipa-blog/new-evidence-shows-stronger-brands-really-can-charge-more https://asknigelhollis.com/blog/evidence-that-advertising-increases-demand-at-any-given-price.html https://link.springer.com/article/10.1177/0092070304269953 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10946705251341080 https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/tariffs/2026/09/29/import-ban-on-canadian-goods-in-effect-while-trump-expects-canadians-to-say-sir-we-are-sorry-follow-for-live-updates/ https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R49349.html How advertisers are adjusting to Meta’s ad creative diversification best practices https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/meta-ad-creative-diversification-best-practices-advertiser-approach Ad of the Week Sydney Sweeney Is Famous. Novig Isn't. Link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew-tindall_ive-tested-the-sydney-sweeney-ad-males-activity-7505989922999164929-_xcY Full link list for the ad of the week, in order: https://deadline.com/2026/09/sydney-sweeney-novig-ad-backlash-female-olympians-1237101507/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-sydney-sweeney-ad-reaction-9.7351851 https://frontofficesports.com/article/novig-ceo-sydney-sweeney-forces-us-into-national-discourse/ https://globalgamblingnews.com/sydney-sweeney-takes-equity-stake-in-novig/ https://contagious.com/io/article/jenni-romaniuk-on-distinctive-assets https://www.marketingscience.info/brands-need-distinctive-assets https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew-tindall_ive-tested-the-sydney-sweeney-ad-males-activity-7505989922999164929-_xcY https://system1group.com/creative-dividend The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

October 1, 2026Episode 24120 min

SBP 241: The PostPod - Lessons from Omar Roubi, The Rise and Fall of a Promise

Send us Fan Mail Fresh off the Omar Roubi interview, Marc and Vassilis sit down for the PostPod to work through what stuck. The uncomfortable one: when the business is broken, whose job is it to stop advertising? Target Canada ran full advertising cycles, back to school, holiday, the works, while shelves sat empty and the experience fell apart. So the spend did not just fail to help. It amplified a promise the business could not keep. "Expect more, pay less" landed as "expecting more, paying more." They get into the reflex every marketer knows: use it or lose it, and the maturity it takes to hand budget back and say the problem is upstream. Plus leading versus lagging indicators, why revenue tells you far too late, and how supply chain efficiency and customer sentiment map onto physical and mental availability. They also sit with the thing that keeps pulling them back: it was not one P, it was the clock. A lease deal and government hiring timelines built a manufactured pressure that eroded the quality of every decision after it. Nordstrom entered around the same time with a slower playbook and lasted longer. No clean verdict. A much better set of questions. Enjoy the show! Chapters 00:00 Doomed from day one 00:38 PostPod: debriefing Target Canada 00:52 A case study that keeps giving 02:40 Going all in, and Nordstrom's different path 04:05 Canada's geography vs three warehouses 05:41 Whose job was it to say "stop advertising"? 07:49 Use it or lose it: should marketing give budget back? 08:14 Shared accountability and deferred blame 10:56 Leading vs lagging indicators 12:08 The promise to the customer 13:49 Mapping mental and physical availability 14:13 The price problem: priced premium, wasn't 16:08 You can't isolate one P: the clock 17:00 Making quality decisions under pressure 19:28 Why extremes are the best teachers The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

September 29, 2026Episode 2401 hr 3 min

SBP 240: SBP Interview - Target Canada: The Rise and Fall of a Promise, with Omar Roubi

