Did you know poultry is the third most popular pet in America, behind dogs and cats? It's surprising stats like this that reflect the rural lifestyle trends driving growth at Tractor Supply Company.

This week, Elena and Rob talk with Kimberley Gardiner, CMO of Tractor Supply. Learn how she measures marketing impact through business outcomes, builds teams grounded in humility, and why she rejects the brand versus performance marketing debate. Plus, hear the undeniable impact of connecting directly with customers.

Topics covered: 

• [04:00] Transitioning from automotive to Tractor Supply marketing
• [10:00] Using marketing strategically as a business driver, not cost center
• [15:00] Investing marketing dollars for measurable returns
• [18:00] Customer metrics that matter: traffic, transactions, basket size
• [22:00] Why brand marketing versus performance marketing is a false choice
• [26:00] What Kimberley learned about rodeo after joining Tractor Supply 

 





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Resources: 
2024 MarketingWeek Article: https://www.marketingweek.com/marketers-improvement-financial-fluency/

Kimberley Gardiner’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberley-sweet-gardiner/
 

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob challenge the common myth that 80-95% of new products fail. They reveal that while failure rates are significant, they're about half as bad as widely believed, with context and resources playing crucial roles in determining success.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "How Common is New Product Failure and When Does It Vary?"
• [02:00] One in four fail within the first year, 40% by year two
• [03:00] Why big, competitive categories have higher failure rates
• [04:00] Growing categories surprisingly show more failures than stable ones
• [05:00] Brand size and trajectory impact new product survival
• [07:00] Why retail creates natural barriers that improve odds 

 





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Resources: 
Victory, K., Nenycz-Thiel, M., Dawes, J. et al. How common is new product failure and when does it vary?. Mark Lett 32, 17–32 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-021-09555-x  
 

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A German professor compiled a list of 55 questionable Cannes award entries. And he’s far from the only one. Yet the industry keeps creating marketing to win awards over actual performance.

This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by Nick Asbury, creative writer and author of The Road to Hell: How Purposeful Business Leads to Bad Marketing and a Worse World. Nick challenges brand purpose, arguing it produces formulaic campaigns while the research supporting it is fundamentally flawed.
 
Topics covered: 

• [04:00] How the 2008 financial crash sparked the purpose movement
• [12:00] The real story behind Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign data
• [18:00] Why for-profit companies lack social license to lead causes
• [21:00] Nick's crowdsourced fact-checking of Cannes award entries
• [26:00] Debunking the Gen Z purpose myth after the 2024 election
• [29:00] What respectful marketing looks like without purpose 

 





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Resources: 
2024 MarketingWeek Article: https://www.marketingweek.com/good-intentions-lead-to-bad-marketing-why-purpose-is-missing-the-mark/

Nick Asbury’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-asbury/?originalSubdomain=uk
 
Nick's Substack: https://nickasbury.substack.com/

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob explore why cringeworthy ads spread faster than good ones. They reveal how vicarious embarrassment drives word-of-mouth and why brands might benefit from being talked about badly rather than not at all.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "That's So Cringe-Worthy: Understanding What Cringe Is and Why We Want to Share It"
• [03:00] The difference between empathetic embarrassment and cringe
• [04:00] Why Pepsi's Kendall Jenner ad generated more discussion than polished Super Bowl spots
• [05:00] How social comparison drives cringe sharing
• [06:00] Brand loyalty as a shield against cringe backlash
• [07:00] Recovery strategies for cringeworthy moments 

To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Escoe, Brianna & Martin, Nathanael & Salerno, Anthony. (2025). That's So Cringeworthy! Understanding What Cringe Is and Why We Want to Share It. Journal of Marketing Research. 62. 10.1177/00222437241305104.  
 

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Big brands don't narrow cast. They want to be known everywhere their category can be part of your life. And there's a reason for that strategic choice.

This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by research professor Jenni Romaniuk from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. Jenni breaks down why consistent distinctive assets matter more than aesthetics, how mental availability drives brand growth, and why targeting light buyers is critical for long-term success. Plus, learn why differentiation might not be as important as you think for building a successful brand.

