What does an integrated multi-channel campaign actually look like? HOKA’s “Run Your City” is a good answer. It brought together a brand partnership, gamification, customer data and creators in one campaign, with each part supporting the others.

Throughout September, HOKA used its existing partnership with Strava to pit New York’s five boroughs against each other to log the most miles. Runners’ stats then became the creative, shown as weekly updates on digital screens across the city. In this Did You Miss It?, David breaks down why it works and what you can borrow for your next launch.

In this episode:

• Why a running shoe brand and a running app are the perfect partnership
• Gamifying the campaign itself: borough vs borough
• Customer data used as creative, not just for segmentation
• Creators, paid social, a publisher partner and a block party, all in one plan
• How it compares with Spotify Wrapped, and why most Wrapped copycats fall flat

Source: Marketing Dive, “Hoka builds Strava running stats into digital OOH campaign” https://www.marketingdive.com/news/hoka-builds-strava-running-stats-into-digital-ooh-campaign/829480/

🎙️ The Marketing Update Podcast is your weekly catch-up on the marketing news, strategy and trends that matter, hosted by Emma and David. Follow for new episodes every week.

🤝 Planning your next launch and want the channels working together, not just sitting next to each other? Get in touch: hello@themarketingupdate.com

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

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How do you keep a marketing strategy on track once the year actually starts? It’s 2027 planning season, and most marketers have been there: the strategy is signed off in Q1, and by Q2 the deck is already a relic. In this episode, we focus on what happens AFTER the strategy is written: how to keep it on track, and how to know when it’s time to pivot.

We cover:

• Building your strategy on data, so marketing targets link directly to business goals

• Getting buy-in from stakeholders above and below you, and communicating the plan company-wide

• Turning your strategy into a living project with a work-back plan, owners and regular reporting

• When to pivot (around six months in) and how the right pivot depends on whether you’re behind or ahead of target

• Realigning with business goals, and why a pivot is the perfect moment to talk to your customers again

Plus practical ideas for building a team culture where it’s OK to say “this isn’t working”, including a quarterly “pitch for the pivot” exercise.

🎙️ The Marketing Update is your weekly catch-up on the marketing news, strategy and trends that matter, hosted by Emma and David. Follow for new episodes every week.

🤝 Need help building or getting your marketing strategy back on track? Get in touch: hello@themarketingupdate.com

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amazon is piloting ChatGPT ads, letting advertisers buy conversational ad space in ChatGPT through Amazon DSP. In this Did you miss it? episode, David unpacks what that means for brands.

We cover how the partnership works (Amazon runs it as a managed service while OpenAI controls ad delivery), the CPC and CPM pricing options, and how the ads appear: as sponsored text and image units beneath ChatGPT answers. The pilot is US-only for now, but ChatGPT ads are already available in Europe, India and MENA.

With ChatGPT ads reaching a $1 billion annualised run rate since launching in February 2026, and Amazon now backing the format, we ask what this means for DTC and B2B brands, and why it’s worth testing conversational ads now, even while early performance data is mixed.

Read the article: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/amazon-pilots-ad-services-in-chatgpt-what-marketers-need-to-know/829945/

🎙️ The Marketing Update Podcast is your weekly catch-up on the marketing news, strategy and trends that matter, hosted by Emma and David. Follow for new episodes every week.

🤝 Want help putting any of this into practice? Emma and David work with marketing teams on strategy and GTM: hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you write a marketing strategy that people actually use? In this Did you miss it? episode, Emma revisits a 2025 Substack article from Tom Davies that’s well worth reading as you plan for 2027.

Tom breaks marketing strategy into four practical steps, tested at Yonder: understanding your customer purchase journeys through proper customer interviews, working out who’s ready to buy now versus later, choosing the three or four highest-impact priorities and setting budget upfront, and finally writing it all down and getting started.

His advice for that last step: skip the deck, call the doc something like “What we’re doing next,” and use it to keep your team focused and to defend your trade-offs.

📖 Read the article: https://mktg.substack.com/p/how-to-actually-write-a-marketing

Connect with us:

Writing your 2027 plan and want a second pair of eyes? Emma and David work with marketing teams on strategy and GTM. Email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk to book a free 30 min consultancy call.

Find us on LinkedIn: Emma and David

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you get your business cited in AI search? In this Did you miss it? episode, David digs into LinkedIn’s new guide for B2B marketers, Unlocking AI Search Visibility. According to Profound’s 2026 report, LinkedIn is now the number one most-cited domain for professional queries in AI search. With 94% of B2B buyers using generative AI for research and traditional search volume predicted to halve by 2028, getting cited by LLMs matters more than ever. Yet only 34% of B2B tech marketers feel ready to act on it.

