Diary of a Fractional CMO

June 4, 2026

Are you Danni or Kylie?

This isn’t another defensive AI-can’t-do-what-we-can-do post. AI is effing incredible, but if you want to differentiate, sound a bit ‘extra’ then ask: have you just slipped into reproducing the sound without the personality?

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March 7, 2021

Get more referrals this way

Referrals are all about context, a chance conversation with someone who mentions a need. Or has a cocktail-hungry look in their eye.

March 1, 2021

Conference or festival?

I am excited about the idea of a meal out, a haircut and perhaps the odd trip somewhere that isn’t a supermarket/eye/tooth/ear testing centre.

February 23, 2021

I'm lovin' it

Lots of big brands are changing their graphics at the moment, smoothing their edges and rounding their corners in order to calm us all down. Things are far too globally tense for us to cope with straight lines and pointy angles it seems. We need something more playful.

February 15, 2021

Beware of the bear 🐻

If you want someone to do something, it’s easier to tell them what not to do.

February 9, 2021

Now you're talking

It’s almost as if people are too scared to speak like normal human beings, to stir the emotions, to explain the real benefits of financial advice. Why??

February 1, 2021

Can you pass this test? 🤓

It's quiz time. Can you spot bad stock photography? Take this test and find out!

January 24, 2021

Netflix and Wills

When George Michael died on Christmas Day, 2016, the news interrupted our family viewing of American Psycho. But it did provide the springboard to festive conversation around the topic we’d usually try to avoid: what happens when Daddy Liversedge finally shuffles off?

January 17, 2021

My new website's here!

Whether it’s the cobbler’s children going barefoot, the nurse who smokes 50 a day or the pension specialist with no pension, it’s a little bit awkward when we don’t practice what we preach.

January 11, 2021

Show your workings

How was Christmas? Sorry, I can’t hear you. Mine was great thanks. The only challenge was going without Netflix for 48 hours and trying to find entertainment among the wilderness that is live TV. That was awful...

December 29, 2020

Dear Everyone

The end-of-the-year email all of your clients will want to read.

December 11, 2020

How to sell without being salesy

There’s nothing worse than being made to feel bad for something. Especially while you’re paying for the privilege.

December 6, 2020

The curse of Strictly

Isn’t it cold? I don’t really like the TV show Strictly. I know, I’m probably the only person in the country. I didn’t really like Friends either. Or Blind Date. What’s wrong with me?

November 29, 2020

Bowels: a simple trick to empty them completely

I hope you’re not eating. Tis the season for a click bait-y headline. Why do retailers do this? On Black Friday, at Christmas, all the time.

November 22, 2020

Let's get sozzled at the disco

Of all the murders that Millennials have been accused of committing, from mayonnaise to napkins and the film industry, I’ve found the most heinous. They’re killing our words.

November 15, 2020

The man on the Leith omnibus

I was sitting at the back of the bus the other say contemplating two things: whether Margaret Thatcher was right when she said anyone on a bus over the age of 25 is a failure, and whether each of these socially distanced failures in front of me was right to be plugged into their devices.

November 6, 2020

I want to punch someone

It’s been 28 days since the drain men said they’d come back with a camera to sort my drains. Aren’t humans annoying? Increasingly it feels to me as if I’m living two completely separate lives.