Topics covered: 

• [04:00] Origin of distinctive assets research and why good branding matters
• [12:00] When brands should change or evolve their distinctive assets
• [19:00] What category entry points are and why they drive mental availability
• [23:00] How to prioritize category entry points for maximum impact
• [28:00] Why light buyers are essential for risk mitigation and growth
• [33:00] Why differentiation might not be necessary for brand success 

 





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Resources: 
2022 Contagious Article: https://www.contagious.com/iq/article/jenni-romaniuk-on-distinctive-assets

Jenni Romaniuk’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenni-romaniuk-2746884/?originalSubdomain=au
 

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob discover that authenticity in advertising isn't what most marketers think it is. They explore four distinct dimensions of authenticity and reveal why the most "real" ads don't always drive the best results.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "Does it Pay to Be Real: Understanding Authenticity and TV Advertising"
• [02:00] The four dimensions of authenticity in advertising
• [03:00] Why brand essence beats heritage and realism
• [05:00] When unrealistic ads outperform everyday scenarios
• [07:00] How product type and brand size affect authenticity strategy
• [08:00] Why user-generated content isn't always the answer 

 





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Resources: 
Becker, Maren, Nico Wiegand, and Werner Reinartz. “Does It Pay to Be Real? Understanding Authenticity in TV Advertising.” Journal of Marketing Research. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022242918815880
 

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Real buying decisions are habitual. They're often emotional. Nudges assume people carefully weigh options, but in reality, they just grab what's familiar or easy.

This week, Elena and Angela explore the gap between behavioral theory and marketing reality. They discuss why popular psychological insights like loss aversion, anchoring, and choice architecture often fall short when applied to actual campaigns. Plus, they share which behavioral principles still work in real-world marketing and why mental availability beats nudges for driving sustainable growth.

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] Why behavioral economics experiments don't always translate to real marketing 
• [04:00] The most powerful behavioral principle that works repeatedly 
• [06:00] How Apple masters anchoring and framing to shape perception of value 
• [09:00] Why real buying behavior is habitual and emotional, not deliberate 
• [11:00] The behavioral economics principle that's been overhyped 
• [13:00] How mental availability compares to behavioral tactics like nudging 
• [15:00] The one behavioral insight to keep in your marketing toolbox 

 





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Resources: 
2024 Behavioral Economics in Consumer Decision-Making Study: https://mideastjournals.com/index.php/mejelss/article/view/4  


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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob discover how our brains decide whether we like an ad in just three seconds, revealing that early emotional impact matters more than dramatic endings for advertising success.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "Neural Signals of Video Advertisement Liking: Insights into Psychological Processes and their Temporal Dynamics"
• [02:00] How fast people decide if they like or dislike an ad
• [03:00] Brain activity shifts from emotion to social cognition to evaluation
• [04:00] Early neural signals predict population-level ad performance
• [05:00] First 10 seconds matter more than the ending
• [06:00] Why early branding beats waiting until the end 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Chan, Hang-Yee, Maarten A. S. Boksem, Vinod Venkatraman, Roeland C. Dietvorst, Christin Scholz, Khoi Vo, Emily B. Falk, and Ale Smidts. 2024. “Neural Signals of Video Advertisement Liking: Insights into Psychological Processes and Their Temporal Dynamics.” Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231194319
 

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A 2020 study found that only the right brand architecture strategy maximizes reputation spillover while preventing underinvestment. But most companies make this critical decision based on emotion rather than data. 

This week, Elena, Rob, and Director of Brand Beth Kuchera explore when to use one brand across everything versus splitting them up. They reveal the five ways brand architecture impacts business success and share why getting this wrong can waste expensive "brain space" that's impossible to recover. 

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] Research on branded house versus house of brands strategy
• [05:00] Five ways brand architecture helps or harms your business 
• [10:00] Strategic upsides and downsides of branded house approach 
• [14:00] Creative challenges of extending versus building new brands 
• [17:00] Resources as the most important decision-making factor 
• [24:00] Measuring brand effectiveness across multiple products 

 





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Resources: 
Yu, Jungju, A Model of Brand Architecture Choice: A House of Brands vs. A Branded House (May 28, 2020). Yu, J. (2021). A model of brand architecture choice: a house of brands vs. A branded house. Marketing Science, 40(1), 147-167., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3116284 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3116284 
 

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob explore how consumer-created brand nicknames can backfire when brands adopt them officially. They reveal why "nickname branding" hurts performance across key metrics and shifts power dynamics in ways that damage brand perception.