Send us Fan Mail Target is a company people love. More than 1,700 stores, a brand with real pull. Then it came to Canada, lost billions, and walked away inside four years. This is a story about Big and Little marketing. Little is the advertising. Big is everything else: product, price, place, and how the whole business organizes around the customer. Roger Martin says a promise has to be memorable, valuable, and deliverable. Advertising makes it memorable. Price and place make it valuable. Product makes it deliverable. In Canada, Target's ads were excellent, and the business broke the promise anyway. CPA Omar Roubi joins Marc and Vassilis to reverse engineer the collapse through the four Ps. Omar teaches this case at the University of Colorado Denver and built a definitive audio case study on it at LumiQ. He also lived it: his wife moved from Texas to help launch the Toronto-area stores. Inside: the Zellers real estate deal that started the countdown, empty shelves sitting above full back rooms, the imperial vs metric mix-up, three distribution centres across a 6,000 km country, and why the famous $5.4B loss is mostly a writedown, not operating losses. A case study in why great marketing can't save a broken business. Our Guest: Omar Roubi - https://www.linkedin.com/in/omar-roubi-cpa-texas/ Chapters: 00:00 Cold open: one bad decision begets more 00:26 Big marketing vs Little marketing 02:16 Omar Roubi returns 03:14 The personal connection: launching Target in Toronto 06:14 "Too big to fail" 06:36 The accountant's takeaway 09:22 Place: the Zellers real estate deal 12:08 Wrong locations, wrong customer 18:47 The 12-month countdown clock 22:25 Product: empty shelves, full back rooms 25:02 Physical availability and the metric mix-up 32:46 Price: "expect more, pay less" meets three warehouses 41:05 The currency headwind 45:07 The $5.4B loss vs the $200M operating loss 48:27 Little marketing: is ROI the wrong number? 53:01 The apology videos, and brand vs performance 57:04 The one number that signals trouble first 1:00:07 The human cost: 17,600 people References: References CBC News. (2011, January 13). Target buys Zellers leases for $1.8B. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-buys-zellers-leases-for-1-8b-1.981132 CBC News. (2012, July 6). Target wins approval to come to Canada. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-wins-approval-to-come-to-canada-1.1160485 Castaldo, J. (2016, January 1). The last days of Target. Canadian Business. https://canadianbusiness.com/ideas/the-last-days-of-target-canada/ Kumar, N. (2025, September 2). The experience paradox: Why better satisfaction scores don't always mean growth. Kantar. https://www.kantar.com/north-america/inspiration/experience/the-experience-paradox LinkedIn B2B Institute & WARC. (2024, August 13). Making a promise to the customer: How to give campaigns a competitive edge. https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/resources/b2b-institute/making-a-promise-to-the-business-customer Roubi, O. (Host). (2021, August). The rise and fall of Target Canada [Audio podcast]. LumiQ. Strauss, M. (2013, April 5). Target Canada prices 0.2 per cent higher than Wal-Mart's: Survey. The Globe and Mail. Strauss, M. (2014, September 22). Target Canada winning price battle with Wal-Mart. The Globe and Mail. Target Corporation. (2011, January 13). Target Corporation to acquire interest in Canadian real estate from Zellers Inc., a subsidiary of Hudson's Bay Company, for C$1.825 billion [Press release]. https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2011/01/ Target Corporation. (2015a, January 15). Target Corporation announces plans to discontinue Canadian operations [Press release]. https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2015/01/ Target Corporation. (2015b, January 15). Form 8-K. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000027419/000002741915000005/ Zellers Inc., Hudson's Bay Company, Target Corporation, & Target Canada Co. (2011, September 12). Amended and restated transaction agreement [Exhibit 2(a) to Form 10-Q]. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000027419/000110465911066091/ The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.

September 24, 2026Episode 23925 min

SBP 239: The Sharp Cut - Who Killed the Click?

