Brand Strategy & Advertising

Brand Strategy & Advertising examines how brands work by connecting 125 years of advertising history to today. Hosted by Bob Batchelor, PhD, cultural historian, creative executive, and communication professor at Coastal Carolina University, the podcast brings the ad world to life (think Mad Men!) and uses it as a lens for studying what makes branding, public relations, and marketing tick today. You'll learn brand strategy the way strategists actually think: by studying patterns across time and observing brands in action. Perfect for listeners who love history, advertising, and culture.

Brand Strategy & Advertising is a history podcast hosted by Bob Batchelor, with 9 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Bob Batchelor hosts Brand Strategy & Advertising, a history show with 9 episodes published.

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  Episode #9

  You've Come A Long Way Baby -- Cigarettes, Feminism, and Targeting Women in Advertising and Branding History

  Mar 25, 202618 minS1

  <p>In 1929, a PR man named Edward Bernays paid women to smoke cigarettes in public and called them "torches of freedom." A century later, the tobacco industry was still running the same play — and women were still paying the price.</p><p>In this episode of Brand Strategy and Advertising, cultural historian and Coastal Carolina University Assistant Professor Bob Batchelor traces one of advertising history's most calculated and consequential campaigns: how the tobacco industry hijacked feminism, wave after wave, to sell a product it knew was deadly.</p><p>From Hollywood glamour and wartime independence to Virginia Slims' "You've Come a...

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  Episode #8

  Advertising & Social Consciousness

  Mar 13, 202619 minS1

  <p>One tear changed everything.</p><p>In 1971, a single image — a man in buckskin watching trash hit the roadside, one tear rolling down his face — became one of the most powerful moments in American advertising history. The "Crying Indian" wasn't selling anything. It was selling an idea. And it worked.</p><p>But who was really behind it? The answer is more complicated than you think.</p><p>In this episode of Brand Strategy and Advertising, cultural historian and Coastal Carolina University Assistant Professor Bob Batchelor traces the collision between advertising craft and social consciousness — from the 1960s creative revolu...

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  Episode #1

  When Advertising Became Art — and Art Became Everything, Part II

  Feb 25, 202615 minS1

  <p>The 1960s gave advertising artistry. The 1970s gave it strategy. This episode completes the story.</p><p>In Part II, we examine a media landscape flooded with advertising messages, brands that all had personalities, and consumers growing harder to reach by the year. The answer was a concept that now sits at the center of every brand strategy conversation in the industry: positioning.</p><p>THE 1970s PIVOT: WHEN EVERYTHING GOT LOUDER</p><p>By 1979, total U.S. ad billings had nearly tripled over the start of the decade, reaching $27.9 billion. J. Walter Thompson became the first agency in...

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  Episode #6

  When Advertising Became Art — and Art Became Everything, Part I

  Feb 19, 202613 minS1

  <p>Here’s a question worth considering: What is advertising actually for?</p><p>If your answer is “to sell products,” you’re not wrong. But you’re also only about a quarter right. The other three-quarters -- the part that explains why certain brands feel like part of your identity, why slogans burrow into your memory and stay for decades, why a Super Bowl spot can hit you in the chest before you process what it’s selling -- that’s what this episode is built around.</p><p>In Part I of this two-part series, Bob Batchelor traces the economic l...

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  Episode #5

  The Soap Opera Strategy: How P&G Built Branded Content 90 Years Before YouTube

  Feb 11, 202614 minS1

  <p>When your favorite YouTube creator says "this video is brought to you by Squarespace" and spends 90 seconds weaving the brand into their content, they're executing a strategy Procter & Gamble invented in 1932. </p><p>On the radio. To sell laundry detergent. The model hasn't changed in 90 years. The medium has.</p><p>In this episode, Bob Batchelor traces how one of the most consequential advertising innovations was born in Depression-era radio, nearly destroyed by the arrival of television, and ultimately rebuilt into the dominant content strategy powering every platform deal, creator sponsorship, and branded series you encounter today.</p><p>...

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