The Dark Arts of Marketing When Persuasion Becomes Manipulation Marketing has always walked a fine line between persuasion and manipulation. At its best, marketing helps people make informed decisions about products that improve their lives. At its worst, it nudges, tricks, and pressures consumers into behaviours they might never have chosen if they had been
The Marketability of Zlatan Ibrahimović How one footballer turned personality into a global marketing machine Few footballers in modern history have marketed themselves quite like Zlatan Ibrahimović. Over a career spanning more than two decades, Zlatan did not just score spectacular goals - he built a brand around confidence, swagger, and an almost mythological
St Patrick’s Day Marketing: How Irish Brands Turn a National Holiday into Global Gold What marketers can learn from Guinness and other iconic Irish brands Every year on 17th March, the world turns a little greener. Rivers are dyed, parades roll through city streets, and millions of pints of stout are poured. What began as
Are Care Homes Really Full of Horny Pensioners? Sex, stereotypes and what a ridiculous rumour reveals about how we misunderstand entire audiences Let’s begin with a sentence I never expected to type on a marketing platform: “Care homes are full of horny pensioners.” It’s the kind of line that gets repeated at dinner parties
Marketing Mother’s Day (Part 2) Why Mother’s Day Marketing Still Works – and How Brands Can Do It Better in 2026 Last year on Marketing Made Clear, I wrote about the fundamentals of Mother’s Day marketing – the trends, the emotional storytelling, and the tactics marketers use to drive sales during one of the biggest
From Maslow to The Sims: How a Psychology Theory Became a Game Mechanic Why a mid-20th century theory of human motivation quietly shaped one of the most successful video games ever made, and influenced popular culture far beyond academia. If you have ever played The Sims, you have unknowingly interacted with one of the most
Nigel Adkins at - The Leader Who Made Belief Scalable Why His Southampton Era Still Feels Different Birthdays are reflective things. They make you look backwards before you look forwards. And when it comes to Nigel Adkins, looking back at his time at Southampton FC still carries emotional weight - even years on. I’ve already
Video - Fast, Slow, Sold? Analysing the Infamous Pot Noodle “Horn” Advert Fast, Slow, Sold? Analysing the Infamous Pot Noodle “Horn” Advert When crude humour meets clever marketing strategy Few adverts manage to be memorable, controversial, and strategically effective all at once. But the 2005 Pot Noodle
What I Learned From... Watching a Company Collapse Around Me Reflections from eight years at Arjowiggins Graphic and the reality of working inside a shrinking industry There is a particular kind of professional experience that doesn’t get talked about much. Not redundancy in isolation, not corporate restructuring, not even industry disruption in the abstract. I
International Women’s Day: What Marketers Should Really Be Talking About From suffrage to sponsorships - how brands can move beyond hashtags and into meaningful impact International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated annually on 8 March. Its roots lie in early 20th-century labour movements and suffrage campaigns. In 1910, activist Clara Zetkin proposed the idea of
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