Innovation rarely fails because the ideas aren’t there. It fails because teams don’t have time, safety, or a clear “why.” Here’s what I’ve learned about leadership from the people who actually make room for new things – and what that looks like on the inside.
Every time I talk to someone about “innovation,” the conversation eventually stops being about ideas at all.
Instead we talk about calendars, org charts, too many stakeholders and brand safety. In other words: the problem is almost never that teams are short on ideas. The problem is that leadership doesn’t create enough space for those ideas to turn into anything real.
Thanks to AI we’re moving to one-to-one advertising. The catch is, it only works if you can produce and iterate enough distinct creative for the machines to find the right ad for the right person at the right moment. Creative is no longer a cost centre, it’s now the growth engine.
Contributor
Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music Watch on YouTube Welcome back, it's week three of the Brandmakers podcast, and Hannah is joined this week by Louise Foley, who is director of marketing, Europe at Pinterest. Louise and Hannah got stuck into the subject of trends and signals, and what marketers need to do to stay on the right side of cultural relevance. She also detailed her own marketing strategy and her push into fun and meaningful experiential events. Disclaimer: we recorded thi
Hannah Bowler
Sport has stopped being just a sponsorship channel and has slowly but surely become the operating system for culture. Leagues, brands and athletes can all win if they treat every fan touchpoint as part of an always‑on, integrated experience, rather than a row of logos on shirts or around a pitch.
Alex Zeevalkink
Hannah Bowler dives into Mattel’s slow, deliberate shift from selling toys to building franchises – and asks its head of licensing and partnerships, Ruth Henriquez, about the decision of betting on fans, fast collabs and decades of nostalgia to make the model stick.
Hannah Bowler
