The Push
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.
Episodes
123 episodes
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 o...
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 ...
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 a...
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 b...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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.
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...
S3 E61: Evolved Brand Building: The Case for Immersion as the Multiplier
This episode explores disproportionate leverage and how it shows up when immersion is treated as critical brand building work, not a nice-to-have. Rather than chasing deliverables or premature answers, your hosts examine immersion ...
S3 E60: Christmas’ Brand Heritage: Ritualistic Architecture and How Brands Culturally Embed
Christmas is often thought of as a seasonal moment.In reality, it’s one of the strongest examples of brand heritage and cultural embedding ever built.This episode analyses Christmas as a brand system. It examines how it formed, ho...
S3 E59: Positive Wastage: The Brand Growth You Didn’t Intentionally Create
Most brands try to eliminate waste.This episode explains how this approach is limiting.We break down Positive Wastage, how it shows up in practice, and why it repeatedly drives brand growth, marketing outcomes, and long-term relat...
S3 E58: Building Your Personal Brand as a Marketer: Job Proofing Yourself and Navigating a Tactic-Obsessed Marketplace
Building your own personal brand as a marketer matters more than ever. It helps you stay respected, protect your career options, and operate with more authority in workplaces that often default to tactics over strategy. In this episode,...
S3 E57: One Brand, 28 Retail Stores Launched: Marketing Tactics Are Overrated; What Really Drives Growth
In this episode, host Jack Ferguson breaks down the real drivers of revenue growth by going back to first principles. No tactics worship, just the underlying forces that move product.He talks about:- How 28 retail launches...
S3 E56: How Marketers Are Made: The Origin Story of Two Professionals Who Didn’t Plan This
Two marketers who never planned to be marketers break down exactly how they fell into the industry. One came through science. One came through life coaching. Both arrived here by accident.Jack Ferguson and Ben Reeves are this episode's ...
S3 E55: Career Doubt in Marketing: Setback Stories, and How to Persevere (with Chanel Clark)
Every marketer has questioned whether this career’s really for them; especially after getting blamed, burning out, or being abandoned when times get tough.Chanel Clark joins Jack Ferguson and shares stories of being pushed out, made redu...
S3 E54: Rogue Brand Building Stories feat. Bumble, Red Bull, and Jeep
Every brand wants to stand out, but few are willing to break the rules to do it.In this episode, Jack dives into the world of rogue brand building, the unconventional, often scrappy ideas that make brands unforgettable.He explores...
S3 E53: Marketers vs Scope Creep: When Projects Unravel, and How to Hold Them Together (with Ben Reeves)
Every marketer has lived through a project that started smoothly and ended sideways.In this episode, co-hosts Jack Ferguson and Ben Reeves discuss scope creep. They share war stories, practical scoping habits, and mindsets that keep you ...
S3 E52: How Play-Doh’s brand distinctiveness was discovered, not created
Most of us remember Play-Doh from childhood, but few of us realise what makes it truly distinctive. In this episode, Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson explores how a product known for its texture built enduring emotional equity ...
S3 E51: The Friends Theme Song: The Perfect Distinctive Brand Asset
Friends was a hit sitcom released in the 90s, known for its feel-good humour and iconic characters. The show’s success is a sight to behold, maintaining popularity even to this day. Though not only was it loved by millions, but it'...
S3 E50: Lessons from 50 Podcast Episodes: Production Costs, Most-Downloaded Episodes and How Podcasts Attract Clients
The Push has hit Episode 50 for Season 3! With 99% of podcasts not making it past Episode 20, we thought this was a great opportunity to stop and reflect.Listen in as your host Jack Ferguson shares 50 lessons from producing 50 e...
S3 E49: Marketing’s Turbulent People Puzzle: How Recruiters Win While Marketers Burn Out (with Gerard Doyle)
Marketing careers don’t stall by accident; they stall because the way agencies hire, reward, and manage talent leaves a lot to be desired.This episode is co-hosted by:- Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson and ...
S3 E48: Should You Bother Making Your Brand Unique?
With 2 million businesses in Australia and most brands blending into a sea of sameness, is uniqueness even achievable, or worth chasing? In this solo episode, Jack Ferguson unpacks what the data says about meaningful different...
S3 E47: When Marketers Market Themselves: The Pressure to Be Perfect and Why Self-Promotion Feels Unnatural (with Chanel Clark)
Building a brand is hard enough; but when you’re a marketer, the challenge intensifies. You feel the pressure to be perfect, and every misstep feels like you “should’ve known better.” Brand Strategist Jack Ferguson and Founder of th...
S3 E46: The Marketing Objectives Paradox: Promises Get Remembered
Every marketer knows the value of objectives, they help you prioritise, decide what to push, and what to park. But here’s the paradox: the very objectives that keep you focused can come back to bite when stakeholders grip too tightl...