Send us Fan Mail Marketing runs on comfort blankets. The Sharp Cut cuts them up to see what's inside. This week, we did it as a murder mystery. The victim: the click. Once upon a time a click was one honest fact, a machine noting that a file left a building. Over eleven years it got poisoned, dose by dose, until it was taking credit for sales it never caused. The body: in 2012, eBay turned off roughly $51M in paid search across a third of the US, with matched control markets. Scored the way a dashboard scores it, the return was over 4,000%. Scored against the control, the only way that actually answers the question, it was minus 63%. Same company, same spend, same year. Then we line up six suspects, the auction, the platforms, last click attribution, the CFO, the agency, and us, and ask each one the same two questions: did they have a reason, and did they have the access? Marc and V get out of the costume for the part that stings: the doses we added ourselves. The Sport Chek war room. The machine V built to move money faster. The P&G cut everyone quotes that fails our own evidence test. And what happens to the click when the shopper is an AI. We won't hand you a verdict, because we don't fully agree. You're the jury. Enjoy the show! Chapters: 00:00 What the Sharp Cut is 00:49 A murder mystery: who killed the click? 01:30 Meet your six suspects 01:45 The body: eBay turns off $51M in paid search 03:35 4,000% ROI or minus 63%? Same campaign, two scores 03:57 What a click actually was (the first banner, 1994) 05:23 The 44% click rate nobody can verify 06:25 Cause of death: poisoned over eleven years 06:42 Three doses: price, bouncer, then credit 08:43 When a measure becomes a target (Goodhart's Law) 09:09 Whodunit: motive and opportunity 11:21 The evidence: Facebook's own 2016 deck 12:45 Out of the costume: the doses we added ourselves 15:28 The Sport Chek war room18:16 Building a machine to move money faster 19:41 The P&G $200M cut, and why it fails our own test 20:49 The alibi that holds: same test, opposite answer 21:27 The click's replacement: AI shoppers 22:39 The verdict is yours 24:06 One warning before you turn anything off Sources: Allouah, A., Besbes, O., Figueroa, J. D., Kanoria, Y., & Kumar, A. (2026). What is your AI agent buying? Evaluation, biases, model dependence, and emerging implications of agentic e-commerce. In Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2026 (pp. 8697–8700). https://doi.org/10.1145/3774904.3792943 Blake, T., Nosko, C., & Tadelis, S. (2015). Consumer heterogeneity and paid search effectiveness: A large-scale field experiment. Econometrica, 83(1), 155–174. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA12423 Chan, D. X., Yuan, Y., Koehler, J., & Kumar, D. (2011). Incremental clicks: The impact of search advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 51(4), 643–647. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-51-4-643-647 Golden, J., & Horton, J. J. (2021). The effects of search advertising on competitors: An experiment before a merger. Management Science, 67(1), 342–362. Gordon, B. R., Zettelmeyer, F., Bhargava, N., & Chapsky, D. (2019). A comparison of approaches to advertising measurement: Evidence from big field experiments at Facebook. Marketing Science, 38(2), 193–225. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1135 Lewis, R. A., & Rao, J. M. (2015). The unfavorable economics of measuring the returns to advertising. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(4), 1941–1973. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv023 Lysen, S. (2013). Incremental clicks impact of mobile search advertising. Google. https://research.google/pubs/incremental-clicks-impact-of-mobile-search-advertising/ Simonov, A., Nosko, C., & Rao, J. M. (2018). Competition and crowd-out for brand keywords in sponsored search. Marketing Science, 37(2), 200–215. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1065 The Procter & Gamble Company. (2017). Additional definitive proxy soliciting materials (DEFA14A). U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000080424/000119312517299631/d464866ddefa14a.htm Facebook. (2016). Everything competes with everything [Slide presentation]. GoTo.com, Inc. (1999). Form S-1 and Form 10-Q. To be reformatted as SEC legal sources. Nielsen. (2009). NetEffect CPG home scanner panel meta-analysis of 200+ online campaigns. As reported in Facebook (2016). Nielsen. (2015). BrandEffect meta-analysis of 478 online global campaigns, October 2014 to April 2015. As reported in Facebook (2016). The Sleeping Barber is a marketing podcast hosted by Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros, breaking down strategy, marketing effectiveness, and the evidence behind what actually grows a business. Hosts Marc Binkley Quatical: https://quatical.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros Website: https://vassilisdouros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/ Follow The Sleeping Barber Website: https://sleepingbarber.ca YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleeping-barber-a-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow so you never miss a drop.