Embracing Marketing Mistakes
The marketing podcast where senior marketers tell us about the campaign that went wrong, and what it actually taught them afterwards. Hosted by me, Chris Norton, and my co-director Will Ockenden.
A marketing podcast about the things that did not work
This page is for two kinds of person. If you have come here to listen, the latest episodes are below and every platform link on this page goes straight to the show. If you have come here because you are thinking about training your team, or because you want to build a podcast of your own, keep reading, because the show is the reason we are able to teach both.
We started the show in June 2023 because marketing conferences had become unbearable. Everybody stood up, showed a chart that went up and to the right, and sat down again. Nobody ever explained the two years of expensive nonsense that happened before the chart. So Will and I began asking marketers a simple question instead. Tell us about the one that went wrong.
What happened next surprised us. Senior people were far more willing to talk about failure than we expected, and the conversations were consistently better than the polished case study version. Rand Fishkin told us that raising thirty million dollars was the worst decision he ever made. Ben Branson explained how Seedlip nearly ran out of cash while the growth charts looked spectacular. John O’Keeffe told us why he recommended the man who eventually ended his career at WPP. None of that appears in a conference deck.
The show is now on episode 124, we publish every week, and we film every episode so you can watch it as well as listen. It sits in the Apple Podcasts business chart alongside shows with budgets we do not have, which we find quite funny given that it started as two people in Leeds with a microphone and a grudge against award-winning case studies.
The six most recent conversations
Pulled live from the feed, so this list is never out of date. Every episode runs as video on YouTube and audio everywhere else.
He built his own AI company then shut it down
Roger spent serious money building an in-house AI product, then scrapped it and rented one instead. He also explains the toxic hire that nearly took the agency down.
Why I recommended the man who fired me
John reshaped the creative output of the largest agency group in the world, then recommended the person who would eventually replace him. He has no regrets, which is the interesting part.
The sales funnel is a hundred years old and wrong
Why KFC and Weetabix walked away from the best lines they ever had, and why the funnel you were taught keeps sending budget to the wrong place.
I invented a category, sold to Diageo, and almost lost it all
Ben created the non-alcoholic spirits category from nothing. He also came within touching distance of a million-pound working capital hole while everyone told him he was winning.
We fired 30 people and nothing changed
Hector removed an entire sales and marketing function and the numbers did not move. What he learned from that now underpins a digital detox business.
Moz founder: I was making $50m a year and miserable
Rand explains why venture funding was the single worst decision of his career, and why he now argues that brand beats traffic every time.
The guest list is the point
People agree to come on because the format is honest rather than promotional. Here is a sample of who has already sat in front of the camera.
Learn to do this yourself
We have made 124 episodes, booked hundreds of guests, and got the show into the Apple business chart without a media budget. That is the course. Here is what we teach and how it is delivered.
How to build a B2B podcast that people actually finish
Most company podcasts die at episode eight. They die because nobody agreed what the show was for, the guest pipeline ran dry, and the host never learned to ask a second question. We spend a day fixing all three, using the show we run every week as the working example.
- Format and premise design, so the show has a reason to exist beyond the marketing plan
- Guest sourcing and outreach, including the exact invitation email we use and why it works
- Interview technique, which is mostly about listening rather than reading your questions out
- Recording and editing on a realistic budget, with the kit list at three price points
- Repurposing one episode into a month of short form, written and social content
- Distribution, chart mechanics and the measurement that senior people actually care about
- Format
- One day, in person or online
- Group
- Up to twelve people
- Best for
- In-house comms, content and brand teams launching or rescuing a show
- Delivered by
- Chris Norton and Will Ockenden
- Where
- Leeds, London, Manchester or your office
Podcast guest training for executives
We interview people for a living, so we can teach this from the side of the microphone that decides whether you get invited back. This is media training for the format your buyers are actually consuming.
- Pitching yourself onto the right shows rather than any show
- Building a guest one sheet that hosts do not ignore
- Telling a story with numbers in it, out loud, without notes
- Handling the question you hoped would not come up
- Making the appearance worth something after it goes live
The podcast launch kit, online
The same thinking as the flagship day, broken into short modules you can work through in a fortnight. Built for the person who has been handed the podcast and no budget to go with it.
- Around three hours of video, in modules under twelve minutes
- Guest outreach templates, run sheets and a release checklist
- Kit lists at three budgets, from a laptop to a proper studio
- Lifetime access, updated whenever the platforms change
Podcast production by Prohibition
If you would rather not learn any of this, our agency team produces podcasts end to end. Embracing Marketing Mistakes is the portfolio piece, and it is made by the same people.
- Format development, booking and guest management
- Filmed studio or remote recording, edited to broadcast standard
- Clips, show notes, transcripts and publishing
- Promotion through our PR and social teams
AI for podcast and content production
We use AI across the show every week, and we have found the places where it quietly makes the output worse. This session covers both sides honestly.
