“I think that marketing is the only thing that can save the human race right now, by giving us a different vision of ourselves to live up to. Marketing… has the potential, in the right hands, to make us feel an emotional response that would see us protecting things, or defending things.”

“Use technology for good. Use that sense of authenticity to create that connection with your colleagues and your customers and demand the best from the organisation that you’re working for.”

“So is marketing the Devil’s art? No it’s not! It’s an art. If the Devil uses it, then stuff the devil - we can do better. And if you’ve got a good story and you’re using the art of marketing, you’ll win.”

“If you think of people as citizens you start by asking ‘What’s the point of this organisation? Why does it exist?’ And then you ask ‘How can people help us deliver on that purpose?’ rather than just ‘What can people buy from us?’ You ask ‘How can people be part of it?’”

“[Some companies] declare we’re not here simply for profit. We’re here for that other kind of profit, which is the sense of doing a good job, and I suppose that’s another turn of the argument, isn’t it – how do you revivify in society the sense of doing a good job?”

“At the end of the day, when you sit back and look at your life’s work, if it’s been in the service of something, you will end up feeling that you’ve left something worth doing behind, as opposed to just a series of humorous lucky escapes and get rich quick schemes.”

“I think the world needs marketers who are good storytellers, whose product is a vision for how the world might be different.”

I think it’s critical that we become more empathetic and understand better what it is that makes people work, because that’s when we become really effective and more engaging marketers… [and] become entertaining as well as commercial. I don’t think marketing is about just a transaction, I think it’s about building long-term relationships with people.”

“I think the social purpose can definitely be part of what differentiates you, but unless the product on its own is really, really good, then all you have is bullshit marketing.”

“I’ve always thought that ethics ultimately comes down to what you choose to do every day and down to really small things for the global economy. In simple terms, what you choose to work on, who you choose to work with, what ideas you put forward, how you conduct yourself, and how you treat the people around you are much more within your sphere [of influence].”

“I suppose the key is to talk to people other than advertisers or marketers, to make sure that you don’t simply go out asking the questions you know the answers to, or [to get] the answers you want. And I think to embed the kind of ethical checklist that will [reveal] ‘These are the kinds of rhetoric and the kinds of language that are actually directed to fear or rivalry or anxiety’.”

“I would argue there’s three key measures: joy, profit and impact – so JPIs instead of KPIs.”

“Business and the activities of producing products or services is not intrinsically bad, it’s just where processes are put in place that either exploit people or the land in a way that is not remediable…. I think the world needs pragmatists with hearts of gold.”

“I actually think it’s deeply irresponsible for any marketing agency or any marketer to not be asking ‘What’s the purpose of this organisation? Why does this exist? How can it work with people?’”