The Brand Builds The Promise; Customer Experience DOES NOT Deliver! Why?

How happy are you when you buy auto insurance? If your answer is anything other than thrilled, you’re not alone. In fact, years ago, a UK insurance company tried to convince us otherwise with their tagline “Quote Me Happy.” Spoiler alert: Nobody was happy.

This raises a fascinating question: What role does advertising play in the customer experience, and why is there such a massive disconnect between the ads we see and what we actually get?

In this episode, Colin Shaw and Professor Ryan Hamilton dive deep into the Great Expectation Gap—and they’ve brought in a special guest: Ben Shaw, Chief Strategy Officer at MullenLowe (and, fun fact, Colin’s son). It turns out that years of heated Sunday lunch debates on advertising vs. CX have led to this moment! 🍽️

Together, they explore why marketing often sets unrealistic expectations, how brands can align advertising with reality, and why great advertising can only work if the customer experience delivers on the promise.

💡 Tune in to discover:
✅ Why customers feel frustrated when reality doesn’t match advertising promises
✅ The power of the word "BUT" in advertising and how it reveals hidden customer tensions
✅ The real reason marketing and CX teams aren’t on the same page—and how to fix it
✅ How Apple mastered the art of aligning advertising and customer experience
✅ Why spending more on advertising won’t solve a broken CX (no matter how creative the campaign is)

Best Quote from the Episode:

The Brand makes the promise in the Market, the Customer Experience should deliver against that promise. — Colin Shaw

 Resources Mentioned

Ben Shaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benshawuk/

'Brand Ben' on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@benshaw37?_t=ZN-8ujJORxL3SQ&_r=1

Mullen Lowe: https://www.mullenlowe.co.uk/

 About the Hosts:

Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 86,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn.

Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World’s Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and serve their customers. Ryan has a new book launch in June 2025 called “The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things” Harvard Business Press Follow Ryan on LinkedIn.

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