David walks through LinkedIn’s four recommendations (creators, customer advocates, employee creators and leadership thought leadership), plus what the guide says about company pages and which content types drive AI visibility.

And the big question: is this the best route to AI citations for your business, or is LinkedIn mainly trying to get you to build its content engine?

📖 Read the guide: https://shorturl.at/kU8Eq

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Find us on LinkedIn: Emma and David

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do big legacy brands stay relevant to younger audiences? The ones doing it well don't pretend to be startups. They work out which parts of their history still have value and give a new generation a reason to care about them. We talk a lot about challenger brands, but this time we're flipping it: what if you're the brand that's been around for more than fifty years? Gap is having a real moment, from its KATSEYE campaign to a return to denim, music and dance. As brand strategist Rachel Moore points out, Gap isn't chasing nostalgia for its own sake. It's going back to what made Gap, Gap.

We also dig into The Legacy Brand De-Aging Playbook by Brooke Yoakam at The Brand Blueprint, which shows how differently legacy brands can pull this off:

• New Balance leaned into its "dad shoe" reputation just as culture caught up

• Stanley spotted a whole new audience falling for the Quencher and built around them

• Gap went back to its roots in denim, music and dance

The question worth stealing for any legacy brand: could the thing people think is dated actually become your differentiator?

📖 Read The Legacy Brand De-Aging Playbook: https://thebrandblueprint.substack.com/p/the-legacy-brand-de-aging-playbook

👤 Follow Rachel Moore on LinkedIn for more on brand positioning: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelpollardmoore/

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Find us on LinkedIn: Emma and David

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Black Friday is coming! Should B2B companies run Black Friday campaigns? In this episode, Emma and David unpack why Black Friday is designed for impulse purchasing, and why that clashes with long sales cycles, procurement processes, and premium positioning. Then they share their B2B Black Friday playbook, built around four pillars:

• Engagement: re-engaging cold leads and prospects who said you were too expensive

• Loyalty: rewarding existing customers with exclusive access, extended terms, or IRL events

• Culture: using the moment to show off employee wellbeing and sustainability (think REI's #OptOutside)

• Community: giving back to creators, marketplaces, and causes your customers care about

Plus: a quick checklist to decide whether your business should take part in Black Friday at all.

Useful links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/b2bmarketing/comments/1o75xih/comment/njpdlvv/

https://web.archive.org/web/20251119144803/https://thedrum.com/opinion/black-friday-isn-t-just-b2c-how-b2b-brands-can-get-involved

https://www.coredna.com/blogs/b2b-sales-promotion-strategy

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCpC6xFO95D/

https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/patagonias-5-word-explanation-of-why-its-closing-its-stores-giving-employees-a-week-off-is-best-ive-seen-yet.html

https://group.dhl.com/en/media-relations/press-releases/2025/dhl-reveals-black-friday-trends.html

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/10-examples-of-effective-re-engagement-emails

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Find us on LinkedIn: Emma and David

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

LinkedIn just turned 23, 10,000 people are applying to jobs every minute and vertical videos are here to stay. This episode, David and Emma break down what LinkedIn is actually good for right now. They take you through the jobs, feed, and ads, digging into the bigger shifts: the rise of personal posting, "this looks like AI slop" button (yes, really), and why carousels still reign supreme as the platform's top-performing format.

They also get into the "loop, not funnel" approach to LinkedIn ads, why organic company page reach has cratered to basically nothing, and whether the platform's TikTok-ification is a genuine cultural shift or just an algorithm chasing engagement. If you're building a personal brand, running B2B ads, or just trying to figure out if LinkedIn is worth your time in 2026, this one's for you.

Useful Links:

https://creators.instagram.com/blog/instagram-trial-reels?locale=en_GB

https://www.linkinbio.news/p/do-you-have-a-trial-reels-strategy

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/snap-posts-modest-q2-user-and-revenue-increases/826907/

https://www.adnews.com.au/news/snap-reports-better-momentum-in-advertising

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/behind-reddit-and-youtubes-roles-in-ai-visibility/827313/

https://members.linkedin.com/creators

https://www.leverdigital.co.uk/post/12-linkedin-ad-stats-you-need-to-know

https://calendly.com/resources/webinars/masterclass-cold-to-closed/thank-you

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Find us on LinkedIn: Emma and David

Connect with us:

If you'd like to book The Marketing Update Podcast hosts for consultancy work, email hello@themarketingupdate.co.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-marketing-update-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.