The Machine
Strategic OS v2.0
Training

Training that ends with a working model, not a certificate.

Seven modules built from the primary literature rather than a summary of it. Every session ends with your team running the calculation on your own brand, inside the same platform they will keep using afterwards.

Curriculum

Seven modules, in this order for a reason

Each module has a theory half and an applied half. The applied half is done on your own brand rather than a case study, which is the part most courses cannot offer.

01
How brands actually grow
Market fundamentals
Penetration against loyalty, double jeopardy, and category entry points. Why the growth plan you were about to write targets the wrong people, and what the buying data has said consistently since the 1950s.
You leave able to say where your growth has to come from, and prove it.
02
Who you are actually talking to
Consumer behavior and targeting
Mental availability, memory, and the 95:5 rule. Most of your market is not in the market this quarter, which changes both what advertising is for and who it should be aimed at.
You leave able to size who is buying now and who you are building for.
03
What the advertising has to do
Advertising and brand strategy
Brand building against sales activation, long and short. The 60:40 question answered for your category and your business rather than quoted at you off a chart.
You leave with a defensible brand and activation split for your own budget.
04
Making the work work
Creative effectiveness
The largest single multiplier in the literature, and the one most often left to taste. Attention, distinctive assets, emotional and rational effects, and how to judge work before it runs.
You leave able to critique creative on evidence rather than preference.
05
Where the money goes
Media planning and budget allocation
Setting the budget, splitting it across channels, and the arithmetic underneath reach, frequency and duplication. Including where cross-screen reach claims quietly overstate themselves.
You leave with a channel allocation you can defend line by line.
06
Proving it
Marketing analytics and measurement
Attribution against econometrics against experiment. Adstock, saturation, and how to read a model somebody else built, including what generative search is doing to the numbers you currently rely on.
You leave able to tell a model that has learned something from one that has learned your media plan.
07
Arguing with finance
Marketing profitability
Payback windows, long-term value discounted properly, and the difference between a marketing case and a finance case. The subject almost nobody teaches and every marketer eventually needs.
You leave with the case your CFO will accept.
Individual seats
Individual seat
$1,200one off
Course only · seven modules over eight weeks
For a strategist who wants the evidence base properly.

All seven modules across eight weeks, live rather than recorded, in a cohort of no more than twenty. You bring a brand and work on it throughout.

  • ·Seven live modules over eight weeks
  • ·Applied session in every module
  • ·Reading list drawn from primary sources
  • ·Recordings for anything you miss
  • ·Free-tier platform access
  • ·Two cohorts a year
You can add platform access later at the standard rate, but the bundle is cheaper if you know you want it.
Team workshop
$4,500fixed
Half a day · up to 20 people
For a team that needs one argument settled.

A single module, run against your own category and your own numbers. The fastest way to get a room speaking the same language about one specific problem.

  • ·Any one of the seven modules
  • ·Half a day, remote or in person
  • ·Up to twenty people
  • ·Built around your data before we start
  • ·Ninety-day platform access for attendees
  • ·Written summary of what the session concluded
Proving it and Where the money goes are the two most often taken on their own.
Most booked
In-house programme
$18,000fixed
Eight weeks · up to 25 people
For a marketing team that keeps losing effectiveness arguments.

The full seven modules delivered to your team, built around your category, your data and your actual planning cycle. The team finishes holding a defensible plan rather than notes about one.

  • ·All seven modules over eight weeks
  • ·Up to twenty-five people
  • ·Curriculum tuned to your category
  • ·Applied work on your live plan
  • ·Twelve months of platform access for every seat
  • ·Closing session presented to your leadership
  • ·Remote or in person
Under a third of what twenty-five seats on a comparable open course would cost, and the work is on your own brand rather than a case study.
Agency licence
From $28,000/ year
Unlimited seats · quoted on size
For an agency making effectiveness a capability rather than a claim.

Run the programme continuously across the agency. New starters onboard into it, client teams take modules as briefs demand, and the platform sits underneath all of it.

  • ·Unlimited seats across the agency
  • ·Quarterly cohorts for new starters
  • ·Modules delivered on demand to client teams
  • ·Agency platform licence included
  • ·Co-branded materials for client use
  • ·Annual refresh as the evidence base moves

What you can only get here

You leave with the instruments

Other courses hand you a framework and wish you luck applying it on Monday. Here the applied half of every module runs on twenty working models, and those models stay in your account when the course ends.

It is your brand, not a case study

Nobody learns budget setting from Procter & Gamble in 1994. Your team sets your budget, in your category, with your elasticities, and gets told where the answer is fragile.

The evidence is cited, not asserted

Every claim traces to a paper you can read. Where the literature disagrees with itself, which is often, the module says so rather than picking the version that makes the slide cleaner.

Taught from the work ofBinet & FieldEhrenbergByron SharpJenni RomaniukKaren Nelson-FieldOrlando WoodAndrew Tindall
Common questions
How is this different from the Mini MBA?+
Do we need a platform subscription?+
Can we take one module rather than the programme?+
Remote or in person?+
Who teaches it?+
What if our team is at wildly different levels?+

The other two ways in

Platform
Run the models yourself

Run the models yourself. Five are free forever, with no card and no expiry.

Advisory
Have the work done for you

A diagnostic on your own spend, or standing access for the decisions that carry consequences.

paul@machineslikeus.art© 2026 MachinesLikeUs