Mark Ritson on Marketing Effectiveness, Pricing, Creativity, Madonna, Baudrillard, and Cannes Lions 2026

Boringly Effective Podcast.

Welcome to the Boringly Effective Podcast, where marketing fundamentals beat marketing fads every time. I'm Andrei Tarnovski with 20 years in marketing and founder of the studio Tarnovski Marketing Consultancy. We're doing branding and marketing strategy out of Bucharest for clients all over the world. We recorded this first run at Cannes Lions 2026, and the whole podcast exists because of my first guest. Mark Ritson, professor, columnist, and the man behind Mini MBA, which close to 40,000 of us have been through, myself included. He's the most quotably blunt voice in marketing, and here he's completely unfiltered. So let's get into it.

First of all, thank you for being at the Romanian Institute.

It's my pleasure, Andrei. Highlight for me is coming to Cannes and seeing the Romanians in action. Congratulations.

Thank you very much for that. And I'm honored to be an alumni of your course.

You are?

Has changed my life to the better.

In what way do you think it's changed your life, Andrei?

If I can ask you, I became a lot more confident. Yeah, first of all, and this plus your autograph on my graduation paper allowed me to increase prices threefold.

Is that right? Yeah, threefold increase. Did you hear that, listeners? That's important, right? 300% increase in pricing. And I'll just take my cut whenever you're ready. You know, you can just send me the checks. Okay, very good, very good.

You're probably bored of hearing the same questions on and on again.

No, no, I'd rather have the same questions than the ones I don't know the answers to. So I'm, you know, hit me.

Yeah, the question is, which question have you not yet been asked but you are eager to hear it? Is there such a question?

Oh, yeah, I'm sure there must be. Look, I think we could talk a lot more about the role that Cannes plays in how marketing is working. You know, I think we had a good discussion this morning on the way here. Do we really have any impact on the thinking that's taking place in the industry? Everybody's here and everyone's talking, but what's the impact? You know, I think that's a very tricky question.

The impact of creativity or—

The whole thing. I mean, do we really do— I mean, we obviously have a good time and everybody's here and it's all For example, we'll talk a lot about being more long-term and, you know, brand building and not just doing short-term stuff. Every time we say that, companies get more and more short-term. So it appears like nobody is actually listening to anyone. So, you know, the impact is where I think we have to be more questioning, I think.

Okay, thank you. Now, close to 40,000 people have graduated Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm one of them. And what's the one concept that even the smartest students don't get?

I think we've such a big impact on price and pricing, but I still don't think most of the students grasp. I mean, you did it very well, right? You got a 300% increase, yeah? It's this idea that if we can price better, the impact on the whole business, it's much bigger than marketing. It's transformational, you know? So I think they still don't appreciate how important pricing really is.

But pricing is still quite difficult to get.

Yeah, look, I think they get the theory, but when I say at the start of that module how important it is and it's a lever of the whole company profitability, I don't think they're hearing me. It, you know, I think you have to argue that product is the most important P because at the end of the day, without the product, it's not going to work. You can have great prices unless you know what you're doing. It won't work, right? But after that, pricing is the one that's so important, you know, and I don't think marketers realize.

Is there any concept or maybe some piece of theory, some piece of wisdom, marketing wisdom that you do know is important, but you don't say it out loud, you don't teach it because it might be misunderstood or misapplied?

Yeah, I mean, the stuff I try and avoid because it does get overly complex is Setting objectives and setting less objectives. And if I was really, really determined, I would make everybody have like 2 objectives a year. But it's too controlling and it's too reductive. But really, they'd be better off if they could all just do that. You know what I mean? The other one's budgeting. If you just spend 10% of your revenues back on communications, most people would be better off.

Yeah.

You know, most companies, that would do it. But if I say it, You know, it causes more problems, you know. So there are certain things that, yeah, I would, you know, if I was more dangerous, I would go for.

But on the other hand, I know some real-life cases when the dangerous stuff became the product success.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a case for it too. You have to have a responsibility though. I mean, you know, 40,000 marketers, whatever you say, and if they do it and it goes wrong, it's kind of on you, you know. So you have to be care— when I write columns, I'm much more bold, but when we're teaching, we have to be much more careful. You know, that's the thing.