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] "BMW is Powerful, Beamer is Not: Nickname Branding Impairs Brand Performance"
• [02:00] What nickname branding means and why brands do it
• [03:00] Speech Act Theory and power dynamics in marketing
• [04:00] When trying to be cool backfires spectacularly
• [06:00] Competent vs. warm brands and nickname effects
• [07:00] Transactional vs. communal messaging with nicknames 

 





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Resources: 
Zhang, Zhe, Ning Ye, and Matthew Thomson. 2024. “BMW Is Powerful, Beemer Is Not: Nickname Branding Impairs Brand Performance.” Journal of Marketing 89 (1): 135–??. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241266586 
 

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Marketing budgets are a mess right now, says Mark Ritson. His solution? A simple, three-step system inspired by triple-cooked chips: spend 5-10% of revenue, balance long and short-term investment, and measure each piece properly.

This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob tackle one of the trickiest questions in marketing: how do you set a budget that actually drives growth? They explore Ritson's budgeting system, why marketers struggle to secure investment, and the frameworks needed to justify balanced spending.

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] Mark Ritson's three-step budgeting system
• [04:00] High-growth companies spend far more than 5-10%
• [11:00] The 60/40 rule and why most brands fall short
• [15:00] Setting measurement expectations for brand vs performance spend
• [20:00] How performance backgrounds shape budgeting approaches
• [26:00] Keeping unallocated budget for real-time opportunities 

 





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Resources: 
2022 MarketingWeek Article: https://www.marketingweek.com/ritson-triple-cooked-chips-marketing-budgets/
 

Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob explore how advertising creates both immediate sales and long-term brand value through an integrated approach that connects thinking, feeling, and doing.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "Discovering How Advertising Grows Sales and Builds Brands"
• [02:00] Do marketers design campaigns for both short- and long-term goals?
• [04:00] The integrated hierarchy framework: think, feel, do
• [05:00] Five years of soft drink brand data across 30,000 interviews
• [07:00] Why this brand's path was experience, then think, then feel
• [08:00] Advertising's direct impact on feelings and immediate sales 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Bruce, N. I., Peters, K., & Naik, P. A. (2012). Discovering how advertising grows sales and builds brands. Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0060 
 

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75% of shoppers say they go to Amazon to find new products, even if they saw the brand elsewhere. Yet many companies still resist being there, missing massive opportunities for growth.

This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob dive into physical availability, the often-overlooked "place" in the marketing mix. They explore why D2C brands are rushing back to retail, share real campaign examples where distribution made the difference, and discuss what physical availability means in an AI-first world. 

Topics covered: 

• [02:00] Why "place" is the forgotten P in the marketing mix
• [06:00] How D2C brands discovered the limits of digital-only strategies
• [10:00] Real campaign examples where physical availability made the difference
• [15:00] Brands doing physical availability right today
• [19:00] Expanding your thinking about "place" beyond shelf space
• [23:00] Brands we'd buy more if they were easier to find 

 





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Resources: 
2025 WARC Article: https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/4ps---place-physical-availability-the-marketing-factor-youre-likely-overlooking/7010

2025 AdAge Article: https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/state-dtc-warby-parker-rare-beauty-draper-james/2603761/
 

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob reveal the harsh truth about marketers' ability to judge their own brand elements. They explore why we're terrible at predicting how consumers will respond to our logos, colors, sounds, and taglines.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "Assessing Branding Strength: Comparing Marketer Judgment and Consumer Data for Brand Identity Elements"
• [02:00] Only 2% of marketer predictions are accurate
• [04:00] Why we love our brands like our own dogs
• [05:00] When marketers actually get it right
• [06:00] Why teams beat individuals at brand judgment
• [07:00] Don't trust your gut alone 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Graham, C., & Lowrey, T. M. (2023). Assessing branding strength: Comparing marketer judgement and consumer data for brand identity elements. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 40(4), 977–996. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2023.06.006 
 

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Only 40% of Fortune 500 marketing leaders actually hold the title Chief Marketing Officer. But average CMO tenure is now 4.3 years, up from last year. So is the CMO role really disappearing? 

New research from Spencer Stuart challenges the "CMO decline" narrative everyone loves to share. This week, Elena and Angela explore why this story gained traction, what effective marketing leadership looks like today, and how first-time CMOs can stay relevant. Plus, they share which brands they'd love to lead for one year. 

