Marketing Has Lost Its Seat at the Table | Michael Durie

Marketing Has Lost Its Seat at the Table | Michael Durie

Marketing has lost its seat at the table, and Michael Durie says it's our own fault. After over four decades in marketing, he unpacks what founders, CMOs and small businesses keep getting wrong about brand, budgets and AI. Some call Michael the godfather of marketing in the South Island. We get into why social media is killing cut-through, why direct mail is making a comeback in 2026, how much a small business should actually spend on marketing, the leaky bucket of customer attrition, and the campaign that took Mazda from 3% to 5% market share. Full of things you can act on by Monday morning. Follow Marketing Masters so you never miss an episode. Chapters 00:00 Direct marketing's comeback, Jaguar, and the top table 01:24 Meet Michael Durie, the godfather of marketing 03:56 The biggest misconception founders have about marketing 07:42 "Build it and they'll come" and the fail-fast trap 10:16 NZ success stories: Halter, Seequent, Hamilton Jet 13:20 Unpopular opinion: the marketing plan vs marketing planning 15:06 When to ignore your customers (the Steve Jobs rule) 18:02 The Jaguar rebrand: brave or brand suicide? 20:42 Why piling into social media kills your cut-through 24:03 The channel mix: out-of-home, print, radio and podcasts 27:12 Why direct mail and guerrilla marketing are back 30:28 Three questions to ask when a product won't sell 33:08 The leaky bucket: customer attrition explained 37:46 Why a phone call beats an NPS survey 41:46 The campaign that took Mazda from 3% to 5% market share 46:27 How much should a small business spend on marketing? 52:21 Breaking into marketing in the age of AI 57:36 How a David Ogilvy book changed his career 1:00:48 Is marketing treated as the "colouring-in department"? 1:03:50 Stop chasing vanity metrics, obsess over the bottom line 1:06:58 Five decades in, why curiosity still wins 1:09:09 The "secret sauce": Stickman, Specsavers, Whittaker's 1:13:30 Big ideas on small budgets (Australia Post x Sydney Swans) 1:16:22 The one thing to do on Monday morning

Iyia Liu Built $3.5M in a Year. Now She's Doing It Again With Claude, Meta + FMCG | Marketing Masters

$3.5 million in her first 12 months of business at 21. Multiple brands built and sold across shapewear, supplements, haircare, gifting, fashion and now FMCG. Three seasons of Boss Babes. Four thousand founders coached through Make It Happen. Iyia Liu has done it. And she's still building. Her newest brand, Brewe Iced Coffee and Matcha, is rolling into Woolworths supermarkets in June, five months after launch. Buyers told her that doesn't happen. It's happening. What makes this conversation different is the timing. Iyia is launching a brand right now, in 2026, with every lesson from a decade of brand-building plus a stack of tools that didn't exist when she launched her first business. Claude in the workflow. Meta's new algorithm rewriting paid social. The mass micro-influencer affiliate model. FMCG as a whole new game. And it's working. So we asked her to walk through the entire playbook. Not the highlight reel. The actual mechanics. What you'll hear in this episode: The principle behind every brand she's built ("people will literally just buy what other people buy") Why she'd run zero paid ads on day one of a new business in 2026 How she's using Claude to set up Meta ad campaigns end to end without touching a button The six-angle creative framework she uses to generate 85 ads for one campaign The mass micro-influencer affiliate model behind one Shopify brand doing $500 million in three years The outreach volume game most founders are losing (message 100, not 5) Why $1 on email returns $36, and the founders still ignoring it How community got Brewe into Woolworths five months after launch The exact pricing formula she uses across every brand Why this is the slowest business she's ever grown, and what she's learning from it If you're building a brand, scaling a brand, or thinking about starting one, this is the most practical hour of marketing you'll listen to this year. 🎧 Chapters 00:00 The one principle behind every brand Iyia has built03:30 Why she'd run zero paid ads on day one of a new brand05:00 Mass micro-influencers and why founders are messaging too few people07:00 Macros, micros, nanos: when each one actually earns its fee08:30 Using Claude to build a full Meta ad campaign without touching a button10:00 Meta's algorithm change and what it means for creative11:00 The 50 to 100 creatives rule (Iyia is running 85)12:00 The six-angle framework with the playground client example14:30 The tools and tabs Iyia opens every morning17:00 How she decides what to test and what to bin18:00 The Comfrt case study: $500M in three years on mass micro-affiliates20:00 Two posts a day, every day, and who actually runs it21:00 How community got Brewe into Woolworths in five months23:00 Why FMCG broke every e-commerce assumption Iyia had28:00 The collab strategy: influencer marketing without the influencers30:00 The DM outreach volume game (message 50 to 100, not 5)32:00 The highest-paid influencer she's ever worked with33:00 Affiliate marketing in New Zealand and what to call it instead35:00 Sampling, manufacturing and vetting suppliers36:30 The retention mistake Iyia made across multiple brands37:30 Why $1 on email returns $3639:00 The three-channel mix Iyia gives every client in 202641:00 Pricing: buy at $20, mark up to $80, bundle the rest44:00 The why: from a dingy flat to a green oasis and two kids46:00 The juggle, hiring family, and what comes next Hosted by Zania Guy Marketing Masters is the podcast about the marketers building the brands we actually buy from. zaniaguy.com

