The death of everything with Tom Roach: Jellyfish Brand Strategy VP and effectiveness expert on the debates and dichotomies that plague marketing

In this episode, host Ben Norman is joined by ⁠Tom Roach⁠, VP of Brand Strategy at ⁠Jellyfish⁠ and one of the biggest names in creative effectiveness.

In his 25 years in the industry, Tom has held top positions in leading agencies like BBH, adam&eveDDB and Leo Burnett, leading strategy for brands including the BBC, McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, Lloyds Bank, KFC and Weetabix, whilst picking up Gold and Silver IPA Effectiveness Awards along the way.

In this time, Tom has become well known for his contributions to the field of creative effectiveness in advertising, and in this conversation he and Ben cover…

• How Tom got a job from a blog post
• The danger of false dichotomies in advertising, including Long vs Short (and why Gusto gets it right), Brand vs Performance (and the case for ‘and’ over ‘or’), Creative vs Non-Creative (as if it’s a choice), and AI vs Human (and how humans have always needed to use tools)
• Twin-axis creative consistency (and why you need both)
• The snake oil salespeople saying everything is dead (like SEO and TV)
• Freud’s ‘narcissism of small differences’ (the one thing Tom managed to teach Les Binet)
• How most marketing best practice is sales collateral, not science (according to Paul Feldwick)
• How social media could be amplifying division in marketing
• Brighter futures for juniors in the creative industry
• How AI is creating new roles for the next generation
• The best brothers question yet

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