Is there any marketing thinking coming out of smaller markets or maybe peripheral markets that is, I don't know, ignored by the more arrogant bigger markets?

The Americans and the British, you mean? Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah.

They want them in New York.

Yeah. Why not? I don't know. I do know this. If we were to use the sort of Anglo-Saxon for that sort of, you know, British-American axis with a bit of Australia in there as well. I think we're not as sensitive, for me, to the smaller countries and the Latin countries and their grasp of creativity. I think there's, in my experience, there's a real difference between how these big British-American cultures treat creativity, which is very kind of rational, And the way smaller countries have got a much more fluid grasp of creativity. You know, even with the French, you see it. It's a different game, you know? So I think we could learn more about creativity from smaller, more Latin cultures, or certainly not Anglo-Saxon cultures, you know?

So could this mean that creativity could compensate for the lower budgets?

To some degree. I mean, look, summarizing, you've seen this literature as well, Andrei, but To some degree you can offset it, but not that much. At the end of the day, you still need the money, right? There are— there's one case in 1,000 where they didn't need any money. But in the other 999 cases, you still need to invest the money. Creativity will amplify it, but it has to amplify what's already been invested, you know? And at the end of the day, look, you know, what are the drivers of advertising success? We know this from research. The first one is how big a brand you already are. Then it's creativity, but you've still got to have the money in there first before you get the multiplier effect. So now you still unfortunately need to spend money.

Which of the brands you know are most Madonna-like? I mean, reinventing themselves but staying true to themselves at the same time.

I would say there's probably 2 that come to mind. I really like the way that BMW have been doing it for 40 years. They refresh themselves annually. So there isn't this big need to suddenly revitalize the whole brand because it's always nicely updated. The other one is Chanel. I think if you look at Chanel, it's been very, very good at staying true to itself in a Madonna-style way, but also constantly just moving forward a little bit. You know, you look at Burberry. Burberry fell out of favor 10, 15 years ago and had to do this big revitalization.

Mm-hmm.

And it's going through it again now. Something in Chanel's team or DNA enables them just to keep staying fresh. But I think BMW for me is such a triumph because it never gets dusty, you know?

Speaking about BMW and— okay, it's not a luxury brand, but if we were to summarize it and to oversimplify it, is it easier to build a luxury brand or a mass market brand?

It's probably harder for the luxury brand because you need time. You gotta cook it for a long time. Like, I firmly believe that Apple is in transition to becoming a luxury brand. It's probably about 25 or 30 years away. And that sounds odd, but if you look at Patek Philippe or Louis Vuitton or Dom Pérignon, they were all high-tech brands of their time that then became kind of locked down in their categories. So I think Apple is absolutely on the verge of becoming for our kids, grandkids, a luxury brand. But it takes a long time to get there. So the, the reason luxury is harder is time.

And you cannot compensate.

Yeah, look, you know, we can launch a candy brand tomorrow and it might be successful. A luxury brand is going to take a lot longer.

Okay. I'm not sure if you're a fan, but you've certainly, uh, certainly read Baudrillard.

I love Baudrillard.

Perfect. I'm a fan.

He doesn't get talked about as much anymore. Have you noticed? You know, from the great— 20 years ago, everyone was Jean Baudrillard this, Jean Baudrillard that. Now there's like, you know, so yeah, no, I love a bit of Baudrillard.

I'm trying to bring it back.

Good luck with that.

Good. There's a performance component in being Mark Ritson. The swearing, the saying everything bluntly and as straightforward as it gets.

Yeah.

How much of it is the real Mark Ritson and how much is the character? And has the character Influenced the real?