- Transcription, clipping and show note generation that stands up
- Repurposing at scale without losing the voice of the show
- Governance, accuracy checking and what never goes near a tool
- Pairs well with our AI and misinformation training
The two people who make the show
I started Prohibition in 2007 after a decade agency side, and I have been teaching social media and PR ever since. I have written two books on social media, lectured on it, and made every mistake on this podcast at least once myself. I host most of the interviews.
- Chartered PR Practitioner
- Author, Share This and Share This Too
- Founded Prohibition PR, 2007
Will runs the agency alongside me and leads a lot of our training delivery. He is the one who asks the question I was too polite to ask, which is usually the moment the episode gets good. He also keeps the show honest about measurement.
- Co-director, Prohibition PR
- Trainer and strategist
- Co-host since episode one
Every episode is filmed, not just recorded
If you would rather watch than listen, the whole back catalogue is on YouTube with chapters and timestamps. It is also the fastest way to work out whether the format suits you before you agree to come on.
We are always looking for good guests
You do not need to be famous and you do not need a book out. You need one story about something that went wrong and the honesty to tell it properly. We film remotely, the recording takes about an hour, and we handle everything else.
If that sounds like you, tell us the mistake you would want to talk about. That is the only part of the form we really read.
Podcasting questions we get asked constantly
Is a podcast still worth starting in 2026?
Yes, but only if you are honest about why. A podcast is a poor choice for quick reach and a very good choice for depth of relationship with a small, valuable audience.
If you need a hundred thousand impressions next month, buy them. If you need forty of the right people to spend an hour with your thinking every week, and to feel like they know you by the end of it, a podcast does something no other channel does. Ours has put us in rooms we would never have reached with a cold email.
How much does it cost to produce a business podcast?
You can start for the cost of two decent microphones and an afternoon. A credible filmed show, edited properly, with clips and show notes, generally runs from a few hundred pounds an episode if you outsource the production, and considerably less if you learn to do the editing in house. The expensive part is never the kit. It is the hours somebody has to spend booking guests, and that is the thing most teams forget to budget for.
How do you get good guests to say yes?
Make the invitation about them rather than about you, give them a reason to believe the show is worth their hour, and make booking it take one click. We share the exact email we send on the training day, including the social proof we include and the question we always ask before they commit. Our acceptance rate went up sharply once we stopped writing a paragraph about ourselves at the top.
How long should a podcast episode be?
Long enough for the story and no longer. Our full episodes run between forty and sixty-five minutes because that is how long a proper conversation takes. The mistake is padding to hit a target length, which listeners spot immediately in the completion data. We also publish short bonus episodes of five to eight minutes, and those behave completely differently.
Do podcasts actually generate leads?
They generate relationships, and the relationships generate leads, which is slower and considerably more reliable.
Very few people hear an episode and fill in a contact form. What happens instead is that a guest becomes a client, or a listener recommends you to somebody who is hiring, or a prospect arrives at a first meeting already knowing how you think. Measure it with a source field on your enquiry form and ask every new lead where they heard about you, because the attribution will otherwise be invisible.
What equipment do we actually need?
At the entry level, a USB microphone each, headphones, and a quiet room. In the middle, an audio interface, dynamic microphones and a basic light. At the top, a proper camera setup and an editor. We take the training group through all three tiers with real prices, because the honest answer is that audio quality matters enormously and video quality matters much less than people assume.
Should we film the podcast or just record audio?
Film it. Even if you never publish the full video, you cannot make short-form clips out of an audio file, and clips are how most people will discover the show. We film everything remotely and it has roughly tripled what we get out of each recording.
Do you offer podcast training in house?
Yes. Everything we run can be delivered at your offices, at ours in Leeds, or online. Most teams choose the one day flagship course in person and then take the online modules afterwards as a refresher. We also run shorter sessions for leadership teams who only need the guesting side.
Do you produce podcasts for other companies?
We do, through Prohibition PR. The agency handles format development, booking, filmed recording, editing, clips, show notes and promotion. This show is made by exactly the same team, so what you hear is a fair sample of the work.
What topics does the podcast cover?
Marketing strategy, brand building, PR, social media, content, measurement, agency life and increasingly AI. The through line is not the subject, it is the failure. Every guest brings one thing that went wrong and we build the conversation out from there.
How do I get the podcast into the charts?
Charts are driven by a burst of new subscriptions and engagement in a short window, not by total downloads. That means launch planning, a proper run of episodes ready to go, and asking your existing audience to subscribe on the same few days rather than whenever they get round to it. We cover the mechanics on the training day, including what genuinely moves the needle and what is a waste of a fortnight.
Where can I listen to Embracing Marketing Mistakes?
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and every other major app, plus the show site at embracingmarketingmistakes.co.uk. New full episodes land weekly, with shorter bonus episodes in between.
Want your team to be able to do this?
Tell us what you are trying to build and we will tell you honestly whether training, production or neither is the right answer. We have talked people out of starting a podcast before, and we will do it again.
