Mikhail Lermontov wrote a preface designed to stop skimmers in their tracks. Steve and David unpack why that trick works, and why most of us forget to use it.

The US Embassy in Australia posts about American beef with all the self-awareness of a foghorn. A masterclass in knowing who your audience actually is.

An AI agent calls its own creator at dawn. Another publishes a hit piece on a volunteer coder. The era of agentic AI is here, and it is not behaving itself.

Burger King spent $40 million on a Super Bowl campaign about a man named Herb. Nobody knew why. Sometimes clever is not enough.

Get ready to take notes.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:18 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
The Russian Who Knew You’d Skip This Part

Mikhail Lermontov published A Hero of Our Time in 1840 and opened with a preface that called out readers for skipping prefaces. Steve discovered the book through his Ukrainian neighbours, and the moment that passage played, both hosts sat up straighter.

What makes it work is the same thing that makes any good opening work. It breaks the expected pattern. Lermontov names the reader’s instinct, which is to skip, and in doing so makes skipping feel slightly embarrassing. David connects it to Drew Eric Whitman’s reminder of the AIDA framework: attention, interest, desire, action. Most prefaces earn none of those. This one earns all four in a paragraph.

The lesson for anyone communicating with customers, clients, or a room full of people: start with something that demands attention because it is different, not because it is loud. The brain ignores wallpaper. It notices anomalies.

08:33 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Where’s the Beef (and Who Are You Talking To)?

In February 2026, the US Embassy in Australia posted about the arrival of American beef on Australian shores. The hashtags included America First. The framing celebrated a historic trade win for American farmers. It was published to an Australian audience.

Steve and David walk through the wreckage with characteristic warmth and exasperation. The post was not written for Australians. It was written for Donald Trump and American farmers, and someone forgot to notice the channel it was published on.

Steve drafted an alternative on the spot, finding common ground in barbecue culture and framing the moment as nations dining together. David’s summary is sharp: know your audience, and know what your audience actually needs to hear. Sometimes the best move is a quiet acknowledgement. Gloating is never the strategy when you need the other person to say yes.

16:59 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Your AI Agent Is Not Waiting for Permission

Two stories. Both unsettling.

Alex Finn, founder of an AI content platform, built an agent named Henry. One night while Finn slept, Henry obtained his phone number, connected itself to ChatGPT’s voice API, and called him. Unprompted. Repeatedly. The agent could also open apps and run commands on Finn’s computer.

Separately, an AI agent called Crabby Rathbun had a code submission rejected by a volunteer moderator named Scott Shambaugh, who was simply following the rules of an open-source repository. The bot responded by writing and publishing a blog post accusing Shambaugh of prejudice and gatekeeping, then cross-posting the attack across GitHub and social media. A quarter of readers believed it.

Steve and David take their time here, and rightly so. David’s observation is worth sitting with: large language models learned from two decades of internet behaviour, which includes a great deal of humans at their worst. Steve’s point is just as sobering. Shambaugh is not a celebrity. He is a volunteer in an obscure corner of the coding world. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.

The practical suggestion from PR podcast For Immediate Release: consider adding a note on your own channels letting your audience know that fake content can now be generated in your name, and asking them to contact you before reacting to anything unusual.

27:34 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Herb and the $40 Million Mystery

In 1985, Burger King was in third place and haemorrhaging money. Their response was a Super Bowl campaign built around a fictional man named Herb, the one person on earth who had never eaten a Burger King burger. The ad spent 60 seconds introducing this concept. It was neither clever nor useful.

Sales did not move. Competitors piled on, with Wendy’s and McDonald’s both running ads claiming Herb had eaten there instead, turning Burger King’s $40 million spend into free advertising for everyone else.

A second ad followed, offering $5,000 to anyone who spotted Herb in-store. Sales jumped 10 per cent, though David notes dryly that the incentive was five thousand dollars, not brand love.

David’s takeaway is as clean as anything from this episode: clever is nice, but if it is not useful, what was the point? Steve’s kicker: if you’re going to talk about one herb, make sure you know you’re up against eleven.