I think it's genuinely me. I don't think you can fake that stuff. I think you can smell the inauthenticity if it's not coming from truth. So that's all me. It might be a bit more exaggerated, but yeah, I think people are surprised. They think I go home and like sort of shout at my wife and tell her, your cooking is bad for the following reasons. You know, you're— you know, why have you let the children do this? You know, you know, you know, I'm the quietest. I'm the least powerful person in my house. You know, my wife is in charge. Wife, child 1, child 2, me, you know what I mean? So it's not as if I'm like Mr. Bossy all the time, which I think— well, it's like when you do the class, right? Everyone thinks that I'm going to come in and shout at you, and it's very clearly not the case. So no, it influences me a bit. I am really like that. I'm quite blunt, you know? But I'm not— I don't think I'm much of a prick, you know what I mean? I think I'm pretty nice, but I am still blunt even with people that I'm nice to, you know? I think that's the other part. So yeah, no, you know, I think that— you tell me. I mean, you know better than me. I think it's pretty accurate. It's how I am, you know?

My feeling is that, yes, it's mostly you, but I wanted to hear it from you.

Yeah, I mean, Baudrillard would argue that the video version of me is the real me. Yeah? And this me doesn't matter.

Yeah?

Doesn't exist.

But there is a point there, right? That, you know, if you think about these 40,000 alumni, most of them don't know me at all. They've come to know me through this video representation. You know what I mean? So Baudrillard, as usual, is correct. You know what I mean? That's me to most people. And when I meet someone that I've taught, they do feel like they know me because I've been with them for 10 weeks, but I have no idea who they are. So it is a, you know, it's a postmodern point, I think. I think once again we can give it to Baudrillard, you know.

But on the other hand, those 40,000 people and many millions probably who've watched the video are the ones who are drawn to come to your conference this September.

This is true. Hopefully, hopefully, Andrei.

Hopefully.

They definitely will.

Good. No, I'm very excited. I haven't been to Bucharest in a long time, and I mean 20 years long, so I suspect it's changed quite a lot. So I'm looking for— I'm really looking forward to it. It's a nice time of the year, right? September's got that nice feeling in the air. Do you know what I mean? Like, I imagine it's just the right time. So yeah, I'm very excited. Very excited.

And if you come a couple of days earlier, you'll see that the entire city is in billboards with your face.

Is that right?

Yes.

As it should be.

You're everywhere.

That's very important, Andrei. I like that. As it is all through the year, I understand, there, right?

No, no.

I like to get in a day early and do some very heavy drinking just to stay in tune with the culture so I can understand the audience. So you can rely on me getting in early and being hammered on the local brew. I don't like— I hate people that go to somewhere beautiful like Bucharest and then drink Budweiser. Do you know what I mean? There's going to be some interesting Romanian shit that I can get into. Let's, and I'm ready for the adventure. I'm very ready for the adventure.

Drop a couple of.

Oh no, you guys can. I know you guys can drink like like motherfuckers, so I'm really looking forward to it. You know what I mean? Like I know they'll be. It'll be nice and nice and spicy. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'll give you a couple of recommendations so you can buy me a couple if you want. Yeah, I'll be around. We'll just get a few in.

I won't buy you a restaurant, but I can buy you a beer.

So that sounds good. Good beer, I would imagine, is easy to come by. And I would imagine, I don't know. Romania is one of these places where they've got the sort of second power shot. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that what do you call? What's your sort of? There's normally like in good drinking cultures like Korea or Czech Republic, there's good beer and then there's something that sits with it. What do you drink with it?

Like a schnapps or something? Tuika. It's some kind of a.

What do you call it?

Tuika.

Tuika. See, I'm already. I'm already excited about tuika. I'm gonna. I'm gonna drink my body weight in tuika and see how that works out.

Since we're talking about the the real you and the virtual you, if you commissioned a brand health.

Yes.

Where would be the weakness of the Ongetio, Mark Rizzo, the public person?

It's a good one. I think I'm probably seen as being too confrontational. So there's a lot of people that won't do the Mini MBA because they think the course is me shouting at them. You know what I mean? Like, as if that's what I do. So I think sometimes it can be too strong an association. You know, I want to keep my critical, no bullshit image, but also to be welcoming and supportive, you know what I mean, in the classroom. So yeah, sometimes that is too strong.

One more question about the real Marc Vermaer.

Okay, okay, back to the real one now.