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] Spencer Stuart's 2025 Fortune 500 CMO research findings
• [07:00] Only 40% of marketing leaders use the CMO title
• [10:00] Should CMOs handle roles beyond traditional marketing?
• [12:00] What effective marketing leadership looks like today
• [17:00] Biggest challenge facing first-time CMOs
• [22:00] How companies should treat the CMO role differently 

 





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Resources: 
2025 Spencer Stuart Report: https://www.spencerstuart.com/research-and-insight/cmo-tenure-study-2025-the-evolution-of-marketing-leadership
 

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob reveal how third-party audience targeting often delivers worse accuracy than random guessing, with demographic targeting hitting the right audience only 24.4% of the time compared to 26.5% accuracy from random targeting.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "How Effective is Third Party Consumer Profiling and Audience Delivery"
• [02:00] The difference between first-party and third-party data
• [04:00] Study results: 59% accuracy sounds good until you learn random targeting hits 26.5%
• [05:00] Raw data accuracy drops to worse than random at 24.4%
• [07:00] Interest-based targeting performs better than demographic targeting
• [08:00] Third-party audiences are "economically unattractive" 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Lambrecht, A., Tucker, C., & Wiertz, C. (2019). How effective is third-party consumer profiling and audience delivery? Evidence from field studies. Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series, 19-105. 
 

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On average, brand equity accounts for over 30% of a company's value, yet most marketers still chase vanity metrics instead of measuring what drives real business results.

This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by Kantar's Mary Kyriakidi to unpack findings from Kantar's Diary of a CMO Report. Mary explains why meaningful difference beats distinctiveness alone, how brands can build pricing power instead of defaulting to promotions, and what separates successful CMOs in the boardroom. Plus, learn about Kantar's meaningful, different, and salient framework and why brand equity should be treated as a financial asset.

Topics covered: 

• [04:00] Why meaningful difference drives growth beyond distinctiveness alone
• [09:00] How Kantar's meaningful, different, and salient framework works
• [14:00] The promotion trap that destroys pricing power and brand equity
• [16:00] How brands build pricing power through meaningfulness and difference
• [21:00] What CMOs need to gain credibility in the boardroom
• [23:00] Common mistakes when measuring brand performance 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Kantar’s Diary of a CMO Report: https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/diary-of-a-cmo
Mary Kyriakidi’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-kyriakidi-4a5a4a57/?originalSubdomain=uk
 

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Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We're breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob reveal how perceived brand simplicity creates higher consumer expectations that backfire when failures occur. They explore why simple brands face harsher judgment than complex ones when things go wrong.

Topics covered: 

• [01:00] "Keep It Simple: Consumer Perceptions of Brand Simplicity and Risk"
• [02:00] Simplicity versus vagueness in marketing
• [03:00] How simple brands create lower risk perceptions
• [04:00] YouTube TV's confusing interface betrays simple expectations
• [05:00] Mental simplicity equals fewer moving parts
• [06:00] The white couch analogy for brand disappointment 

 




To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or join our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.

 
Resources: 
Light, N., & Fernbach, P. M. (2024). Keep it simple? Consumer perceptions of brand simplicity and risk. Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241248413
 

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Marketing can't force people to buy what they don't need. According to Dale Harrison, 65-90% of market share within a category is determined by brand recall at purchase.

This week, Elena and Rob are joined by Dale Harrison, former experimental physicist turned marketing effectiveness expert. Dale breaks down the NBD-Dirichlet model that governs consumer behavior, explains why most growth stories have nothing to do with brilliant marketing, and reveals why reach (not targeting) drives market share. Plus, learn about the mathematical reality behind brand loyalty and why your job as a marketer is to make subtle nudges, not force outcomes.

Topics covered: 

• [04:00] Marketing as hacking brains, not forcing behavior 
• [13:00] The NBD-Dirichlet model explained through consumer purchase patterns 
• [22:00] Why brand loyalty is actually polyamorous repertoire buying 
• [26:00] Two ways brands grow: organic category growth vs. market share theft 
• [38:00] Effective CPM vs. total CPM and the targeting efficiency trap 
• [42:00] Share of voice correlation to market share success 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources:  
2024 LinkedIn Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-marketing-creates-revenue-dale-w-harrison-84v7c/
Dale Harrison’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalewharrison/
 

Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob challenge the assumption that older consumers stick with older brands. Real purchase data from over 88,000 grocery trips shows older shoppers buy a mix of brands based on size and relevance, not age or nostalgia.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "Examining Older Consumers' Loyalty towards Older Brands in Grocery Retailing"
• [02:00] What the data revealed about older shoppers
• [04:00] Do these findings apply beyond grocery categories?
• [05:00] Financial services and credit card research
• [06:00] Cars, durables, and 25 years of cross-category data
• [08:00] Your brand preferences are like your closet 

 





To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter. 
 

Resources: 
Phua, P., Kennedy, R., Trinh, G., Page, B., & Sharp, B. (2020). Examining older consumers’ loyalty towards older brands in grocery retailing. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 54, 101893. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101893:contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}  
 

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