Flipping the Script: Brave, Human-First Marketing with Frith Wilson-Hughes

What does it take to push a 65-year-old brand in a bold new direction and actually get it over the line? Frith Wilson-Hughes is the Content Marketing Manager at Southern Cross Health Society and part of the team behind the Feel Good Project, a campaign that ditched the tired health insurance playbook and put real members centre stage in a way that's joyful, unexpected, and moving. Search "Southern Cross Feel Good Project" on YouTube to watch the ad - it's worth it. Before Southern Cross, Frith spent eight years at Spark NZ in social, content and brand where she learned that the best creative work comes from being honest with your agency partners, not polished presentations and safe briefs. In this episode we get into what brave brand work actually looks like from the inside, how to build trust at every touchpoint, and why the 60/40 brand vs performance rule matters more when your customer's buy journey takes months, not minutes. We also cover the creator economy in New Zealand, why social has shifted from a two-way channel to a passive one, how Frith is using AI to keep her brand's tone of voice consistent, and the one piece of advice she'd give any marketer who wants to build a brand that actually lasts. If you work in marketing, content, or brand strategy, this one's for you. Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating or comment and hit follow so you never miss a new episode. New conversations drop regularly. Marketing Masters is the podcast that explores the art and science of modern marketing, unpacking lessons from the people shaping the industry.

AI in Marketing 2026: Adapt or Fall Behind. Marketing Masters - The Art and Science of Modern Marketing

Who wins, who loses, and how to stay relevant as AI reshapes marketing, creativity and business. This episode is not about whether AI matters. It’s about what happens if you don’t adapt now. In this episode of Marketing Masters – The Art and Science of Modern Marketing, Zania brings together three leading minds who are already operating at the cutting edge of AI, while much of the industry is still trying to catch up. This is a practical, honest conversation about AI in marketing, AI in business, and the future of work, looking ahead to what 2026 really means for careers, teams, creativity, and growth. Meet the guests shaping what comes next: Dr Shahper Richter, Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, researches how emerging technologies reshape human behaviour, workplaces, and the future of marketing itself. She is helping prepare the next generation of marketers for success in a workforce that no longer follows traditional career paths. Adnan Khan, Co-Founder of Stitch and Stitch Predict, is transforming how brands in New Zealand and globally understand what actually drives growth. His work focuses on AI-powered marketing intelligence, agentic workflows, and measuring performance in a privacy-first world, collapsing weeks of insight into days. Heath Waugh, Founder of Matter Studio, has made one of the boldest business pivots in the creative industry. He has stepped away from traditional photography to build one of the world’s first creative studios merging high-end visual craft with advanced AI image creation. This is not theory. These are real decisions, real pivots, and real consequences. In this episode, you’ll learn: - What AI in Marketing 2026 actually means for marketers, creatives and business leaders - Why AI will not replace marketers, but AI-fluent marketers will replace those who do not adapt - The difference between generative AI and agentic AI, explained clearly and practically - How AI is changing marketing performance, creativity, and decision-making - Why “AI-powered” is about to become meaningless as a differentiator - How to avoid low-quality AI output and protect human judgement, taste and trust - What to start doing now to stay relevant as the gap between winners and laggards widensIf you are a marketer, founder, creative, or business leader feeling the ground shift beneath your role, this conversation will give you clarity, context, and a practical way forward.

Marketing Master and Content Creator - Ryan Stokes

Ryan Stokes has a gift for turning the ordinary into the unforgettable. You might remember him as the face of Skinny, or for the wild Trade Me stunt where he sold a “Covid-free bag of air” that became one of the ten most-viewed auctions of all time. Or maybe you watched him on The Kelly Clarkson Show, after teaching his family to play music together during lockdown.Now Ryan’s behind the scenes as Social Content Creator and Community Manager for ASB, helping the bank tell stories that connect to customers in fresh, authentic and unexpected ways. Organic views are soaring, the requests to be featured on their social channels are on the rise and the content is proving a bank really can be fun to follow.At the Marketing Association's OnSocial conference, I sat down with Ryan to talk about the shift from being in front of the camera to building the stories behind it, why he still loves creating, and how he keeps content entertaining, relatable, and share-worthy.Ryan has earned a reputation as one of the most creative content makers in the country. If he can make finance engaging, just imagine what ideas you’ll walk away with after listening to this episode of Marketing Masters.