Okay. What actually occupies you? Do you have any real passions, hobbies besides marketing? I know you're in love with marketing, but—

Yeah, it's a big part of my life. I really enjoy sex with my wife, and we're really at a place at the moment where you— because we've got small children, we don't get to do it enough. And I want to underline with my wife, not with other people, I don't enjoy sex with other people at all. Sex with my wife is right up there. Dinner with my wife and sex with my wife are probably my 2 most interesting hobbies. Other than that, no, no. I mean, we've got young kids, so it's an apocalypse for another 7 or 8 years. You know what I mean? It's all right, you know? It's not— you know, you never get to sleep in. You never get to do— you know, I mean, I'm here for 5 days. You know, it's very relaxing compared to, you know, having little people running around.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, that's mostly it. I don't have— you know, I'm quite happy just knobbing about, you know what I mean? And a drink and a— we got a nice car, we drove it down from London, that was fun. And then we just went to different wine areas on the way from the UK through France. We drove very quickly to get to a winery, then we drank pretty much all their wine, slept, got up, and then drove very quickly to another winery and did the same again. That was great. That's my idea of a good couple of days.

So you're basically halfway to becoming Romanian?

I think so. I think I'm gonna gel with the Romanian culture, is my sense. And they like a good strong cigarettes as well, which I'm also in favor of. None of that Marlboro Light horseshit. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna all be good. I reckon I'll be right in there, right in there, Andrei.

Do you have a favorite marketing joke?

Oh yeah, I do, I do. How many light bulbs— how many marketers does it take to change a light bulb? It's the B. B, nature. Innovation. Because the answer to every fucking question in marketing is innovation. This was a good one. That's all I got for you.

Questions for both of us. More children or more dogs?

Oh, definitely more dogs. No more fucking children. If my wife has any more children, I'm gonna shoot myself or her or both of us. No, no, no. That's the deal. Definitely more dogs later. Much easier. Way better than children, right?

Which weather? London or Cannes?

Ooh, that's tricky. You know, I'm gonna go London. I live in Australia most of the time and I miss the 4 seasons. So although this is great, I do like September, October in Europe.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like a bit of snow and a bit of frost. So yeah, actually London. That's crazy, but there's reasons behind it.

Now, another either/or. Young, fit, and broke, or old, fat, and filthy rich?

Tricky, tricky. I'd go with the young and fit. I think the ability to still be super healthy and able to do lots of active stuff. That's tricky though. It's very good having a bit of money. and being middle-aged. God, that's tricky. No, I'll go young and fit. Young and fit.

Okay, nice one. Beer or whiskey?

Beer. Beer. I've really gone— I don't drink as much whiskey as I used to. Beer. A good beer, especially a good cold beer. Yeah, beer. Beer.

I hope you won't become— you won't be too angry at this question. Simon Sinek or Seth Godin?

Oh God, that's what we call Hobson's choice. I mean, probably Seth Godin used to be a lot more On the money. He was quite good. My view of Seth Godin is he's gone a bit mad.

Yeah.

But early Seth Godin was quite good. Seth Godin.

Okay. And the last one, if marketing didn't exist, carpenter or chef?

Oh, definitely carpenter. During COVID I did some flooring with a handyman. And that was very, very— I'm very working class. I'd be very happy flooring specifically, I really, I love laying a good floor and I'm quite, I'm quite good at it. I, I would say I'm, you know, I'm 8 out of 10 on flooring, which is rare, you know, which is rare. I'm a good floorer. So yeah, definitely carpentry.

I'll drop you a message when I'm going.

If you, while I'm down there, if there's anyone needs a decent floor, seriously, for an extra couple of days, I'll, I'll, you know, I could hammer it in while talking about marketing. Do you know what I mean? Bringing best of both worlds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get a bit of marketing advice. get a new floor in your kitchen.

Thank you again for coming to the Romanian Pavilion, and looking forward to seeing you this September in Bucharest.

Can't wait.

At the conference.

Can't wait, Andrei. Let's get it on.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, mate.

That's episode 1 of Boringly Effective. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts or watch the video version on YouTube. I'm Andrei Tarnovski, fundamentals over fashion. See you next time.

Boringly Effective Podcast.